[ANSTHRLD] Horse's heads and a Latin cross clechy

Tim McDaniel tmcd at panix.com
Sun Nov 10 20:00:24 PST 2013


On Sun, 10 Nov 2013, Personal <charlesarmitage at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm looking to pass the attached device:

It helps to have a distinctive subject line, or else a lot of the
messages will be "New badge" or "Device" or something and nobody could
find anything.

There's no blazon (description in words) for this.  The terms of
blazon were designed to describe coats of arms and the like.  So I'd
have to say that this is not registerable because it's not heraldry.

It's a shield with a shiny silvery surface.  There's a dark boss in
the center.  Issuing from the boss are two very stylized horse's heads
(the necks are long and three disconnected parallel lines): the one to
sinister chief is green, the one to dexter base sable.  The heads end
up halfway between palewise (vertical) and bendwise.  In sinister base
is a Latin cross clechy sable -- at least that is blazonable.

Heraldry has stylized artwork, true, but stylized according to, well,
heraldic style.  The horse's heads look like modern artwork.  I can't
describe their layout in language of heraldry.

I'm afraid you have to start over.  What colors and design elements
are most important to you?  I'd guess green and black, and you want
horse's heads and some form of cross (this cross is fine but there are
plenty of others if you prefer).  Two types of items with complex
outlines, here heads and crosses, are less common in period, but it
can be done in a number of ways.  (But if you would be just as happy
with just crosses, you could get something stunningly period.)

The next step would be to look at real period coats of arms.  If you
have a particular preferred culture and time period, and if it had
heraldry (it was invented in northern France / England in the 1100s),
you might prefer heraldry appropriate to your culture.

Danyell de Lincoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com



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