From Coat of Arms to Tartan: The Cadilhac Case.

[OC Richard]

My foremost inspiration is my family's coat of arms:



I designed the following tartan, based in particular on Québec's tartan:



(https://www.scotweb.co.uk/tartandesign/design/86306)

This confuses me. You say your foremost inspiration is that coat of arms, but then say your tartan is based on Quebec's.

Seems to me the options are

1) base a tartan on that coat of arms
2) base a tartan on Quebec's tartan
3) make a tartan combining elements of the two (which is what I think you did)

For to me, the coat of arms and the Quebec tartan are miles apart.

(The Quebec tartan)



I can see the value of fusing the coat of arms with an existing tartan (even though the two seem unrelated visually) because going directly from the coat of arms to tartan, a literal reading of the coat of arms in tartan terms, leads to a design that's not very attractive:



or

[cadilhac]

Thanks for your great input, @OC Richard! Indeed, my first attempts were way more true to the coat of arms, leading to designs that were either unappealing or did not look anything like tartans. To get a good "tartan feel" to it, I skimmed through dozens and dozens of designs, until I realized that I really like the construction of Québec's. Hence I used this pattern with the colors of the coat of arms, added the three stripes and some other minor tweaks, leading to my proposal above. Now certainly it does not respect the order given by the blazon, but I feel it is still somewhat faithful, and—also importantly—appealing. That the structure is given by Québec's tartan is thus but a lucky coincidence :-)

Cheers!

[OC Richard]

Looking back and forth between your tartan and the Quebec tartan, as best I can tell the two are the same, only with different colours.

That brings up the issue of whether it would be considered a new tartan, or not.

Because, if I understand the protocol (such as it is) when one changes the colours the tartan is still regarded as being the same tartan. Maybe it's a grey area. Because there are various colour variants of Royal Stewart (black, camel, grey, navy, white, etc) which are all still called "Stuart" (Black Stewart, Navy Stewart, etc) but on the other hand the colour variant of Royal Stewart with a royal blue background is called MacBeth.

Something to consider; somebody who doesn't know the correct name might end up calling your tartan "Black Quebec" or "Quebec Hunting".

Anyhow here's another stab at following the crest only, but reducing the white and trying to make it look "more like a tartan"

[Todd Bradshaw]

In terms of echoing the COA's colors, I think it does that quite well.

[cadilhac]

@OC Richard: Ah! That's a very interesting consideration, indeed! I did not think about registering this, and the Québec tartan is quite obscure due to its unofficial state, but you are definitely right. Punching the tartan in the official tartan website does not bring any close match, though, and the criteria for "new tartans" according to the official rules seem to allow just a change of color. I did not plan to register it, though.

Now the design you propose is getting even closer to my first attempt, here:



What's your educated opinion on it? Overloaded maybe? I wanted the Y2R2K2 cross to represent the open collar, but I'm not sure it is useful.

EDIT: I think I didn't think of it as "tartan enough" because of the colors (and my complete lack of understanding of tartans at this point :-) ) Playing a bit with the colors gives it a feel I like more.



Now I'm still playing with this Y2R2K2 (here a Y2R4K2), and maybe the best option would be to drop the Y altogether here.

@Todd Bradshaw: Thanks very much! You certainly are the Great Tartoonist of this forum :-)

[Todd Bradshaw]

Here is that one.

[OC Richard]

Playing a bit with the colors gives it a feel I like more.

Now that one is very, very nice!

Far better than my quick & dirty attempts.

It's quite lovely, and IMHO much better than the Quebec-based one.

The proportions are wonderful. The design has subtlety but strength.

Well done!

[figheadair]

I find the latest ineration a little too busy for my liking. Too many two thread stripes on too narrow a ground.

[Jock Scot]

I find the latest ineration a little too busy for my liking. Too many two thread stripes on too narrow a ground.

Purely as an observation might the "busy" look be less, if it was a larger sett?

[cadilhac]

@Todd Bradshaw: Awesome, thanks! I may lighten one of the colors as a result; this is great! If I end up finding the time, I'll code some piece of software that automagically does that, but it'll wait till I receive Barb's book :-)

@davidlpope: The coat of arms dates back from at least the fifteenth century and was the one used by my ancestors, of which I bear the family name. Seems legit enough to me :-) As for hitting the pause button, I asked my sister and she seems not prone to delaying her wedding for a year. Thanks for your feedback!

@OC Richard: My oh my, thanks, that's very kind! And there could also be a mix between this and Québec's, leading to something like this:

The possibilities are so endless! :-)

@figheadair @Jock Scot: Thanks a lot for your input! The 2-thread stripes are mainly concentrated on the blue to dark-blue portion, and the red cross is a Y2 R4 K2 indeed. Removing the 2-thread stripes on the blue portion, and adjusting the black a bit, gives a 7" sett that looks like:

which I find doesn't help to lighten up the pattern; simply removing most of them results in something that could be appealing:


Again, thanks all for your great comments; that's amazing! :-)