Designing a Coat of Arms for the Chesapeake Pod

[Mermaid Saphira]

I like the mermaids on there! Hey, maybe we could give the mermaids tails like the ones from rockfish or seahorse cuz they r in the bay?

[Alveric]

Maybe the quote from Captain John Smith could be repeated in larger letters on the back of the t-shirt?

[Mermaid Annariea]

i like this quote... i found it somewhere on a website i was looking at about ocean quotes (:
"individually, we are one drop. together, we are an ocean." - ryunosuke satoro.

or we could always go with something in latin.
personally, i like "non titillare dormientes nereides". do not tickle sleeping mermaids. yes, i took hogwarts' motto and made it mermaids. because its funny, but so serious too. or instead of mermaids ("nereides") we could do merfolk ("nereios"), since we have mermen too. (:

[Nyx]

I would totally draw this if I could, but I have no way of putting it onto my computer until I get back from Florida. :<
But from what I've seen posted in this thread.
I had an idea of having a pair of crabs/one crab holding the shield up.
Seagulls (or whatever birds you want) holding a sign that says the quotes (the sign would sort of cover a bit of the top of the shield)
A mermaid riding a seahorse (or crab, or stingray, etc.). And make her tail the tail of a well known Chesapeake fish.
And an anchor in the background of the shield.
Whenever I can I'll try to post a drawing. :>

[Krasberrymuffin]

I like this a lot. The only thing I would suggest would be the outline of our region maybe?

[Mermaid Annariea]

have we decided on anything yet, guys??

[Mermaid Saphira]

^ I assume not...then again I have not been on this thread for a while O.o

[ShyMer]

Maybe we should set up a poll to find out peoples favorites.

[Joy&RaptorsUnrestrained!]

I think I like malinghi's idea to avoid depicting actual mermaids on the coat of arms... it seems to immediately complicate things, and none of the other pods have mermaids on theirs. Could we maybe take Brianna's/Annariea's version, replace the striped bass with flying fish, make them a little more midway between the top and the bottom of the shield (they're kinda small or leaning towards the bottom in the current version), maybe bring the seagull forward and have it perching on the ring of the rusty sunken anchor with his wings still outstretched and make his head face foreward (or down or up)? I'm also not sure I like the windows we have at the top of the shield... it seems like there should be something filling them, but with the anchor ring and spokes, anything we'd put there would look too crowded... maybe return to Shymer's original undivided shield, just without the seaweed on the inside?

[ShyMer]

Ooh, here's an idea, guys.



"For the pod that can't decide on a coat of arms, mostly from an overabundance of ideas"

I like to think the crab is shrugging just a bit, maybe with a Meh added for good measure.

Thoughts guys????

[Mermaid Annariea]

SHYMER YOURE A GENIUS.

and joy, i think we were gonna put something in the little windows. i wasnt sure what anyone had planned though. and i agree, we shouldnt have merfolk on our crest. :/

[Mermaid Annariea]

also, our motto should be "non titillare dormientes nereios".
do not tickle sleeping merfolk. in latin.

oh, and a poll is probably a good idea.

[Mermaid Saphira]

"individually we are a drop, together we are the (bay)!"

[Joy&RaptorsUnrestrained!]

Do the other pods have mottoes?

Shymer, I laughed at the questioning crab display, but I also thought it could be "for the pod that is crabby" instead of the "pod that can't decide on a coat of arms from an abundance of ideas".

Annariea, I'm just not sure anything we would put in the windows would actually fit and look balanced instead of overcrowding the top of the shield

[ShyMer]

Annariea, I'm just not sure anything we would put in the windows would actually fit and look balanced instead of overcrowding the top of the shield

That's my issue with most of the suggestions so far- if we have too much going on it'll look cramped. It shouldn't have too much in it to compete for attention.

Thanks Joy, I'm glad you got a chuckle out of it.

Seriously though, we need to make up our minds on stuff. We are long overdue for chesapeake tshirts!

[Joy&RaptorsUnrestrained!]

Hey guys, I've been working on the coat of arms some more... I tried to stick close to Malinghi's idea, though I really love Shymer's crab.

I'm considering trying to find a way to balance the upper half a little more, perhaps by removing the trident and the moon and just expanding the crab to fill the entire upper half. I also think I made the seahorse a bit too large (or I need to make the shipwreck larger to balance it), and though it's difficult to see, I don't think I provided enough detail and focus on the seaweed. I do like the gull, and though the flying fish could use a bit of fine-tuning, I'm pretty fond of them as well. The colors I was considering include Turquoise and Silver (Argent), with Bronze (Tenne') and Red (Gules or Sanguine... not sure of the exact distinction) and perhaps some Blue (Azure) details. The Seagull should be white and silver, the flying fish should be silver and blue, the crab should be a mix of bronze, blue, and red, the seahorse should be bronze while the seaweed is red, and the ship is bronze. The anchor should be silver, as should the moon, and the trident should be bronze. The background should be turquoise, and I'm not sure about the edge (bronze, maybe?)... any suggestions? I didn't want to color it until I'd hammered out the details of the image first.

[PearlieMae]

That's a lot of colors for a CoA.

[Joy&RaptorsUnrestrained!]

That's a lot of colors for a CoA.

If you look at the other coats of arms (malinghi posted them on the first page of this thread), they technically have anywhere from 4 to 7 colors.

[TheTempest]

Hello I'm new but I saw this thread and thought I'd add in my two cents. Sorry to barge in.

[ShyMer]

Ha ha, this thread went nowhere. I don't know who all is even still active in this pod who would be interested in having this finished (I only just came back from a long break myself.)

Some forums would get upset about bringing up old dead threads, but we're probably cool here, particularly since you have new content. I wouldn't worry about posting <3