The following instructions are designed for people who wish to make their own heraldic device but just don’t know where to start. Many web sites tell you about the different aspects of heraldry, but none really show you where to begin in designing your own. This tutorial is designed along the rules of heraldry for the SCA (Society for Creative Anachonisms), which differ in some respects from the formal heraldry recognized by the Colleges of Heralds in various countries. I will take you through the steps and show you how a device can evolve from an idea to a finished product.

Beginning with the basics:

The colours, or tinctures, in heraldry are divided into colours, metals, and furs. The reason is that some colours do not show up well against one another, from across a field of battle. (Black and red, or blue and black)

The colours are Black, Red, Blue, Green, and Purple. Heraldicaly they are listed as Sable, Gules, Azure, Vert, and Purpure , respectively.

Metals come in yellow for gold , and white for silver.

Furs are listed as ermine, counter-ermine, (or ermines), pean, and erminois.

A simple rule of thumb for heraldry is that you cannot have metals on metals (i.e. yellow on white), or colours on colours (i.e. blue on black).

Furs are not subject to this rule, except within the SCA where the background of the fur is either a colour or a metal. For example, "ermine" is a white background with black spots, therefore, in the SCA ermine falls under white and as such is a metal.

Now that you know what tinctures we can use, the best way to start designing your device is to pick a colour scheme. Ask yourself, "What are my favourite colours?" Let's pick Blue (Azure), Yellow (Or), and Ermine.

The second thing to ask yourself is, "What do I want on my device?" There are literally hundreds of different images you can have on your device. The only real limit within the SCA is that it must be period (something consistest with the period between 600 AD and 1600 AD). There are many different websites that have heraldic clipart, and quite a bit of software to help you as well (see links page). Most people prefer to put an animal on their device. In olden times a Gryphon or Lion represented strength and lent a fearsome aspect to one's armour.

Pick a favourite animal or object that you think will represent you well. Some ideas include; lions, dragons, eagles, swords, towers, crowns, books, and harps. A note of warning, crowns and laurels may refer to royal status, so be careful what you pick.

For fun, let's pick a dragon as our symbol. Strong and defiant, it was used many times as a symbol of leadership.

So I have my dragon, now what? Animals can be shown in a variety of poses. These poses include, but are not limited to Rampant, Salient, Sejant, Passant, Statant, Couchant,and Dormant.

Let's pick "Rampant"

So now I have a dragon rampant, where do I put the little bugger? Well before we put the dragon down on the device let's consider how the background should look.

A background, or field as it is called, can be divided in a multitude of ways, using ordinariers. Ordinaries are a type of division on shield. An example is "perpale" witch is basicaly a shield with the left side being one colour and the right side another. The basic ordinaries are:

Escutcheon, per pale, per fess, per bend, per chevron, per saltire, quarterly, and gyronny.

Escutcheon	Per Pale	Per Fess	Per Bend
Per Chevron	Per Saltire	Quaterly or Per Cross	Gyronny

The trick is the rule of tincture, as stated above. So if you want a device with per pale of Black and Red, you will need something to divide them. That's where ordinaries come in. Ordinaries are not always used as dividers, but it does make things easier some times. In our example we will bypass the need for dividers by using a colour and a fur. So we will pick a Gyronny of Azure and Ermine.

Pretty simple so far, right? So where does that dragon go?

For this particular device it goes right into the center of the field. When you see an animal in heraldry, they are always facing left because the placement is from the perspective of the person holding the shield, and your left side is always the shield's right (Dexter). So in essence, all heraldic images face to the left unless they are drawn coming straight at you. But let's spice things up a bit and make the dragon face right.

This is what the finished device looks like.

To define it in heraldic terms, it is; A Gyronny, Azure and Ermine,a dragon rampant to sinister, Or.