Heget's Blatherings

Disclaimer: Here is a blend of Original Tolkien creations (aka my best efforts at recreating the author’s drawing), modifications on the original, and designs completely from cloth. Previous Entries can be found under the sigil tag. Please credit if use.

In order:

Finwë, Fëanor, Findis, Fingolfin, Lalwen, Finarfin 01, Finarfin 02

Notes:

Yes, I'm reposting these once more. Because if people in the Silmarillion/Tolkien fandom continue to use them, I want nice official links to them. And so another crosspost from tumblr project is born.

House of Finwë today.

The daughters’ sigils are completely from my own head, as their canon status is sometimes debated. I prefer canon that inclues them- at least Findis and Lalwen, though poor Finvain…

I’ve shamelessly adopted kaywinnet’s head-canon for the two, and kept that in mind as I made them. Thus shy Findis has a simple design, and Lalwen (Lalwendë or Irimë) has golden branches that could also be locks of hair or deer antlers.

Finwë is pretty close to how all the images show it, though some renderings have more reddish orange in the center. I think I forgot about it when I was remaking the sigil (my first version was not nearly as crisp) and decided the whole thing was more coherent and aesthetically pleasing without it. I still tease that the combination of sky blue and orange is a tad eye-searing, but it works for the Noldor. Fëanor’s is one of the oldest I made that I didn’t need to go back and remake (also I think the rainbow-y bit in the center actually breaks elven rules of heraldric symmetry). Fingolfin’s flag that pairs with this sigil is blue and silver, per source material.

Why does Finarfin have two?

Well, there are two versions of his sigil floating around- one without the blue center and one with- and I liked them both. My Wastonian answer for including both is the gold and white one is his sigil when he is the over-looked third son, and he adds the blue when he gets saddled with the Noldorin kingship.

Disclaimer: Here is a blend of Original Tolkien creations (aka my best efforts at recreating the author’s drawing), modifications on the original, and designs completely from cloth. Previous Entries can be found under the sigil tag. Please credit if use.

In order:

Elu Thingol, Melian

Notes:

Yes, I'm reposting these once more. Because if people in the Silmarillion/Tolkien fandom continue to use them, I want nice official links to them. And so another crosspost from tumblr project is born.

(Downloaders of the Sims set already knew my ranting and raging over bright aqua as a royal color of Renaissance-level-tech Doriath. A toss-up between dagged chief orange on bright blue or quartered aqua and logenzy black/dark gray for unusual royal banner color schemes…)

Melian is one of the oldest sigils made, and it shows. It’s a busy design, but for once I can’t be mostly blamed. That’s Tolkien’s fault. Luckily there’s enough white and black and gray to offset the blue, so her sigil still coordinates with Sindar gray flags and Lúthien 01.

Disclaimer: Here is a blend of Original Tolkien creations (aka my best efforts at recreating the author’s drawing), modifications on the original, and designs completely from cloth. Previous Entries can be found under the sigil tag. Please credit if use.

In order:

Fingolfin, Anairë, Fingon 01, Fingon 02, Turgon, Aredhel

Notes:

Yes, I'm reposting these once more. Because if people in the Silmarillion/Tolkien fandom continue to use them, I want nice official links to them. And so another crosspost from tumblr project is born.

I purposely made them similar in part for a sense of family consistency and continuity, but also because I’m not positive that, say, Fingon would have his own sigil instead of just using his father’s. The reason I made variation of banners is because it’s more fun. Also these are for decorating personal quarters and as story props, so if I don’t do most of the cast, then the few characters Tolkien made sigils for (one for Idril, but none fore the rest of her immediate family except her son?) don’t stick out like a sore thumb.

The lower half of the gonfale for the Nolofinwions is a dark blue with two silver stripes- per the two quotes in the text.

