heget | Dec. 8th, 2018

Dec. 8th, 2018

In order:

Nandor, Mirkwood

Notes:

Here are sigls for two generalized Sindar-Silvan groups, both with near identical stories on how I created them: Green Elves of Ossiriand (Laiquendi or Nandor in general, Denethor, Dan) and Mirkwood (Oropher, Thranduil, Silvan in general)

I had some color palettes for houses, one of which I used a lot in the Amanyar elves. I would make random sigils using those color choices as practice. Originally the first one was just a palette swap of one of those old designs. It sat around in my geometric heraldry folder until I was making banners. I applied it to the mesh and thought, “Okay, the Nandor. My Green Elves need a banner, and this is plenty of green.” Art Nouveau pea flowers (sort-of) became House of Denethor (The Original). Another random design attempt had the right browns and greens that when I was pressed to give something to the whole Oropher-Thranduil-Legolas clan, I also revived this one from the back of the folder and rechristened it Mirkwood. Actually I may go back and make a more Sindarized version of this for Oropher in the First Age, but this is the sigil for the Second and Third Age in Mirkwood/Greenwood the Great.

In order:

Galathil, Celeborn

Notes:

I posted the Nandor yesterday so that today I could post the sigils of the two sons of Galadhorn. Yes, I firmly believe in the version of Celeborn’s origin where he is the second son of Thingol’s nephew, and his brother is the father of Nimloth.

First of all, the various grays and the cluster of circles and star are taken from other Sindar sigils, Lúthien 01 in particular. The shades of green match those from the Nandor sigil, because I tentatively adopted an idea from Marnie’s fic that Celeborn and Galathil’s mother was a sister of Denethor/Denweg (Talk about minor character I fell in love with). I love connecting family trees and alliances. So when Denethor and his followers enter Beleriand, enthusiastically greeted by the Sindar, Thingol’s young nephew Galadhorn falls in love with and marries a sister or daughter of Denethor. To reconcile that with the remark that Denthor and all his kin (see, he needs a clan) die in the battle at Amon Ereb is simple enough: have Galadhon and his wife be among the dead. Thus Galathil and Celeborn are orphans, raised by their uncle, and when Galathil is old enough he goes to live with his mother’s people. He is not counted a leader among them but is the liaison between them and Doriath. Thus his daughter, Nimloth, will be in the area when Beren and Luthien move to Tol Galen.

Celeborn’s device is rather simple to explain- silver tree. Galathil I took the same shape and then played around, ending up with these things that look sort of like birds or hilts of a sword. Which I like, especially as a call forward to the events of the Second and Third Kinslaying. (I tentatively picture Celeborn and Galadriel travelling over the Blue Mountains during the Long Peace, but that Galathil dies in Doriath trying to protect his grandsons).

In order:

Elmo, Nimloth, Círdan

Notes:

More Iathrim today! And a lord of the Falathrim. This one is a mixed bag of characters, all unified in their positions as important auxiliary characters to the Sindar in Beleriand.

First up, my favorite minor character of all time, because he provides handy explanations for such questions I care about as: where do all these kinsman of Thingol like Celeborn and Eöl and Nimloth connect? Who was leading the Eglath during the search for Elu when Olwë and his portion of the Teleri abandoned the search? How easy is to generate interest in the various elves of the Silmarillion when I offhand mention one was named Elmo? (It is a most amusing tactic.)

So his design, which currently pulls double duty for him and his son Galadhon, has the basic outline from Celeborn and Galathil, the art nouveau flower designs of the rest of the Sindar, and a bit of the dreaded aqua of Elu.

Nimloth is Galathil’s daughter- she married Lúthien and Beren’s son Dior. Becomes the only other Queen of Doriath, filling in the shoes of a minor goddess. (Why is there virtually nothing written about Dior and Nimloth? Because they sound fascinating. Dior is technically the first half-elf or something.)
Nimloth’s device came about because the white flower I was building became too elaborate and large for possible use in Galadriel. But it was perfect nearly on its own for the maiden whose name literally means ‘White Flower’.

Her background colors are the darkest shade of the Nandor green and a bit of the evergreen in Mirkwood (my tentative idea is if Oropher has any connection to Sindar royalty, it is through Nimloth’s mother.)

With the shipwright I had an easy time deciding on motifs to work into his device. Waves and a ship’s wheel cover the bases- and I chose the colors deliberately. Gil-galad of those silver stars on a dark blue background was sent as a young child to foster with Círdan for safety. So as much as Gil-galad’s device echos that of Fingon and Fingolfin before him, I also wanted parallels to Círdan. Círdan also mentors Eärendil, so all three need to fit together.
And like Eärendil, his sigil is not perfectly symmetrical. Oops.

