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My heraldry progress

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Sir Edward:

I've been trying to draw up the dragon part of my heraldry. This is just a rough draft, I already see lots of spots that need major tweaking, but what do you think so far?



I'm aiming for a "dragon couchant", which means seated with all four limbs (laying down essentially), with head raised and alert, and tail curled under.

Das Bill:
As a modern piece, I think it looks great. If you are going for something more medieval, though, the head looks a little strange to me. It reminds me more of a modern fantasty dragon than a historical fantasy dragon, if that makes any sense.

A lot of medieval dragon's have a somewhat bird/dog like look to the face, kind of like a rooster with somewhat of a nose. There's a lot of variation, of course, and I'm sure you can probably find images that look along the lines of your heraldry here, but there's something "off" about it to me, coming from a medievalesque stand point.

Here's an example to show what I mean:
http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast262.htm

Sir Edward:
Yep, you're absolutely right. The head is one of the parts that I'm still working on. Right now it looks like a big watermelon to me. :) I haven't completely decided if I'm going more historically correct or more modern. I'm already fudging it a little by having the "crux ansata" in in the CoA. Here's the design so far:



And the full explanation I've written up:

http://ed.toton.org/chivalry/my-coa.html

Das Bill:
Hey, that looks great! I also very much liked the description behind the symbolism.

By the way, I forgot the mention that I really like the "dragon couchant" idea. It reminds me of many of the 14th century funeries with the dogs watching at their masters' feet.

Sir Edward:

Thanks, glad you like it. :) 

The graphic that I have for the dragon on the shield design is one I found online, turned blue, and pasted in. I started using it as a placeholder before I had decided what position I wanted the dragon to be in, and the more I looked at it and thought about it, the more I liked the "couchant" position. I see it much as you do... at rest, but vigilant. A lot of the time you see arms done with the beasts having a "rampant" or "passant", but there are many more options of course.

I found a nice description of beast positions (though I hate the annoying pop-up ads):

http://dragon_azure.tripod.com/UoA/AnimalBlazonry.html

According to this page mine has a mistake in that I'm leaving the tail pointed forward instead of up behind the back. But I don't care. :)

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