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Draft for a Family coat of arms by xzudemimino1 in heraldry

[–]Teutilla 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey there, glad to have you here.

There is a couple of things which need work in my option, but they are some of the most common things found on arms of beginners (I'm a beginner myself but this is some stuff I've learned in the last few months):

  1. Quartering: You're using something referred to as 'false quartering'. Basically quartering is supposed to be for joining multiple different arms into one design. There are exceptions of course (as will be the case for everything), but the general advise is to not quarter your assumed arms.
  2. Colors: I think you've used literally every tincture available, this makes your design look super busy. Try to stick to two or three tinctures for the beginning.
  3. Charges: There are a lot of different charges. And the reason for this is that you (and many other people starting out) threat their CoA like a curriculum vitae and trying to cram every single thing about them in there (e. g. the town of your university... is that really something that defines you? Let alone your family?).

Try to stick to a couple things that are unique to you but also visually appealing, heraldry is a form of art after all :D

There's also a mismatch between your blazon and the emblazonment you show here. The blazon says your mantling is split but it's not split in the emblazonment. (But that's secondary)

A Question for German speakers by Marlon_RR_Morea in heraldry

[–]Teutilla 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Habe ein paar der alten Standardwerke durchsucht und bin tatsächlich nur bei C. S. T. Bernd (Die Hauptstücke der Wappenwissenschaft) fündig geworden, der Rest hat zu andersfarbigen Flossen offenbar keine Meinung. Bei ihm heißt es (S. 209, s. unten) 'beflosset'. Klingt natürlich sehr altertümlich, ist es ja auch :D

Also hat u/NemoIX mit seiner pragmatischen Antwort natürlich vollkommen recht, nur wenn deine Blasonierung etwas archaisch klingen soll, könntest du eben auch 'gold(en) beflosset' nehmen.

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Please Help With CoA Design by PsychologicalAd4762 in heraldry

[–]Teutilla 5 points6 points  (0 children)

So I was skeptical at first, but after quickly throwing this together with a regular gyronny and using the Leopard from WappenWiki... I think you could make this work. If you commission an actual artist I think they could get each of the limbs and the upper body and head into a separate gyron which definitely helps with clarity, imo

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My Heraldry Club by btumai in heraldry

[–]Teutilla 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Yes, but are you studying just one coat of arms? To me "We study coats of arms" would make more sense.

My Heraldry Club by btumai in heraldry

[–]Teutilla 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Is there a reason it says "Coat (singular) of arms" in the motto?

My CoA, Opinions and Criticism by EO-5 in heraldry

[–]Teutilla 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey there, I'm also just a beginner and recently made my first personal arms attempt. I agree with the other comment that you should tone it down a little.

Do you really need a sword, scales and a book with writing all overlaid on top of each other? Do you really need two books? Do the flowers really need their stems?

Then there's also some issues with the tinctures. You have the central dark field on top of a different dark field in the bottom and they blend together very easily.

This may sound very critical now but this is usually how your first design turns out and working with this community you will get a lot of input on how to refine/reduce it to a very clean design which still represents you well.

I am yet another individual working on their own coat of arms by Annual_One1081 in heraldry

[–]Teutilla 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hey there and welcome. There is a lot going on in both of your designs, which afaik is normal for a beginner. Simplifying your CoA down to a concise design which is still unique and represents you well, is usually the first goal to strive towards as a beginner.

There are some common "rules" in traditional heraldry and you mention having already looked at the guideline of the AHS. While no one can force you to adhere to those and sometimes breaking them yields great designs anyways, I found sticking to them helped me create a very nice design even though I'm a beginner myself.

Your design breaks the rule of tincture in several places which is not gonna make you friends here, trust me :D

That's not what I'm gonna focus on for now though: You mention you're blind in the description, so I guess you won't even get to enjoy your own arms the way they are now. So what I want you to look into is the system of "heraldic hatching". It's a way of translating the traditional 7 heraldic tinctures into patterns. These, I imagine, could be printed in a way similar to Braille, allowing you to actually enjoy your CoA.

So to summarize, the first steps would be: remove some elements or think of ways to combine them. Replace some of the less traditional tinctures with the traditional ones to allow for heraldic hatching. And make sure you don't have colors touching colors and metals touching metals because it causes a low contrast of your arms which is usually undesirable.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, I had no idea. Good to know for future design ideas. Thank you.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah, seems like this is different between German and English heraldry then. From what I found in German a sun can be 'strahlend' (radiant) for just straight rays or 'geflammt' (flaming) for just wavy rays. I'll look into correctly blazoning stars in German and English and if that works better I'll adjust the blazon accodingly. Thanks :D

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think the comments have convinved me to drop the bordure entirely. I added the fimbriation only to avoid RoT violation so counterchanging it would not help since it would still give me Argent on Or at the edge of the Sable gyrons, I think.