Well, Círdan had a beard. He can break a few elven conventions.

In order:

Eöl, Maeglin

Notes:

Confession: I do love both of these characters- and that I loved Eöl long before I fell into with Maeglin.

But as for their sigils- Eöl has the dark background and heavily black design as befitting not just a Sindar but one with the epithet “the Dark Elf”. The points of his device are black swords in honor of the the two dark sisters, Anglachel and Anguirel, with evergreen stylized leaves and loops for the woods of Nan Elmoth.

Maeglin’s elven heraldry sigil (as opposed to the field of sable for the Gondolin shield) was to take the dark sigil of his dad and add the darker blues from his mother’s side. The bits of stylized curlicues are based on the Sindarin art nouveau flowers, but end up looking as much like moth wings or curving lines as they do any flower. Which works for him.
His banner to match with the sigil actually ended up a personal favorite.

In order:

Tidal Pools, Seashells 01, Seashells 02

Notes:

These are all for the most part without attached stories, at least when I made them, though all have the sea in common. Today’s options are Falmari- the Teleri of Aman, or Falathrim - the Teleri of Beleriand’s coast.

Tidal pool is exactly that- whirlpools, ripples, water reeds, the colors of Alqualondë. The family is Falmari, and the circle has expanded beyond the frame of the lozenge diamond like ripples.
Seashell 01 is the other Falmari design- a stylized conch shell, light beach sand colors. There is still no OCs attached to this sigil.
Seashell 02 is for a Falathrim family, hence the darker colors to fit with Círdan and not Olwë. It’s also a very oblique reference to another book series. Consael and his sister Faelineth come from a family on the coast, even if they were born in Himlad. (They are based off the Westerlings, whose sigil was six white seashells on gold.)

In order:

Arwen Undómiel

Notes:

The only one for a character born in the Third Age, so far. Because I had made her mother’s sigil, Arwen only needed simple adjustments. A different ring of art nouveau flowers. I changed the color scheme to mauves and dusky purples- as Undómiel they struck me as proper twilight colors. Also several of her movie costumes and set surroundings were in that color family, so those plus silver had become my mental cues for her. Compared to some of the First Age designs- especially Lúthien or Idril- it is far simpler. Which I like.

In order:

Fëanorian (Celebrimbor), Formenos

Notes:

The banner for the Fëanorians is reddish-orange stripes on a gray field with a yellow insert (I’ll post all the matching banners once I finish the sigils), so I decided there needed to be a simplified version of Fëanorian troops without the yellow insert, a general war banner if you will, with only the Star of Fëanor. Which, if you can tell- the star on Fëanor’s sigil is completely different from the star on the Doors of Moria, and I ended up using the star pattern as symbolic of the Noldor in Exile as a group. But Celebrimbor also needed a sigil, because he though he repudiated his father and uncles he still periodically claimed his place as a scion of House Fëanor. So this is also his sigil. Ignore that it's a feminine design. Or not. I don't care about him, so pick your headcanon.

Lot of stars, but red-orange background.

I borrowed Dawn Felagund’s ideas from Another Man’s Cage about some of the wives of the seven sons, namely that there was one or two Noldor lords living in the area that would become Formenos (royal hunting park, perhaps?), at least one of them a heavily Fëanorian partisan. Thus the sigil I nicknamed Formenos, for the family of Curufin or Caranthir’s wife.

Sort of says here’s a fiery elf with little issues with arson and larceny, necessary requirements for that bunch.

Either one, if you pressed gun to my head and demanded a sigil for Miríel ~~Therindë~~Serindë I guess could work. She’s near the bottom of the list of female elves I like, but as these are both circular design feel free to assign such.

In order:

Berry Blush Ornate, Berry Blush Rose

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.

Eh, we’re getting towards the back of the list where I have all the randomly made sigils for OCs, background filler, and when I to play with color schemes. Berry, blush, buttermilk, and sand were four colors from the Tulip Grove palette set for certain buildings, so I wanted a device to match. The first Ornate attempt, old as it is, you can see doesn’t work half as well tilted the proper 45° as it does a square. But as I was playing with new art nouveau and rondel designs, I went back to the color scheme and made this flower, the matching Rose. Which makes a matching set of noble family and female scion of the house. If I could ever decide which elves would work. Probably Vanyar.

I promise some of the random OC sigils are more interesting, and I still have named characters upcoming.

