Review of Armorial Gold Heraldry Clipart

As promised some time ago, I have completed a more formal review of Armorial Gold Heraldry Clipart that I would like to share with all of you. I want to thank Gail F. Moreau-DesHarnais, the editor of Michigan's Habitant Heritage, the journal of the French Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan, for allowing this piece to be posted on rec.heraldry before its publication in our journal. You will note that this review is written from the perspective of a French Canadian genealogist for an audience of similar readers. Nevertheless, non-French-Canadians should also get some value from this review.

JP

REVIEW: ARMORIAL GOLD HERLADRY CLIPART
John P. DuLong, FCHSM member (dulongj@xxxxxxxxxxxx)

Many genealogists sooner or later find ancestors who had coats-of-arms. Often all we have is a blazon, a technical description of the arms, and we would like to see an image of what the arms looked like.

The selection of computer offerings to help draw coats-of-arms is weak. There is, however, a collection of heraldry clipart that, despite some drawbacks, can be used in combination with drawing software to create some nice looking images of your ancestors' coats-of-arms. The product is Armorial Gold Heraldry Clipart. The Premium Gold Collection, Version 16.4, is reviewed here.

You must understand that this is not an automated drawing program. You cannot enter a blazon and convert it automatically into a drawing. You must use a vector-based drawing package like Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator. I use Adobe Illustrator. These drawing packages have steep learning curves, but once you master the basics, using the Armorial Gold clipart is relatively easy and you can do some passable drawings. You will also have to master reading a blazon and converting this technical description of arms into a drawing.

As in any software product there are some strengths, some challenges, and some opportunities for improvement. This review discusses all of these aspects and also focuses on how people of French ancestry might use this product.

Strengths

The Armorial Gold Heraldry Clipart CD includes a wide selection of images logically organized into folders called charges or design elements. Currently, the CD offers over 9,000 images. Just about every heraldic device you can imagine is included. Furthermore, heraldic beasts are presented in a variety of poses.

The CD contains a helpful Word file dictionary of heraldry terms, another Word file dictionary on heraldry symbolism, a Word file explaining how to blazon arms, and an Excel spread*** with mottoes and their translation if they are in Latin or another language.

Once you purchase the product you can also access an online database displaying Scottish clan tartans and another online database of over 50,000 blazons for English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish coats-of-arms.

It‘s easy to drag a clipart image into a drawing program, resize it, ungroup it, modify the colors, regroup it, and place it exactly where you need it in a drawing.

Using Adobe Illustrator, I found it relatively easy to make simple adjustments to the clipart. However, more complex modifications will depend on your skill with your drawing program. Fortunately, the set of images is so complete that you will rarely need to edit them other than to change their size and color. The artwork is vector-based and scales well.

Shield templates with almost all the partitions and ordinaries you will ever need are included.

A wide variety of mantlings are provided in addition to helmets, crowns, wreaths, compartments, scrolls, etc., so that you can construct your own full achievement of your ancestor’s arms. The new version also offers several mantling sets without shields. These empty mantling designs make it easy for you to mix and match various shield types with mantlings and helmets.

New art is added periodically so it is worthwhile to check back at the Armorial Gold web site to see if an updated CD is available.

If at least three customers request a particular charge it will be added to the collection. And if an image can be easily modified from an existing image the Armorial Gold team will create it for a customer at no cost.

Mike Hamilton, owner of Armorial Gold, has been in the heraldry design business for over 25 years and has over 2,500 customers, many of them repeat customers. Since he started selling his clipart online he has had only two customers who ever asked for refunds. This speaks volumes for support of the product among the customer base. My contacts with Mr. Hamilton have been very satisfactory. He answers questions promptly, takes great pride in his products, and is keenly interested in improving his heraldry offerings.

Challenges

The clipart is stored in Windows Metafile Format as .wmf files or in Corel Draw as .cdr files. You have to order the CD in one format or the other. Unless you have Corel Draw, I would recommend the Windows Metafile Format. This format is one of the most widely recognized formats for computer drawings so you can easily view images of the artwork using tools that come with Windows. This clipart easily slips into just about any drawing software. However, this format does not have true Bezier curves as does the Corel Draw format. The end result is that with the Windows Metafile Format curves are drawn by making many nodes with short paths between them. Thus, it is extremely difficult to modify these images in substantial ways.

