Post Archive – Page 23 – Techniques of Digital Heraldry

A Glossary of Heraldic Terms

In addition to 45 pages of traceable art, Torric inn Björn’s 1992 collection of Heraldic Templates also contains a ten-page glossary which contains many of the specialized terms used in society blazons, as well as defining the default position of many charges.

It has fallen out of circulation and was not been available online until now. Lord Torric has recently granted permission for this material to be re-published, for which he has my sincere thanks.

I have converted this document to a web-accessible format and posted it online in hopes that it may prove useful to current practitioners.

New Traceable Images

Over three hundred and fifty images have been added to the Book of Traceable Heraldic Art since the November update, drawn from a variety of sources.

The set I’m most excited about is the first batch of 94 images from Torric inn Björn’s Heraldic Templates, which was published in 1992 and, as far as I know, is the earliest collection of art distributed specifically to facilitate tracing in construction of society armory. My sincere thanks to Lord Torric for granting permission for these images to be re-published here.

Name and Device for Seònaid inghean mhic Aoidh

Seònaid is new to the society, but has thrown herself into it full throttle, and only a few weeks after her first event had designed a device and come up with an authentic name, making my job as herald relatively easy — with just a little fiddling around the edges we were able to get her ideas into registrable shape and submitted.

Per saltire azure and argent, four mullets counterchanged.

The design Seònaid came up with is nice and simple, as were the best period designs.

The fact that there were no conflicts was a pleasant reminder of how much available design space remains open in the society’s armorial.

Appointment as Seahorse Pursuivant

Sixteen months after being made the Herald of the Canton of Whyt Whey, I have been appointed the Herald of the Crown Province of Østgarđr, whose title is Seahorse Pursuivant. My report from the meeting of the Provincial Officers Council follows.

To the populace of the Crown Province of Østgarðr, on behalf of their Viceroy and Vicereine, does Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin send his greetings.

Following this evening’s Commons meeting, the Provincial Officers Council gathered to review the candidates for those offices whose terms expire this month.

The Submission Escutcheon

A recent question on a society heraldry Facebook group about the dimensions of the escutcheon on the submission forms reminded me that I never posted the comparison outline I put together last year showing how it diverges from the geometric construction typically used to create this “heater shield” shape.

The most common technique for drawing a heraldic escutcheon, shown in red below, is to lay out a rectangle which is three times as wide as it is tall, then add a pair of quarter circles below it, enclosing the area where they overlap.

The escutcheon on the society’s submission forms, shown in black below, is slightly different; the curve starts lower and then pinches in more steeply.

Traceable Art Fall Update

I needed some time off after the big push to get the Book of Traceable Heraldic Art into shape for Pennsic, but have made a bit of continuing progress on it this autumn.

We’re now up over 950 pages of traceable illustrations, and should blow past a thousand pages before the end of the year. (It’s amusing to note that at the start of the year I thought a thousand pages was likely to be the end point of the project — at the current rate, we could plausibly reach two thousand somewhere in the next couple of years.)

I’m also working on a new printable “catalog” layout that allows people to easily scan through design elements at a consultation table — it packs most of the tinctures, divisions, and charges into a compact format that’s a bit over fifty pages rather than a thousand.

The catalog layout still needs some cleaning up around the edges — I’m using a Perl script to rearrange the SVGs and metadata from the original document into a series of web pages which are then converted to PDFs via JavaScript and Chrome, which seems kind of jury-rigged but so far seems to mostly work.

On Using Your Mundane Armory

A member of our province recently asked “What happens if a person with mundane arms joins the SCA? Can they use their mundane arms as SCA arms? And what happens if there’s a conflict with existing Society arms?”

The answer to the first question is found in the Administrative Handbook of the College of Arms, section III.B.7., “Armory Used by the Submitter Outside the Society,” which reads:

The Arms of The Viceroys and Vicereines of Østgarðr

As we approach the 50th anniversary of Østgarđr, and indeed of the East Kingdom — because in the beginning, Østgarđr was the East — we’ve been looking back over our history, and in keeping with that project I thought I would catalog the armorial devices of the viceroys and vicereines of Østgarđr since the earliest days. Continue reading “The Arms of The Viceroys and Vicereines of Østgarðr”

Name and Arms for Josef von Ulm

I recently consulted with our provincial seneschal to prepare a submission for a member of his household.

Sable, an eagle Or, orbed, langued, and armed argent, and on a chief Or three lozenges ployé gules.

Josef knew he wanted his arms to include an eagle as a nod to the arms of his knight, and wanted a chief with a set of three charges that would reference his hometown football team, the Steelers, and their stadium, formerly known as Three Rivers. The lozenge ployé, sometimes blazoned an “Arabic napkin,” comes directly from the team’s logo.

Registration Basics Class Notes

At Whyt Whey’s recent Schola In The Solar event, I taught a heraldry class (my first!) covering the basics of registration for folks who were new to the society.

I put together a four-thousand-word writeup that outlined the process and covered some of the basic rules and jargon for both names and armory, which served both as an outline for my presentation and as a handout that people could take home with them for future reference.

I’ve posted it as a web page and as ten-page PDF file.

There’s definitely room for improvement, but I was pretty happy with how the session went, and look forward to teaching more classes in the future.