Joseph McMillan;94004 wrote:
Jesse, I think what you’re picturing as typical Spanish designs are probably elaborated/augmented versions of what began their existence as relatively simple arms. Have you looked at Nicolas Hobbs’s "Grandes de Espana" site? I can’t find it currently on line, but it’s available through the Internet Archive’s "Wayback Machine." Go to http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://grandesp.org.uk and click the highlighted date on the calendar. It will come up in Spanish, but there’s a link for the English version of the site on the left side of the page.
Joe thanks for this. I had seen it before and actually had the original page bookmarked but it has since been taken down. I’ve been trying to find it again. I think this is what I first saw when I began learning about the spanish style and it did indeed make everything look very cluttered.
Richard - I have seen that link before as well. When I was first trying to get some background on my surname I stumbled across it.
Everyone else - thanks for the input thus far. I’m glad that others feel the same way I do. I really have no desire to change my design. I love what I have and the story that it tells so I’m glad that others don’t think it needs to be more Spanish in nature.
Kudos to brother Thornton of the Frozen North—his words could be carved in stone and carried down from some coventient North American mount by Moses in a tabard!
Jesse, if you want a version of your arms with a bit more Iberian flavor, explore the possible variations you can achieve with a bit of artistic license—i.e. the same arms drawn by, or in the style of, a Spanish heraldic artist. And then consider doing the same in other artistic styles—Scandinavian, French, Hungarian or whatever you can manage (or manage to pay for). Ditto re: the styles of various artists, whatever their origins. Then add them to your page in our Members Role (assuming you’ve paid your dues 
)—it’s educational & we love the eye candy!
Just don’t change the basic and most excellent arms that we’ve come to identify as "you."
Jesse,
As somebody who has been down this road before, I urge to not tinker with a good design. Admittedly, I tweaked the design of my arms (moving the portcullis to the chief) and crest (eliminated the crest coronet and changed the cross to a greek cross) to the better, but if you will recall I also went through the period when I considered scrapping my falcon for some sort of snowy or semy beast for a crest, only to end up keeping the falcon which was a good design to begin with.
You have an excellent design for your arms and I like others have to come to recognize it as "you." It would be a same to change it now, in my humble opinion. I agree with Michael, rather than changing arms that you obviously like simply to something ostensibly in a more Spanish tradition, save up and have a Spanish artist like Carlos Navarro paint your arms.
Just my two cents!
I think all of us have looked at our arms at some point and thought of a way we could change it, perhaps for the better. That being said I would encourage you to see your arms as a symbolic extension of yourself, and to be proud of what you have. It’s hard to fight to designing itch, so take out your creativity on designing arms for other people. You have a very nice arms, and there’s no reason for you to change it.
Travis and Josh - have no fear. I do not want to redesign my arms (nor was I thinking about it). I was more curious about whether or not others thought my arms needed to be more Spanish in nature. Now that I have a better idea of heraldic design I see that my design isn’t very "Spanish". So if others thought that it should be more Spanish then I would have thought about what I could do to reflect that. But I don’t want to redesign my arms if I can help it. I love my design. I’m happy to hear that others feel the same way. I think if I want something a little more Spanish, I’ll just have to request it be on a Spanish shield or have it emblazoned by a Spanish artist to help it have a more authentic look.
It would certainly be interesting to see what an artist, versed in Spanish heraldry, could do Jesse.
Jesse - I agree with the major opinions here - keep design the same. If you want to show some cultural variations (ie. Spanish, etc.) have you considered trying your design on different shield types? Is there a Spanish style shield you could try? For instance, the shield I chose for my design to use with my signature at left is a traditional Imperial Russian bookplate form.
Since there was some talk about the bear on my shield being a Kermode (or Spirit) Bear, I thought I would post this in honor of the 2nd anniversary of adopting my arms. The Kermode Bear really is quite a beautiful animal.