Custom Coat of Arms - Commission

It was my pleasure to make this Father's Day gift for a great friend of mine. This Stevens family Coat of Arms (COA) is made on wood, using a wood burning tool. All parts of the piece have been burned and will be lasting there for a long time.

This piece had several different inspirations that brought it to be this finished product. One of the things that I like to do is research...about anything. So when it comes to researching a custom piece like this, my research side comes out not only to make it the best it can be, but also because it would feel wrong not to.

Coat of Arms' in general are both very similar and unique in their own ways. The traditional coat of arms (which is below) has the head a knight above a shield, with feathers or ribbons stemming from the top of the helmet. All of these attributes are displayed below. When seeing hundreds of other interpretations, you will see a variety of different knights, shields and ribbons. The ones I chose looked very interesting and displayed the look that was important for this COA. 

This Stevens family symbols (images on the shield) come from the Scottish family records for this last name. The two 'fleur-de-lis' and 'wreath' would not be interrupted for my design, I wanted them to stay exactly the same as the records would indicate. Other additions are the names of the Stevens children in the middle of the shield and the 'rampant lion' at the top of the piece. One of the first requests was to incorporate the names of the three boys into the design and the lion at the top is the exact same lion symbol used in the Scottish royal flag. 

The wood burning took about 20 hours. The darkest parts actually go the fastest most of the time. When the goal is the heavy burn, you can push down (to a certain degree) and the wood burns quickly. I tried to do a lot of shading in the piece, especially around the feathers. I wanted those pop out of the wood as best they could. Also some of the darkest shading is behind the shield for that same reason. The shield is the main focal point, so making that stand out is priority. The longest parts, of course, are the fine details throughout, being the letters, symbols, knight and shading in and around the feathers.