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Author: Mathghamhain

A Badge for Heraldic Artists

Most people who’ve had any contact with the Society’s College of Arms would recognize the badge of the Heralds — “vert, two straight trumpets in saltire Or” — which may generally be displayed by anyone working for or associated with the College.

But there wasn’t a distinctive badge reserved specifically for the artists who assisted the College by illustrating armory, a role that in period was referred to as a “herald painter.” (For more on the history of herald painters, see this essay by Robert Parsons, who held that role for the British College of Arms.) Continue reading “A Badge for Heraldic Artists”

Updating the O-and-A Category Files

On December 14, 2020, Master Herveus d’Ormonde led a few interested heralds through an online session in which we were able to observe a portion of his workflow as Morsulus Herald, watching as he added several new cross-references to the armorial category files and published the changes to the public O&A web site.

I am attaching my notes from this session below in hopes that they might be of interest to other members of the community, although this is admittedly a fairly-obscure topic with a limited audience. Continue reading “Updating the O-and-A Category Files”

A Pair of Hearts Pierced

February is here again, and the #HeraldicLove campaign is once again encouraging reenactors to display their arms (or a badge of allegiance) on a heart-shaped field.

I participated in this campaign last year, drawing three dozen heart-shaped badges and devices for branches and individuals. Along the way I also created digital templates for a heart-shaped field and a set of corresponding heart-shaped field divisions and ordinaries.

As we begin another round of heart-shaped heraldic display, I thought it would be fun to display a pair of hearts conjoined by an arrow, as I’ve done below with the arms of myself and my wife. Continue reading “A Pair of Hearts Pierced”

A Technique For Internal Detailing On Sable Clip-Art Charges

A recurring challenge when illustrating armory that contains complex sable charges is how to handle the internal detailing that is often provided by fine black lines within a charge of any other color, but which disappears when the charge itself is black.

For example, consider the clip art pomegranate shown below. If we color it entirely black, as shown in image 2, the internal detailing disappears and it’s difficult to identify — is this a roundel wearing a crown? One viable approach is to use a dark gray color for the fill, as in image 3, which allows us to still see some details, but sometimes that’s not enough contrast, and there are contexts in which using shades of gray like this isn’t a viable approach. Continue reading “A Technique For Internal Detailing On Sable Clip-Art Charges”

Conflict Checking Multiply-Divided Field-Only Armory

A couple of years ago, I posted about a technique I picked up from Marie de Blois that allows conflict-checking two- and four-part field-only armory with the O&A complex search form.

It entails running a search for the line type, plus each of the tinctures, and for the tinctures together in reverse order, and the codes for field-only and peripheral-only. Continue reading “Conflict Checking Multiply-Divided Field-Only Armory”

A Survey Of Online Armorial Clip Art Sources

[Editor’s Note: This post draws heavily on an FAQ document produced over the course of several years by multiple users in the SCA Heraldry Unofficial Chat Facebook Group. My thanks to the many people who helped create this resource. — Mathghamhain]

The SCA College of Arms does not have a master list of all registrable charges — we add new ones all the time, and we remove others that are determined to be not something found in period heraldry — but these resources can give you a good idea what’s out there, and provide ready-to-use art for those who can draw original illustrations on their own.

You can incorporate these images directly in your armorial illustrations or use them as references when drawing new original art. Continue reading “A Survey Of Online Armorial Clip Art Sources”

A Survey of Digital Tools for Armory Illustration

[Editor’s Note: This post draws heavily on a FAQ document produced over the course of several years by multiple users in the SCA Heraldry Unofficial Chat Facebook Group. My thanks to the many people who helped create this resource. — Mathghamhain]

There are a wide variety of electronic tools that can be used for illustrating armory at all stages of the process — sketching out ideas, filling out submission forms, and displaying registered designs.

Each of these programs has both strong points and limitations, and a learning curve associated with getting familiar with the user interface and feature set. There are tutorials and documentation available for each of them online, including web pages and YouTube videos. Continue reading “A Survey of Digital Tools for Armory Illustration”

Armorial Catalog for Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

During the five years in which I’ve been thinking about medieval armory,  I’ve registered four different designs with the College of Arms of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and as I’ve started thinking about further registrations it seemed prudent to pause and take stock of my current inventory. Continue reading “Armorial Catalog for Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin”