I have, at long last :snail: , managed to weasel a motto out of my grandfather, and I think I’m ready to go ahead and register arms in his name. I was hoping you guys could take a look at it and offer corrections to the blazon, and maybe suggestions on a crest and badge.
Here’s what I have:
Shield:
Per fess 1) gules, four points conjoined in the center of the fessline argent 2) gules, a half cross argent coming out of the fessline
Crest:
A sphinx couchant or holding in its dexter forepaw a question mark terminating in a lightning flash azure
Motto:
Victory Through Vigilance
Badge:
A sphinx couchant or holding in its dexter forepaw a torch argent enflamed gules
As a sketch artist, I am truly second rate. Much more than straight lines presents a problem, but, as luck would have it, the shield has nothing but! This is what I had in mind:
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2089/halfgyronny4yr8.th.gif
I’m looking for:
1) Verification that the blazon for the shield is right. I used what Ton gave me, but I always like to make sure I have it right.
2) Suggestions for/critiques of the crest and badge, both blazon and design. I like what I have, but this is my first attempt at this, and I’ve seen too many good ideas from the regulars of this forum to not at least see what ideas others might have. Additionally, my blazoning is like my french - I can understand quite a bit, but only communicate simple ideas, so any help is appreciated.
What won’t change:
1) The shield, for the most part. I’m still flitting between three, four, and five points in the upper half (can’t form an opinion), but otherwise, it’s set.
2) The question mark/lightning flash element (from his Army uniform) was the only requirement grandpa gave me, so that stays in the crest somehow.
3) The motto.
Barring any brilliant revisions or realization of horrible mistakes (design faux pas, unintentional usurpation, etc.), I’ll probably be sending this to USHR in a week or two.
Thanks for all your help, both in the past and on this now.
—Dan
Could you provide a sketch for the crest? Actually, not even that… I just really want to see what a question mark terminiating in a lightning flash looks like.
The only comment I have about the blazon is, and this might just be a personal quirk of mine, I don’t like "coming out of the fessline." At least to my ears, "issuing from the fessline" sounds better. Of course, I’m not a blazoning expert, so there might well be a reason why "issuing" isn’t being used here. I’m sure someone else with more experience can clear this up for me if I’m mistaken in perferring "issuing" over "coming out of."
Hmm. Myself I’d be partial to a more stylized cross. My own blazon is also far from done, but might one want to add, "A Latin cross halved argent" just to nail down which one you envision.
Quote:
Per fess 1) gules, four points conjoined in the center of the fessline argent 2) gules, a half cross argent coming out of the fessline
Might it be: 1) Gules, four points conjoined at the fess point Argent?
You might consider a Tau cross rather than half of a Latin cross. It is easier to comprehend in a blazon. Might also consider some form of gyronny to describe the upper fess of the escutcheon.
The question mark/lightening bolt sounds more like a rune. If there is such a rune or one similar to what you are trying to illustrate, I suggest using the name of the rune in the blazon.
A gyronny of nine… I hadn’t thought of that, but that would also eliminate the whole part about conjoined at fesspoint, since that is the default for agyronny
Regarding the cross, a tau cross would be much easier to understand than a cross halved. And from Dan’s drawing, it does not appear like he was going for a Latin cross halved. I just looks like a simple symmetrical cross halved.
Perhaps using "dimidated" in some fashion.
Gyronny of 9 Gules and Argent dimidated per fess of Gules a cross Argent
Or whatever the "full gyronny" for the top half of the shield works out to.
werewolves;48819 wrote:
Or whatever the "full gyronny" for the top half of the shield works out to.
Gyronny of eighteen Gules and Argent…...
Gyronny of twelve is the largest number of pieces that I have seen in a blazon but surely there must be historical coats-of-arms, especially in Belgium, the Netherlands and Scotland, consisting of gyronny of sixteen, eighteen or even twenty pieces.
David Pritchard;48820 wrote:
Gyronny of eighteen Gules and Argent…...
Gyronny of twelve is the largest number of pieces that I have seen in a blazon but surely there must be historical coats-of-arms, especially in Belgium, the Netherlands and Scotland, consisting of gyronny of sixteen, eighteen or even twenty pieces.
Oh, my mistake. I only counted the number of gyrons on the top and didn’t double it.
I google search gyronny of sixteen and found some images. I didn’t try any higher ones, but I’m sure they’re out there.
The source of the question mark/lightning flash thing is the Manhattan Project shoulder patch. Gramps was in counterintelligence surrounding same, and wanted his motto and crest to reflect that. It is not a rune that I know of - I suspect TIOH fabricated it out of whole cloth and then wrote a clumsy blazon of it. I asked in Military Heraldry to see if anybody had a better blazon for it, but nobody seemed to, so I went with what I had. I’m not happy with it, but it’s so weird that I didn’t know what else to do with it.
The cross is not more stylized, and not a tau or latin cross, because I was trying to get half of the cross from Denmark, and that’s a plain one. A tau cross would have as thick a line going across the top as it does down the middle, and could, at the artists discretion, have… well, serifs, I guess - and that’s not really what I was going for.
I’d like to do a gyronny, but I wasn’t sure what to use (of nine or of eighteen) and I wanted to be sure they would start with more-or-less equal divisions at the fessline and not at the upper dexter corner. The intent in the design was to suggest a broadcast with the points and if it started at the corner, it’d play havoc with the "horizon line". A regular gyronny-of-eighteen would have two half-gyrons of opposite colors at the fessline, right? "Conjoined at fess point" would be an improvement, if the gyronny thing isn’t clear or doesn’t do what I’m trying to do.
When I read question mark terminiating in a lightning flash, I think of this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v209/Resine/Heraldry/questions_flash.png
Looking at the original, I can sort of see how the blazon ties into to it, but I think you’re more likely going to get emblazonments that look like mine than the patch design.
Maybe it’d work better to break up the question mark and lightning flash into the two base elements, maybe cross them in saltire behind the sphinx? Alter the badge to be the torch in front of the question mark and lightning flash?
DJensen;48833 wrote:
The source of the question mark/lightning flash thing is the Manhattan Project shoulder patch.
Now that I have seen the actual shoulder patch, I would describe the so-called question mark/lightning flash as a thunder cloud charged with the Army Air Corps roundel. A thunder cloud makes a much better heraldic charge than a question mark/lightning flash.
It took a while, but I found the TIOH page where I got the description. (Calling it a blazon might be a bit disingenuous.) I remembered reading it, but didn’t have it handy at the time when I first posted the image of the patch.
I’m not saying it’s a poor heraldic charge. It is. I just wanted to be on the record as not having made it up myself.
So what should I do with it? I really want to get this in the crest somehow. Break up the symbol, use the atom instead, just call it a thunder cloud and be done with it?
If you really want to use that symbol, I’d say call it a thunder cloud. Even though some future emblazonments might not look quite like the IOH quasi-question mark design, my gut feeling tells me they’ll probably be a lot closer than what they would be if you blazoned it a question mark ending in a lightning bolt.