In order:

Amroth, Amdir, Nimrodel, Mithrellas

Notes:

Remember me complaining about how difficult it was to make the Arafinwion sigils?

Well, in the process of trying to make them, one of the failed designs was this- with a central elements from Finarfin but in darker greens and four white flowers. Which, after I looked at it, made me think of Amroth of Lothlórien -its lord before Galadriel and Celeborn. Especially with the darker greens and fluted white lilies make me think of him and Nimrodel. Now because some versions have Amroth as Galadriel and Celeborn’s son, while the more common version has him as Amdir's son but good friends with them, I adopt my ‘little of both’ headcanon where he was either their son but fostered from a young age with Amdir, or vice versa. Thus he can have the symbol of Finarfin in muted colors in the center of his device. Which ends up looking sort of like the Cerin Amroth or Caras Galadhon…

Later, I was requested by laurelsblue to make Amdir and/or Mithrellas, so I decided to round out the Lórinand/Laurelindórnan set. Hooray for the Second and Third Age.
While I still hold mutually exclusive head-canons of which background is canon for Amroth - if he is the son of Galadriel and Celeborn or Amdir - he is the second lord of the Golden Woods and the basis on which I worked the rest of this set.

For Amdir I took Amroth’s sigil and removed the Finarfinwion central element and retained only the more muted shades of green and brown - which as they are the same or similar to the palette for the Mirkwood and other Nandorin sigils it works perfectly for this Sindar lord living among the Silvan and Nandor west of the Misty Mountains. I kept and repeated the simplified lily motif and added a very art nouveau inspired stem with double seed pods. And some subtle leaves in the background. Another name for this character was Malgalad, and he died with half of his troops cut off during the Battle of Dagorlad.

Nimrodel took the basic shape and the leaves from Amdir, but a little warmer and golden for the neutrals. The pale yellow is the same from that of Celebrían, which fits their mutual connection to the rulers of Lothlórien. Nimrodel was the beloved of a Lord of Lothlórien, after all. At first I thought to have something blue for her stream, but it clashed. The browns invoke the platforms of the flets of her arboreal house. Overall it feels warm and clearly celebratory of her home.

Mithrellas is an alternate of Nimrodel’s leaf wreath with a heavily stylized flower in pale eglantine. I can make a case for fewer points, as befitting a lady-in-waiting. Again no blue for the ancestress of Dol Amroth, but the white and black center is vaguely Gondorian. And something about another pale pink flower like the ones on Finduilas’s sigil for the most obscure Elf/Edain marriage - and the only one that truly fits the European fairy bride archetypal tale, what with the man taking home a lost elven bride, her bearing him children, and then abandoning the family after a period of years. All other peredhil couples stay together and share a fate (or implied to with Tuor/Idril). So what was up with Mithrellas and Imrazôr?

In order:

Purple, Emerald, Red Loops, Lotus, Fire, Swamp Green

Notes:

Here are most of the random sigils I made for background filler or to give other color options.

Purple: I hadn’t the chance to use much purple, thistle, or lilac before. As a design it could possibly work for any of my Calaquendi elves. It has enough white to be a Vanyar, the geometry is Noldor, and the grace and lightness can keep it Teleri. If it ends up for anyone, it’ll probably be a mixed family.
Emerald: green and black. And for once I kept the design relatively clean and uncluttered.
Red Loops: Red and sand, and circlural for a hypothetical female. I could make jokes about the use of dark red and crimson meaning this is for the Eldar equivalent of the ‘Lady in Red’. I guess we now know which faeries abducted Bella Goth…
Lotus: another old design using the color scheme that would later go to Anairë. The design itself is geometrical. Okay, every single one of these could be described as such. It’s not quite Egyptian or Near Eastern. It’s still an elf, but for what, I don’t know. But still passable to be included in the CC sets.
Fire: another simplified design, this time with more oranges and reds for a fiery device. Obviously a Noldo.
Swamp Green: Trying to work with art nouveau flower designs, greens and golds. And instead of something for Glorfindel I found myself making the sigil for any hypothetical swamp elf.

In order:

Kitsune

Notes:

Another one of the random designs, but this one is so …funny, unique? that it really deserves its own. When making the last set of sigils to do the download sets, I asked for requests of color schemes. One option I was give was black and sand and orange - something raptor or owl-like. The central rondel design came along nicely, but when I started crafting the outer points, what morphed into front of my eyes was a little fox face. So I continued with that idea and decided the center rays now looked like the bushy multiple tails of a kitsune.

