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I was just hoping to get an opinion on the heraldry for my latest knight.. usually I bug hubby about it but he isn't home right now and I want to keep painting!

Please pardon the shoddy picture quality (I broke my memory stick and had to borrow my sister's crappy camera x.x) and the messy paintjob.. I'm not entirely certain if I like the heraldry so I haven't bothered cleaning up the lines, touching up white spots, uhm.. painting the model, etc ^_^;;;

Anyway, that's why I'm here -- looking for any opinions on the heraldry before I spend forever making it look right..

Thank you!

wow, are tou planning on painting a whole army with freehand heraldry? You are awesome if you do. I'm lazy and use transfers for all heraldry.I

I like the heraldry, the grapes especially. I think the french knight 'la hire' had something similiar but black and white. Its more unique than the usual fluer de lis and lions and such. I like the way the two colors flow into each other. be sure to clean it up abit, and hope you dont get tired of painting all those little grapes

Is this going to be the heraldry an entire force fights under or meant to be just one of many banners on the field?

Each knight in my force gets his own heraldry / colors.

My hang-up with this one is that it's so.. flowy and feels untraditional (you know, not quartered / halved / etc with nice hard lines). Do you think a few squiggly pieces like this will look okay standing next to knights with traditional block backgrounds?

It would be more realistic that way I think, alot of heraldry includes wavy stripes and and things like grapes, leaves, bushels of wheat, flowers, even cows! It would look great alongside more familiar forms of arms IMO.

I love a brettonian army with alot of knights and all of their individual heraldry, like they have left their retinues and seek noble battle together with their peers. very cool.

It looks very err... phallic.

Very VERY phallic.

Rather risque now that I loo- OH DEAR GOD. IS THAT. EYES. BURNING.

Sorry, yes. It looks good but I [Content inappropriate for a family forum]

MOVE ALONG- EDITED BY THE FAMILY INQUISITION - MOVE ALONG

Uh.. any sexual innuendo is strictly unintended o.O; Although I admit that I have no idea how grapes and grape leaves remind you of [Content inappropriate for a family forum]

MOVE ALONG- EDITED BY THE FAMILY INQUISITION - MOVE ALONG

Re: fitting in with standard quartered crests, hard vertical/horizontal

I'd suggest enlarging the white leaf slightly. If it matches the size of the grapes a bit more, the eye won't be pulled to one or the other, and the crest "looks" more quartered. Also, to enlarge the leaf you might have to pull the green background down just a bit, which will help offset the negative white space behind the grapes.

Great idea, looking forward to seeing more.

Err... skipping over Solasun's frightening and hopefully comically-intended statement (what does his phallus look like?)...

I think it looks great. I didn't even noticed it lacked the regimented halved/quartered nature of standard herladry until you pointed it out. If you can execute that kind of freehand neatly and consistently, go for it!

I'd either add a bit more white somewhere, maybe some trim, or a small amount of a third color. I like your attention to detail on those grapes, but the overall scheme looks like its missing something.

It's just the way the leaf reminds me of a tail.

Anyway, no more on that particular subject. I would perhaps remove some of the curvature leading up to the two stems, so it appears more like a defined quarter than something that is very "Ying Yang?"

I'll say I like it
I think if you want to make it fit the Brettonian theme of being halved / quartered, just do the other side of the model in the opposite green/white to white/green
I like the winery theme (hope that's kind of what you're going for)
it's a good start, show us how you progress

Thank you all for your comments.

Strum, does something like this fill out the scheme (with the little shields painted green/white as well) or do you still feel like the model needs another color added? I know it's hard to see them in these awful blurry pictures, sorry =/ Hopefully I'll be getting a new memory card for my not-suck camera soon.





This isn't finished yet, btw. I'm not particularly happy with the legs and I'm still pondering make the leaves bigger, as per Teek's suggestion.

That's more like it

Hey, look who it is!

Nice solid freehand you've got goin there. I think this will look great with a whole regiment of knights.

I have to reserve myself to the final piece to really give you any good critique though! So make with the painting!

From a historical point of view, it is incorrect with that kind of a design. Its an inappropriate division of the field, but if you wanted to divide the field from top right corner to bottom left then include a symbol overlapping both, that works. Then again, I didnt stick to the restrictions of metalics and solid colors when I painted my own knights - tradition can ruin creativity.

It looks really good! Definately does not require another color, so long as the knights have some variety. An entire army in the two colors would be too drab. I heard a suggestion from someone about limiting your army's palette to 4 colors so it doesn't end up like a circus, and provides 16+ color combos. I would consider a browny color instead of pink for the insides of ears.

I too am quite impressed with your free hand technique. I know if I tried it, I would go crazy. I still haven't put much work into my own bretonnians yet. I will be adding this to my picture morgue for future reference. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

The heraldry looks a little off to me for lack of proper quartering etc. as well. I was trying to imagine how it might look with an earlier, celtic sort of design in mind, and it was not quite... well I don't know what the word is, but it seems to straddle the line between the hard rules of later heraldry and the more "pretty picture" of earlier designs.

I don't know that it can't work, and certainly someone who isn't a prick about what is historically accurate would still say "wow, nice job!" But in my case, it is a qualified nice job, because I am a prick like that. Unfortunately I don't know any good advice, not knowing enough heraldry minutia to be useful :(

Personally, I think it looks fine, though I'd work on some of the other shading and highlighting before doing the heraldry. The green and white is a good color combination and fairly traditional. The curves are non standard but close enough to look quartered while giving it a unique touch. Just make up a good story behind the heraldry.

Nice freehand. I think it is great to do something so complex. But please be careful. If you go OTT on every model they all start to lose some of their Wow! factor.

Someone mentioned about shading before freehand.. in apractical sense I think they are right. In an artistic sense I would disagree. The heraldry is part of the kit of the model and would be just as shaded and ragged as any other part. Maybe it just isn't done, but I'd do the shading AFTER the heraldry.

ender502

Very cool design!
However, it doesn't really conform to the more traditional heraldry designs. There is a good series of articles on heraldry on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldry

Check out the "Rules of Heraldry" for some ideas

I think you should start with a darker metallic colour, maybe boltgun metal or mix a little bit black into your silver.
It looks like a little bit like aluminium now. Or maybe add a wash of black ink to it.
Otherwise nice painting.

if you want to make the leaf bigger, i would suggest making the green upper quadrant bigger by moving the diagnal line a little lower. this might give you some more room for the leaf and it would make the grapes a little smaller which would also make the leaf seem in a little more proportion.

Really like the coat of arms, looks great

I'd say that while it doesn't conform to the more traditional heraldry from European history, it doesn't mean that it can't conform to heraldric rules from your WHFB universe. I really dig it. I think it's an awesome play on traditional heraldric designs and looks really sharp.

I applaud your desire and motivation to paint each individual knight's heraldry and colors - that was one of the reasons when I played Bretonnians I never painted them up. I couldn't deal with having to come up with a separate color scheme for each individual knight in the army.

Well, though it seems most people are agreed on this I´ll just add my vote: Definately go with this type of heraldry, it looks really good, and having many different knights gives more of a "Quest" feeling to the army.

You know "Forthwith be´eth we going to beseech the dragonne for it hath astolen ye faire princess!"

That type of thing, only not as silly...

This thread died two months ago, let sleeping dogs lie!

Gonna lock it up for now, Sel, lemme know if you need it unlocked!