Right now I’m designing a set of either 4 of 5 Arms.
It’s for my fiancee’s late grandfather, and his 3 sons (his daughter may be the 5th). I’m working with all the grandchildren on this. They want each son to have their own shield (i.e., no one will inherit the arms of their father) but they will all be linked in some way, probably by similar general design and/or color scheme.
For right now, I’m just concentrating on the first arms. The gentleman in question was a horticulturalist and conservationist of some note in South Florida, and the governor even named a rather large section of the Everglades after him—if you all remember the Value Jet crash from several years back, it crashed in hie nature preserve. And he spent much of his life restoring parts of the Everglades and protecting the Key Deer that live in the Keys and the Everglades. He also built a rather successful airboat business as a hobby.
So naturally I’d like the Everglades to be a big part of the design. I’ve been playing around with various color schemes involving green/blue/white, and although I like the symbolism of all three aesthetically, I keep removing the blue.
I’ve also been trying various lines of partition Rayonny, to symbolize sawgrass.
In fact the most recent I’ve come up with is
per chevron rayonny vert and argent a stag courrant argent
For a crest I might do a modern airboat, or maybe a more traditional ship with a propeller or fan on the sail. I also like the key deer on the crest, but then I’m not sure what to put on the shield.
My question here isn’t so much about the ideas or designs I have now, as much as seeing if you guys (and ladies) could toss out some "everglades" references.
Vert an Alligator displayed Argent a Chief Argent three Leaves Azure?
Then use the chief for differentiation for the children?
Dale Challener Roe;71412 wrote:
Right now I’m designing a set of either 4 of 5 Arms.
per chevron rayonny vert and argent a stag courrant argent
Blazon question - does this put the vert in chief or in base? I would have thought it would put the vert in chief. . .
I do like the rayonne idea a lot.
John Mck;71427 wrote:
Blazon question - does this put the vert in chief or in base? I would have thought it would put the vert in chief. . .
It does.
Claus,
I should have specified that we’ve already written off the alligator as the late armiger wasn’t really fond of them as a symbol for the everglades.
But thanks for the suggestion. :p
I did a bit of searching and the National Park Service has some interesting information about the everglades and various species which may prove helpful - maybe run some of the mamals by the family?
Just a thought for inspiration -
A thought: Bary wavy sans nombre Azure and Vert (or Or and Vert, if you prefer) a snowy egret rising proper (or Argent, if you prefer).
Kathy, thanks for the link, I’ll have to look through that.
Father, I’ve played around with an egret a bit, but I like your suggestion. Thanks.
Dale—
Here’s another idea for your Everglades project—more abstract and evocative than explicitly representational.
Father,
I find that design striking. In fact with very few changes I think my fiancee is sold on it. Do you still have the file to make a couple of changes?
She wants 4 blades, as her grandfather had 4 kids and she wants the blades to be green…I guess the easiest way to do that is to flip the blue and white.
If it’s not easy for you to do, just let me know and I can make the changes.
Thank you very much. It’s much more elegant than designs I was playing with.
Dale
I think I can do that, but I may not get to it for a few days.
A second thought I had was to simplify by using just a base wavy rather than a base barry wavy. With argent on top and azure on the bottom, that might be a good idea. I’ll try it both ways.
The fun stuff I always get to faster than I should.
Here are three versions of the Everglades theme, each with four blades of grass Vert on Argent.
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/6909/everglades3.png
If you like one or more of these, let me know and I can send you the original artwork in either Adobe Illustrator or PDF or what ever you prefer.
I prefer the one on the left, but they are all very nice.
Dohrman Byers;71761 wrote:
The fun stuff I always get to faster than I should.
Don’t we all? 
Dohrman Byers;71761 wrote:
If you like one or more of these, let me know and I can send you the original artwork in either Adobe Illustrator or PDF or what ever you prefer.
I like all 3, as does my fiancee. She’s not sure which of the 3 she’s choosing, but she’s sold on using one of them. If you could send them in Adobe that works great.
And thank you very much.
Dohrman Byers;71761 wrote:
The fun stuff I always get to faster than I should.
Here are three versions of the Everglades theme, each with four blades of grass Vert on Argent.
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/6909/everglades3.png
If you like one or more of these, let me know and I can send you the original artwork in either Adobe Illustrator or PDF or what ever you prefer.
I like the middle version.
I think it’d be worth a try to making the field "per fess". It looks a bit logo-ish as is. But overall very appealing.
John Mck;71767 wrote:
I think it’d be worth a try to making the field "per fess".
I like it better as a base because it conveys shallower water.
I think my personal favorite is the first one "Base bary of 4", but Jeni’s leaning toward the middle one.