The .wmf format is not a major issue if your drawing software offers the right tools. Since I could not find any information in the Adobe Illustrator manual on how to convert .wmf files to true vector artwork, Mr. Hamilton explained that the trick is to use the Simplify command. You just open the .wmf clipart you are interested in, highlight it, then choose Object on the command bar. On the pull down menu, select Path and then choose Simplify. In the dialog box, set curve precision to 100 percent, set angle threshold to 0 percent, and then click OK. Save the image, close it, then reopen it and you will see that it now has far fewer nodes and that it consists of sweeping Bezier curves. Check to make sure your drawing package has a similar Simplify feature to transform .wmf files.

Another drawback is the black background used in every clipart image. As soon as you start modifying images you run into this background. If you remove it you are left with fragments of an image. Mr. Hamilton explained that the black background is part of the .wmf format and that it allows details in the clipart to stand out. Nevertheless, the black background often becomes a stumbling block when you try to modify the clipart. By using the Simplify tool in Adobe Illustrator you will not remove the black background, but it becomes a little easier to manipulate it because you deal with fewer nodes.

Opportunities for Improvement

Partition lines are exactly in the middle of the shield. This means that for the fess, cross, and other partitions like them, the chief (top) is larger than the point (bottom) of the shield. This makes for some awkward squeezing in of charges. It is most obvious when you work with quartered shields. Heraldic artists commonly divide the shield horizontally just a little above the midpoint to allow more room in the tapered bottom of the shield. Ironically, an older version of Armorial Gold has heater shield templates that follow this practice. The new version simplifies the shield template by removing the shadowing effect, which can be easily added back in most drawing programs, but by rigidly sticking to the shield's midpoint when dividing it horizontally, the new version causes some awkward images. Going back to a partition line slightly above the midpoint would be helpful.

With the exception of some quartered shields, all partitioned shield templates are in the classic heater shield pattern used most often in English heraldry. More shield templates for other shield types would be appreciated. There are some empty shield designs reflecting non-English heraldic traditions on the CD that you can use to add your own partitions and ordinaries to them.

Much of the artwork is based on English heraldry, but this should come as no surprise since so many books and articles on the subject of heraldry available to people in the United States and Canada also focus on England. It would be nice to see more variety from other European styles of heraldry. In particular, more mantling choices from continental heraldry would be welcome.

The offering of fleurs-de-lis is especially disappointing for a person of French ancestry. The CD has a wide variety of fleur-de-lis positions and combinations with other charges, but this artwork uses the same pattern over and over for the fleur-de-lis. It would be nice if some variety in the basic fleur-de-lis design was offered. For example, Arthur Charles Fox-Davies' The Art of Heraldry: An Encylopaedia of Armory (London: T. C. and E. C. Jack, 1904), p. 202, has a wide range of sample fleurs-de-lis that could be used as models. A wider variety of fleurs-de-lis would help when trying to replicate ancestral arms from different centuries as what was fashionable for a fleur-de-lis in 1750 is not the same as what was favored in 1450. Fortunately, it is not too difficult to draw fleurs-de-lis with Adobe Illustrator.

Regalia from the various orders of chivalry are very sparse. For instance, the Order of the Garter, the Order of Holy Spirit, the Order of St-Michel, the Order of St-Louis, etc., are missing. Nor is there clipart for positions in royal households. For comparison, see some of the beautiful work displaying orders and special ranks done by Arnaud Bunel at his Héraldique européenne web site <http://www.heraldique-europeenne.org/Accueil.htm>.

If your ancestor was a knight in an order or held a special position at a royal court, then you are pretty much on your own when it comes to displaying the devices associated with his office. This lack of regalia particularly hinders anyone with French ancestors attached to the royal household. I would suggest that the developers at Armorial Gold consult L. P. d'Hozier’s Armorial général ou Registre de la noblesse de France, 12 vols. (Paris, 1868-1878), vol. 1, part 1, introductory pages, to see examples of the devices associated with various offices attached to the French crown. Version 16.4 does add some images relating to orders, for example, the Order of the Golden Fleece (the Toison d’Or). It also includes supporters for various orders in the form of human figures wearing the order’s regalia. But I have never seen such supporters used, at least, not in French heraldry.

