I saw some other threads on this, and rather than hijacking someone elses I am hoping I can get some (hopefully constructive ) criticism on if this will pass as a device, if there are any suggestions, major no-no's and if anyone who's really good can help with the right heraldic terminology...I'm sure theres a kingdom individual locally who can help although I have yet to meet, see or hear where/who, and I thought any advice here before hand might only save time later...
Thanks everyone for help and advice about if this device will/might pass or not...
Sincerely appreciated...
This will probably be considered to have the appearance of marshalling, which is not allowed in SCA heraldry. There is a possibility that the cross throughout gules combined with two uncharged quarters is sufficient to remove the appearance of marshalling, but I don't think it likely.
What you're going to run into trouble with right now is this:
Prohibition 3: Charged sections must all contain charges of the same type to avoid the appearance of being different from each other.
"Same type" means the same sort of thing (all circles, or all scissors, or all dogs)
So how about something like the following (sorry, I'm not great at turning blazons into graphics...):
Sable, a bear rampant and on a chief argent, 3 mullets of 4 greater and 4
lesser points sable
In plain english: Black background, white bear standing on his hind legs; a white "stripe" on top, with 3 stars of 8 points black
Please note I haven't conflict checked this. The charges on the chief could be just about anything - I noticed you had a maltese cross on the sword in your original design. They could also be just about any "color" - as opposed to a "metal" (aka white and yellow)
Thank you both so much for the suggestions and help! I was not aware of "Marshaling" and sincerely appreciate the education in regards to the prohibition 3 notations as well. Most valuable and sincerely appreciated.
The cross gules overlaid upon the quarterly division of your black and white field is good practice, though, and ties your entire device together. You're on the right track there, keep plugging.
The Medievals were more into repeating motifs in their graphics-sense than we Moderns, who tend to like asymmetries that imply movement, dynamism. In period, that is more common on the Continent than the British Isles, particularly prevalent in Germany, which had some striking oddments and field divisions!
We are of course going to throw a lot of assorted suggestions at you for backup plans. For one instance, dispense with the cross and use more complex lines of flection between those quarters, say embattled (like a castle's crenelations) or raguly (like embattled, but slanty, looks like circular saw teeth, quite fierce and easy to paint too). That guarantees that quarterly-fielded arms are not going to look marshalled. Suddenly what might have been two, marshalled, is zippered together into one.
Technical point of nomenclature: I thought mullets had five points, perhaps even more (and generally odd numbered). This figure, with its eight points, may be a compass-rose instead of a mullet. No hole in the middle either. A mullet is a spur rowel, and by default has a hole, and this charge does not.
Last edited by Konstantin the Red on Wed Oct 06, 2010 3:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
Looking at your design, it crosses my mind that it MAY escape the appearance of marshalling if you had two counterchanged bears in mirror positions in the lower quarters and two counterchanged mullets of four greater and four lesser points, like so . . .
Quarterly sable and argent a cross gules between in chief two mullets of four greater and four lesser points and in base two bears rampant each maintaining a sword palewise in its forepaws counterchanged.
What this would be, is the same as what you have but with a black bear holding a black sword in the white lower quarter, and a black star in the white upper quarter.
I'd leave the little cross on the sword out of the blazon, but you could put it in when you emblazon it. It's a small decorative touch that would complicate the blazon but wouldn't change the character of the design.
Donal Mac Ruiseart O. Pel
Squire to Viscount Tojenareum Grenville (TJ)
Be without fear in the face of thine enemies
Stand brave and upright that the Lord may love thee
Speak the truth always even if it means thy death
Protect the helpless and do no wrong
Crosses have been somewhat underused in the SCA's heraldry anyway. Many years ago people were getting mistakenly warned off them as perhaps too religious. It's better now.
And perhaps not sufficiently steered away from swords. Man do we have a lot of them. We could just as easily have done blazons like Argent, three cross crosslets fitchy gules in fess enhanced. Swordish enough, but really crosses.
Donal and Konstantin, thank you thank you! Fantastic suggestions and I love both! Gives some hope and some creative direction and great inspiration! I'll give that a try and adjust!
Another shot, hoping this might be a bit closer to passable?
Attachments
CBdC-Heraldry-IIa-b-w.gif (26.43 KiB) Viewed 26 times
Mmm... it's at least interesting. Tied together into one, good...
You really really like some kind of Ordinary (simple rectilinear charge) in Gules, I see. I'd hesitate to lay it out as you did, because I'd really like to not put Gules upon Sable, however permissible in Society blazon. You could keep that embattling just between the quarters and never mind any red stripe and you'd still have the neat-o of the embattling. But then you lose your nice red stripe's (or cross') effect, and I bet you'd rather not. What to do, what to do... I'd definitely like to see what we might do to put a red thing practically entirely on the white quarters of your Device -- as the slanting band called a Bend (in your present arrangement of black and white, the Bend Sinister is what fits on the white quarters). With your other charges, unfortunately this is hard to really fit. Darn.
The pre-1485-style thing is because in that year, the Battle of Bosworth Field was fought and it was the last time heraldry was actually important on the battlefield for identifying individual nobles. It soldiered on for centuries after in a rather debased form as elements in the design of Regimental standards, which often featured the Regimental Colonel's livery colors. Since we're trying to use coat-armor as battlefield identification, we try for a genuinely medieval style to our heraldic art and not later, "book heraldry" sorts of styles, where any difference however slight was enough for differentiation -- cadet branches of great ancient families in a plethora, each with a mark of cadency become an actual charge, and so on and on. Heraldry began to get a little silly about then, when it was no longer taking part in war.
The less of your gules ordinary that touches any black places, the better your heraldic practice.
The heraldic conceit that even divisions of the field may allow color next to and touching another color, most preferably a highly contrasting one like black with the others, gets its good graphic strength through being of quite large areas on the shield. Bigger, that is, than ordinaries of a tincture laid upon the field. An ordinary of a metal helps improve contrast between the adjoined parts of a particolored field.
) criticism on if this will pass as a device, if there are any suggestions, major no-no's and if anyone who's really good can help with the right heraldic terminology...I'm sure theres a kingdom individual locally who can help although I have yet to meet, see or hear where/who, and I thought any advice here before hand might only save time later...
