[Sidepot]

Anyway, this is a very rough draft, I am by NO MEANS an artist, but this idea came to me for a nice chips inlay . There are some INSANELY creative and talented people on here submitting inlays , and if I get some positive remarks on my idea I would be extremely happy.

As is this is without the denominations, only because I haven't the time to add them in. I do plan on a mockup with them though. The idea is either just a shield, or a shield with 2 swords, sort of like a "family crest". I am torn on the colors to use in the 4 spots, so I went with the base-color in a pair of spots, with 1 of the edge-spots as the other pair.

Also, I'd like to get a "better looking" shield, as I basically free-handed this one. If I had some better skills with Photo-Shop for doing things of this nature, I'd be able to! (most of my Photo-Shop skills are from altering existing images....)



This first post represents the "original submission" only, and enables the initiation of the discussion thread on this chip submission. This thread now belongs to Mok, and he may use his first post within this tread to post updates/changes to his submission, which will ultimately be the design of his that gets submitted into the voting rounds on July 17th.

Feedback, comments, & constructive criticism encouraged!

[JM]

Hmm, something a little 'off' about these colors

[Magus 23]

First of all, welcome to the competition!

As far as initial impressions, I think you're onto something with the heraldic concept. I would suggest first of all reducing the size of the shields themselves (and giving them more curved edges). In terms of colors, you may want to make them a little more realistic -- perhaps desaturating them a bit, adding some subtle gradients, whatever you think is best. Beyond that, you may also want to consider additional elements for the design. The shield itself looks a bit empty. Maybe look into some heraldic imagery and see what jumps out at you as being appropriate.

Good luck!

[beowulfe]

Great idea. Try a search for heraldry and/or coat of arms. I found this site.
http://www.irishsurnames.com/heraldiccharges.htm

It has links for colors, shields, lines, beasts, etc. And that was just one of hits.
Just some ideas for how to refine your shield and design. Another example I saw had two opposite quadrants of the shield checkerboarded. Tons of ideas for this concept.

[mizuchaud]

Heraldry has lots of conventions for shield color field patterns.
Have fun digging!
I will look in my sources for the websites.

[Mok]

Wow, was having login/post problems earlier....

Yeah, I have a shield/crest for my last name, but think that'd be a bit cheesy. There are sooooo many good ones out there.

Frankly, I stopped working on it once I saw some of these other designs. Like I said to Sidepot, I'm certainly not an artist by any means, as can be seen from those mock ups.

I also have no experience making anything from scratch using PhotoShop, so there is that "issue" too. Good old Gimp won't help me either! I suppose I could pilfer someone else's graphic and do some editing (which I am fairly capable of), but then how wrong is that, and I'm above that type of behavior.

But, I'll give it the good old college try. If it turns out something great, guess maybe someone will use it somewhere....

What are the thoughts on adding the swords through it, in the "X" pattern, behind the shield itself? I thought about that for the mock up, but didn't want the shield to be too small. But, since the consensus so far is the shield should be smaller anyway, maybe that opens up the swords too. I also think maybe the swords seem more traditional....

[beowulfe]

You might want to give this a try:
http://share1.esd105.wednet.edu/bish...t_of_Arms.html

it came from this page, which has other stuff that might help:
http://www.digiserve.com/heraldry/clipart.htm

[noelsarchs]

I'll try and get your entry into the other thread with all the submissions as soon as I can get imageshack working. Seem to be having some issues with it tonight.