Not enough of the beast charges look realistic when they are holding other charges. You can place a charge near the paws of a beast, but it does not look like the beast is grasping the object. It would be nice if more beasts were designed with paws that look like they are able to hold devices.

Many of the images are taken from either Fox-Davies' The Art of Heraldry or Fairbairn’s Books of Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland, rev. ed. (London and Edinburgh: T. C. and E. C. Jack, 1892). The end result is that several images reflect the gaudy semi-realistic standards of Victorian heraldry, a style that has fallen out of fashion and does not please many people who have become accustomed to the simpler but bolder neo-Medieval style. (See Carl-Alexander von Volborth’s Heraldry: Customs, Rules and Styles (London, 1991) for great examples of this neo-Medieval style.) For instance, some of the new lion images in the Classic Lions folder are very detailed, but the face of the lion, in my opinion, wears an expression of anxiety, as though it were embarrassed to be displayed. This most recent CD adds some charmingly done “stylistic” or Medieval images of lions that are much more pleasing from my perspective and it is hoped that more examples like this will be available in future versions for the other beasts. Ultimately, the style of the drawings is a matter of taste and your opinion of the artwork may be very different from mine. Mr. Hamilton assures me that he plans to include more early heraldry clipart, including more medieval style lions and mantlings, in future editions of the CD.

The Armorial Gold web site occasionally offers CDs containing collections of ethnic heraldry. Currently, they offer German and Irish heraldry. In the past, they have also sold CDs with English, Scottish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and French coats-of-arms. Based on the samples I have viewed at the Armorial Gold web site, it appears that the drawings are illustrations of the arms most often associated with a particular surname. I would caution that there is no guarantee that the arms displayed are actually those of your ancestors. Furthermore, for any given surname there are usually multiple arms associated with it even within a single country. For example, the French samples displayed in the past at the Armorial Gold website showed the arms for Marchand. But a quick search of Rietstap’s Armorial General database at <http://www.kuruvinda.com/armorial.php> shows 14 blazons for the surname Marchand, not all of them necessarily French. Whether you rely on the canned images found on the various ethnic heraldry CDs or draw your own using the Armorial Gold Heraldry Clipart CD, you really need to do your research first.

A Recommendation

While there are some negatives associated with this product, the positives far outweigh them. I would strongly recommend the Armorial Gold Heraldry Clipart CD. Given the alternatives, this is a great product; nothing else on the market comes close to it. The artwork it offers is far superior to anything you will find free on the Internet.

Using this heraldry clipart I have been able to produce an armorial to illustrate the coats-of-arms for the ancestors of Catherine Baillon, see the Baillon Armorial at <http://habitant.org/baillon/armorial.htm>.

Once I learned the basics of Adobe Illustrator, it was pretty easy to do most of these images using heraldry clipart from Armorial Gold. Some arms required that I create particular charges not found in the clipart collection while others required some editing of the existing clipart. Is it great heraldry art? No, at least not when used by novice illustrators such as myself. In the hands of someone expert in using drawing software, this clipart could be made to construct some impressive images. Is it uniform and very presentable? Yes, even for the novice. You can use it to display your ancestor's coat-of-arms so that others less informed in the cryptic terminology of heraldry can easily grasp what the arms look like.

Armorial Gold Heraldry Clipart is a valuable product, especially if you have the skills to use a drawing program in combination with it. I hope this company continues to grow and offer more and more images for us to use. Despite some drawbacks, it is a wonderful collection of heraldry clipart and is well worth owning. I am confident the artwork will improve with each new edition.

To view samples of the clipart and order the CD, visit the Armorial Gold web site at <http://heraldryclipart.com>. The price for the Premium Gold Collection is $99.00 USA. At this web site you can request that a sample clipart be sent to you so that you can evaluate whether it will work with your drawing software.
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