Greater Coat of Arms (premier design)

This project took a while, even longer then planned as I did not want to spend that much time on it.

While in general I simply use the so called "Stammwappen" (undifferenced shield) for my purposes, as it is easier to adopt in diversing styles and context, there was the wish to draw the complete armoires of my family, including the genealogic claims we can do by marrying daughters as the only child of another family. These are rethoric claims as ever in heraldry; not only as these seigneuries do not exist in our days, but simply spoken because if they existed, the proprietors would never consign them.

The dividing of the shield in enough parts to show the actual and theoretical position of a family is a German fashion.
Unlike the princes and peers,French families hardly ever divided its shields, while in the Holy Roman Empire and in the later submerging German states quarterting, quavering or even twentiething (!) has been very common.

Normally the quarterings are mirrored to keep the balance and proportion, though in many cases, the sheer amount of single shields made the whole structure a mess (de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herald..…). In this case, they do show the coat of arms of my fathers line with the claims in the heart shield repsectively in the first and fourth quarter, my grandmother's arms in the second and my mother's arms in the third.

Though my mother is of Spanish ancestry and therefore by national tradition is allowed to inherit her family's arms, my grandmother had several brothers and was pure German, so this is the weak part of the whole design. On the other hand, in Germany it is common to bear all arms you are in connection with by direct lineage.

The French tradition of heraldry does not know the use of a helmet, the mantling or a crest (the latter is still most important in Great Britain). Instead, a so called coronet of rank is placed directly upon the shield. Too, the supporters are drawn in a more realistic way.

Yes, I did enjoy drawing this compilation which never existed as a whole so far, but too I am glad its over.