1) draw by hand some glyphs, so you have an objective piece of paper of what
> you want
> 2) search on Internet for a font that looks like  what you (think) to want
> 3) starting from this font,  make some modifications of glyphs that you
> have drawn
> with fontforge or metapost
> With fontforge, you can even make countours from  images  , and with a bit
> of hack from MetaFont too.
>
> --
> luigi
>
>
Don't forget about other sources of inspiration. Frederic Goudy for instance
made illicite rubbings in Louvre and studied  Roman inscriptions on columns
and other monuments, as many others did :)

Best of luck!

Piotr

-- 
http://okle.pl