• Fingon’s is just a simplified version of his dad’s. The first only has 4 wavy points touching the edges as befitting a son and heir, whereas the second adds the other four points to make the 8 of the High King of the Noldor in Beleriand. Otherwise one could say that the first is Argon (the semi-canonical fourth child of Fingolfin), and the second is Fingon.
• Turgon’s is also similar, but with the red from his mother. This is a sly nod to his later Gondolin heraldry of ‘sun, moon, scarlet heart’. Note: Heraldry for Gondolin is much closer to real-world heraldry, and can work on regular wall hangings and shields. In other words, not this square format.
• Aredhel is heavier on the dark blues than ‘the White Lady of the Noldor’ would suggest, but I had to make it work with her father’s flag. The silver background is for her, and the floral elements are taken from other Noldor ladies. The sharp dark central flowers are a reference towards the rest of her family.
• Anairë is red and blue because those are my colors for her. My headcanon for Anairë ties into my thoughts on the Vanyar as the equivalent of medieval monasteries, thus the Vanyar initially are the ones making parchment and illuminating manuscripts. Then the Noldor would take over, some working in partnership with the Minyar ‘monks’. Anairë’s father, a courtier of Finwë, would go into a business alliance with a Vanyar noble, who would hire the Vanyar commoners to churn out the paper and legal documents that would be used by the government in Tirion. Thus Anairë would be very knowledgeable of court and interact often with bureaucrats there, meeting and marrying Fingolfin. Elenwë, Turgon’s wife, would be the daughter of said Vanyar noble- who is looked down by the other Minyar as far too Noldor. Thus, the flower makes me think of the pages of a book.

Disclaimer: Here is a blend of Original Tolkien creations (aka my best efforts at recreating the author’s drawing), modifications on the original, and designs completely from cloth. Previous Entries can be found under the sigil tag. Please credit if use.

In order:

Mahtan, Nerdanel, Edrahil

Notes:

Yes, I'm reposting these once more. Because if people in the Silmarillion/Tolkien fandom continue to use them, I want nice official links to them. And so another crosspost from tumblr project is born.

Because of the epessë Urundil, “copper-lover”, I wanted the color scheme to be heavy on the copper red. Nerdanel’s design was supposed to be a little more floral, but ended up just geometric and very gear-like. Which works. Because Mahtan is a smith: the cog-design and something vaguely flame-ish for the forges. And some Kirby dots. A cousin branch has the design turn into shapes of flame and calligraphy.

That third sigil is for a branch of mostly-original characters I’m making related through a sibling of Nerdanel. They ended up loosely based on the Tullys, and since I am using Istarnië, Nerdanel’s original name, as that of her mother, I didn't have a ready name for a sister of Nerdanel. So she gets a brother who has two daughters and a son. I took inspiration from “The Leithian Script” and made Edrahil a nephew once removed of Nerdanel, making this design his sigil -well, technically that of his father Eredhon.

In order:

• Mithrim is the sigil for the house in general and the personal device of the OC I finally named Eredhon. (Picture and description here). The shape is similar to those for Elmo and his family, with a small dash of Lúthien’s second sigil. The stylized floral elements are also key to my Sindar sigils- in this case hearkening to ornamental grasses to evoke the rolling plains of Ard Galen - and Eredhon’s early life as a reed weaver with his sister Linkwinên at Cuiviénen.
• Next is Meril, mother of Gil-galad. Her name means rose, and thus she has red flowers in an art nouveau design. She is the oldest of Eredhon’s grandchildren, and the name comes from one of the various proposed family trees for Ereinion Gil-galad. Simple and beautiful - and we won’t say anything about how the flower matching a lily more than a rose. Meril as the canny and powerful Lady of Hithlum, politically savvy and very intelligent. Which, if she’s married to Fingon, well, somebody has to be the smart one in that marriage.
• Ereglas was the name I initially adopted for her first cousin, the wife of Orodreth and mother of Finduilas. Her device centers around the holly. Though I was never as pleased with it as Meril’s, especially after I made the sigil for Finduilas. So as Ereglas is one of those gender-neutral names, I decided to rework the proposed name tree. Ereglas 02, reworked to fit the parameters of a male sigil, becomes the device for Eredhon’s second son who allies not with Fingolfin but with Finrod. His daughter, going by the oh-so-creative placeholder name of Eregiel, is the unnamed but needed mother of Finduilas. Her sigil has more similarities to her older and more glamorous cousin Meril, but retains the holly leaf. And her poppy-like flower is closer to the pale pink blooms of her daughter’s sigil.