CoA draw up

[Taylor94]

What software is the best when it comes to generating arms with a blazon or in general?
I find drawshield sometimes doesn’t come out right.
Had these 2 to look up.

Swynfen of Sutton Cheney
‘Per chevron sable and argent, in chief three leopards faces countercharged’

Cotes of Withington
‘Argent, a fret azure, on a canton or, a lion rampant sable’

[Kiltpin]

What software is the best when it comes to generating arms with a blazon or in general?
I find drawshield sometimes doesn’t come out right.
Had these 2 to look up.

Swynfen of Sutton Cheney
‘Per chevron sable and argent, in chief three leopards faces countercharged’

Cotes of Withington
‘Argent, a fret azure, on a canton or, a lion rampant sable’

Hello Fenb0y,

I use good old fashioned MS Paint. I have yet to find one heraldry drawing program that can handle a blazon correctly. I used to use Blazons! and later Blazons!2000, but they would not work with any operating system after Windows 98. I know people who use Inkscape with great ability and fine results, but it is a drawing program and not a blazon rendering program.

The first problem is getting the correct blazon. The blazon for Swynfen as given is incorrect. It should be - Per chevron sable and argent, in chief three leopards faces counterchanged. Because counterchangedcan also be usedto indicate a change of attitude as well as change of colour, herald will often use countercoloured to avoid misunderstanding.

Anyway, I am attaching the arms of Swynfen and will start work on Withington

Regards

Chas

[Kiltpin]

And now Cotes of Withington

Argent, a fret Azure on a canton Or a lion rampant Sable.

Regards

Chas

[Taylor94]

Thank you very much for this.
On mspaint, Are you drawing the elements freehand or is there templates?
Fine work though I must say.

[Kiltpin]

Thank you very much for this.
On mspaint, Are you drawing the elements freehand or is there templates?
Fine work though I must say.

Hi Fenb0y,

I have a vast repository of clipart that I have created. Many of the base images come from Wikimedia Commons and are copyright free. The thing is they are in SVG format. I clean them all up, pixel by pixel, and save them in PNG format. That way I can change the colour with no effort.

If I don't have an image to hand, then Google Images is my friend. I capture an image and draw over it, then slowly, pixel by pixel again, remove the original. Then tidy up, add more detail, smooth the curves and save in PNG.

Slow and tedious work, but something I can do while Skyping or watching TV or while friends pop round for a cup of tea. I started about 7 years ago and have about 2,500 heraldic images. Some I will never use but were included for completeness. But it is one of those "you never know" scenarios - yours was the first time I had to draw a canton!

Regards

Chas