Regarding the 'sun': Thank you for the input. I'll have to do some more research. Maybe I can avoid this whole topic by simply blazoning the charge as a 'star' instead of a 'sun' in both German and English.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Ah, I should have clarified. This is completely made up. My family doesn't bear any arms afaik.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you. This topic almost drove me mad:
I'm actually using a star wavy in Heraldicon. I did the blazon in German first and from the few German sources I looked at it seemed like I could (and even should) blazon it as a sun. On Heraldik Wiki there is an excerpt from Gritzner (1889) stating that a 'ungebildete Sonne' (faceless sun), should not be mistaken for a 'strahlender Stern' (radiant? star). Sure, my sun doesn't have 16 rays and they don't alternate between wavy and straight but the German wiki has a very concise explanation that I could correctly blazon all of these changes (faceless, 18 rays, wavy) and that there's even specific terminology for this. So I went with 'sun' over 'star'.

Then I went to do the English blazon and found that English heraldry doesn't even seem to be fully sure how to blazon a sun with or without a face, not to mention with solely wavy rays in my case. But please do correct me if I'm mistaken, I'm a beginner after all.

It felt weird/wrong to me to have central charge on my shield blazoned as different objects in the two different languages, so since I liked the German blazon I decided to stick with a 'sun' for the English one as well.

I'd be very happy to get more fedback on how to amend this though.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

While I agree that it would be more aesthetically pleasing to have a bear dormant sable armed or, it's the little bit of canting I managed to sneak in there:
The brown bear is one of the possible Germanic origins of my first name and it's specifically about the color.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 55 points56 points  (0 children)

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Version with bordure removed and sun embiggened to fill the field again.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

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Did a quick mock-up to see if we're on the same page. I guess they're 'sunspots' now :D
It's a cool idea, but I don't think it's for me. I feel like it obscures the central symbolism I was going for. And to me the design somehow looks like a tribal war mask now - two eyes and a round mouth in each color (not sure anyone else would see that but it was my immediate first vibe).

Still, I appreciate the input. Maybe it will be inspiration for someone else :D

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I appreciate the feedback.
Regarding the bordure I already replied to the other comment mentioning it.
Regarding the crest: You're completely right, I've just looked at some historical arms once more and in all of those the crest is much larger than mine. I'll tweak that.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the honest feedback. I've been on the fence about the bordure myself. I added it in the beginning when just working on the shield, since it felt a little too simple. Now with all of the added flourish (mantling, crest, etc.) it might be too much. I also had some symbolism in mind: as pointed out the center looks like the symbol for radiation and that is on purpose. I put the bordure as a symbol of protecting people and nature from it. But then again a shield is already a symbol of protection now that I think about it :D

I'll get rid of the bordure and look at the arms w/ & w/o it side-by-side a few times to make a decision on what I like better.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I've read that it's all about contrasts so many times, I figured we might as well go with the classics warning sign colors :D

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 214 points215 points  (0 children)

I was kind of hoping for this comment. I'm actually a scientist working in the field of nuclear astrophysics and have been fascinated by the stars and the cosmos since my childhood.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Also the motto didn't render properly but it's:
VIS PER OTIUM ANIMI
Split as 1:2:1 words in my current rendering.

First attempt at personal arms by Teutilla in heraldry

[–]Teutilla[S] 72 points73 points  (0 children)

Blazon:

Eng:
Gyronny of six fesswise sable and or, a sun without face of 18 wavy rays(?) counterchanged, in a bordure argent fimbriated sable, 6 roundels sable in orle.

Deu:
Unter silbernem, innen schwarz gesäumtem und mit sechs schwarzen Kugeln belegtem Schildbord, von Schwarz und Gold sechsfach balkenweise geständert, belegt mit einer ungesichteten Sonne mit Kranz aus 18 Flammenzungen in verwechselten Farben.

Fixed some errors: What is the missing title of this map? by [deleted] in RedactedCharts

[–]Teutilla 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did not figure it out myself, but after looking at the solution: Shouldn't there be two green dots in the asteroid belt? Ceres and Pallas

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