Resetting a bit here, I am going to present a small flood of thoughts I have had.
1-6
Ideas from the group with the addition of using a probocides instead of the head.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b146/Snydercrew/573b2f78-7170-402e-be96-fe53db517726.jpg
7-12
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b146/Snydercrew/5d75b296-1f5a-4283-9d6a-e39bea18d7dd.jpg
13-16
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b146/Snydercrew/057ffce0-1056-4bb4-8bad-6a7fd344e291.jpg
1, 2 and 3 are my favorites.
Kenneth Mansfield;99801 wrote:
Sorry, Matthew, that just looks like the elephant has received a nasty blow and is seeing stars.
I’d say that he looks more angry than dazed. Then again being beheaded is bound to make anyone a bit cranky. It was a vector drawing and it was free. Can’t look a gift horse… er elephant in the trunk.
I would be in agreement with Jeremy that 1-3 above are the most appealing of the new lot. Is it politically incorrect these days to use tusks instead of trunks? Heaven forbid we offend anybody about anything ever. Its just that the proboscis are giving me more of an antennae feel a la those blue aliens from the original Star Trek shows.
#2.
My problem with tusks isn’t political; it’s that the standard heraldic tusk doesn’t really look like a tusk, and will be taken by people as a trumpet of some sort. And conjoined the way you have them, probably not even as that, just as something mysterious.
No black dots on green, please.
The only use of the term etincelé that I can find is in Parker’s Glossary and there, there are no examples given so we are left to guess at its usage. Even then, though, we have the variations of ermine (and more specifically "ermined" - e.g. Argent ermined Purpure) to use as a guide, not to mention all the other semé possibilities (e.g. Gules crusilly Or). All that to say, if you’re going to use Vert, you ought to make your sparks white or gold. We don’t know the default colors of etincelé, but I suspect you can use it much like the example above of ermine: Vert etincelé Or (or Argent) or in English Vert semé of sparks Or (or Argent).
As to the examples above, I also prefer #2. Any of 13-16 are okay, provided you change the color of the sparks on the green field. Examples 7-12 don’t answer. The enlarged "sparks" just read as plates and lose the cant. You might also try Vert etincelé Or an elephant’s head caboshed Argent.
I also like #2 the best.
And I agree that the semé of sparks must follow the tincture rule.
mjsmith;99806 wrote:
I’d say that he looks more angry than dazed. Then again being beheaded is bound to make anyone a bit cranky. It was a vector drawing and it was free. Can’t look a gift horse… er elephant in the trunk.
I would be in agreement with Jeremy that 1-3 above are the most appealing of the new lot. Is it politically incorrect these days to use tusks instead of trunks? Heaven forbid we offend anybody about anything ever. Its just that the proboscis are giving me more of an antennae feel a la those blue aliens from the original Star Trek shows.
Andorians. I agree, but like the grumpy elephant they are free (kinda). Im worling on a more realistic drawing.
The arms of Guilmécourt (northern France) are blazoned as "d’azur étincelé d’or, au lion brochant d’argent" with the explanation "étincelé is an obscure semy of ‘sparks’ often tiny ‘stars’ as here)
full-size: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blason_Guilmécourt.svg
The only other examples of "semé of sparks" that I can find are SCA:
Sable, semé of sparks Or , a flamberge gules hilted and enflamed Or
http://www.midrealm.org/heraldry/escutcheon/ILoI/archive/0205/02may02b.gif
Sable seme of sparks argent, chape vair, a mullet of eight interlocking mascles argent
http://lochac.sca.org/herald/docs/camel/CAMeLDec1993.pdf (page 13)
Gules, semy of sparks, on a bend rayonny Or, a dragon courant vert
http://armorial.calontir.org/Devices/sab-ard2.gif
Gules, semy of sparks argent, two triskeles arrondy and a seeblatt Or
http://armorial.calontir.org/Devices/Erl-Rou.gif
Sable, a tower Or enflamed proper and a chief Or, semy of sparks gules
http://op.atlantia.sca.org/images/devices/barrett_the_map_maker.gif
A mullet of eight points azure fimbriated semy of sparks argent
http://antirheralds.org/oscar/emblazons/An Tir/2009-07/T-tirrighsilversparkesbadgebw.jpg
also mentioned here (in German):
http://www.heraldik-wiki.de/index.php/Funke_(Heraldik)
and here (in French):
http://lalanguedublason.blogspot.com/2013/03/les-elements-naturels-en-heraldique.html
steven harris;99811 wrote:
The arms of Guilmécourt (northern France) are blazoned as "d’azur étincelé d’or, au lion brochant d’argent" with the explanation "étincelé is an obscure semy of ‘sparks’ often tiny ‘stars’ as here)
It’s too bad all we have to go on here is the interpretation of one of Wikipedia’s poorer heraldic illustrators. It would be nice to see something historical.
Kenneth Mansfield;99812 wrote:
It’s too bad all we have to go on here is the interpretation of one of Wikipedia’s poorer heraldic illustrators. It would be nice to see something historical.
I completely agree, but I don’t speak French, so finding historical arms for Guilmécourt would be an up-hill battle for me.
steven harris;99814 wrote:
I completely agree, but I don’t speak French, so finding historical arms for Guilmécourt would be an up-hill battle for me.
Google for "Guilmécourt armoiries" and presto, from the French Heraldic Council, a private heraldic society:
http://conseil-francais-d-heraldique.com/heraldique-armorial-armoiries.php?ID=128
http://conseil-francais-d-heraldique.com/images/GUILMECOURT.jpg
Thanks, Joe. I used the French google site, but not knowing a lick of French, I had used the wrong word for "armoiries". I prefer this interpretation of seme of sparks than the triple-dot version.
Kenneth Mansfield;99819 wrote:
Thanks, Joe. I used the French google site, but not knowing a lick of French, I had used the wrong word for "armoiries". I prefer this interpretation of seme of sparks than the triple-dot version.
Aesthetically, I like it better - but really it’s just a seme of mullets.
Jeremy Keith Hammond;99827 wrote:
but really it’s just a seme of mullets.
Or maybe size does matter.
I mean really the difference between a star and a spark really is just the size of the ball of fire.
While some armorists seem to like their cants to be as obscure as possible, a charge that almost no one has used or heard of—and which those few who have, can’t agree on what it should look like—doesn’t IMO serve the primary purpose of arms as indicators of identity. Not that they can’t be used, but what real purpose do they serve that warrants the creation of so many possible designs?
In this case, IMO the firesteel suggested for inclusion in the crest is a better choice in that it is a well-established and reasonably recognizable charge. It has IIRC also been in some cases depicted historically with sparks flying from it—can’t recall just where or by whom (I’m in a hotel lobby in Fiji, a beautiful island but not an heraldic hotbed) but I seem to recall seeing it as drawn by IIRC Marco Foppoli as an historical badge of either the Dukes of Burgundy or some Italian or Spanish ruling house.
RE: the SCA examples—my opinion FWIW is that while we should avoid infringing on them in designing new arms—their on-line armorial is both publically available and easy to use & skipping it is inescusable laziness—I don’t see their results as necessarily models for emulation outside the SCA context.