I don’t have the slightest clue what Tolkien elf would have this sigil, but I really like it.

In order:

Hummingbird

Notes:

Another one-off random design, Hummingbird originally started with trying to make something evocative of my ruby-throat hummingbirds (personal familial reason). By the time I got to the red stars, it was evoking something else. So I likely won’t be used in-game, but I did retry the palette one of these days.

In order:

Aranwë, Winterfell, Mithmeren

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.Here are some of the fusion crossovers with ASoIaF. Okay, wait, let me explain! (More explanations for some are in this post as well)

So I mention how most of these random sigils are just as background -to give extra banners in throne rooms for the allusion of liege lords and larger populations. And that also when I have to make all the unnamed background and bit-part characters, the soldiers and servants following our leaders, it’s easier for me to think of characters from other stories and adapt them in.

Now Lalwen/Irimë already had a sigil with what looked like golden antlers. And one of the theories I read that tried to explanation UT Voronwë’s claim of being of the house of Finwë (though like with Gildor “this has to be an alias” Ingolrion I tend to judge this statements as being a vassal under the house) was that his father Aranwë was either married to or the son of Finwë’s daughter that came to Beleriand. Therefore Voronwë was Lalwen's son or grandson. I just went with him as her trusted, overworked steward. So a little black with the gold antlers and I have Aranwë and can chortle about having the elf Baratheon banners to fit the rocking deer.

Winterfell. Umm, yep, I wanted to give the Starks a story where they could stay happy AU family. Pity I fused them into The Silmarillion, so I think my outline ends up killing even more of them, but since they’re Noldor they can at least be resurrected without problems. Because I found the idea of an elf version of Robb Stark as one of Finrod’s ten companions that get eaten by the werewolves a little too darkly humorous. The family is one of the few I have living in the proto-Formenos area, and I can give a long post on them elsewhere. But also- I needed a sigil with that different color scheme.

Mithmeren are the Greyjoys as Falathrim, as explained here. Because the only characters I really care about nowadays are Jeyne Poole and Theon Greyjoy, and I had to give them a happy ending in my Sims game if nowhere else.

They don’t get more silly than this.

In order:

Valar, Almaren Academie, War of Wrath Banner, Valar Colored, Valar Colored GIF 01, Valar Colored GIF 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.

I decided to do the odd section. It's a bit of a hodgepodge of Valar sigil madness. What little Valar worship or set-up I had in my Sims 2 game (There are different approaches to set up the appearance of the practice of religion in Sims 2, especially those that play a more traditionally medieval/medieval-fantasy-esque games), I still needed a symbol for the Valar as a whole (and Silmarillion is unusual in the relationship of its “These are not gods” and the elves “They don’t actually worship them”. But then the first elves we meet in Lord of the Rings are singing hymn to Varda on a pilgrimage.). For individual Ainur I just use a color that fit their theme, but I needed a “Valar sigil” for a few rare occasions like the design to stamp the center of the Ring of Doom.

So finally I came up with the above monochromatic thing. And quartered symmetry does not lend itself well to divisions of 14.
If you’re wondering, yes, I’ve labelled in my head which of the dots corresponds to which Valar.

Now the real reason I needed a Valar sigil was because, if you’ve read about my world-building for my game, you’ll know I had something called the “Almaren Academie”, a college neighborhood. And any college campus is going to need a school symbol and school colors and a flag. Working off the Valar symbol I changed it to reflect the Isle of Almaren - and subsequently made the school colors bright blue and spring green. It’s a garish checkerboard. (I’m delighted).

The third image is one of the banners, the more flag-like designs that fit on square and rectangular meshes. This one is the adaptation of the white with gold banners of Ingwë and therefore the Vanyar. But because I see the War of Wrath, when Inwgë’s son leads all the Vanyar and Finarfin the Noldor that stayed in Aman to a 50-year war where, with Valar help, they utterly defeated Morgoth and all his armies, as something of a holy crusade on the part of the Vanyar. They do literally have their divine figures not only sanctioning but assisting it. So, like a crusader flag, I’ve added the symbol of the Valar to the banner, so this will be the banner of the Vanyar soldiers during the War of Wrath.

LATER, I made the colored and animated version:

Something fun for teamainur, because there’s a strong sense of pride I feel seeing my sigil for the valar showing up in places I would have never imagined and it makes me almost as happy as the fans celebrating and creating fanart and head-canon posts for the Ainur. I have always liked the Valar, and they are dear to me as much as any character from the Silmarillion (dearer than many).

Now when I made the Valar sigil, I noted that while making this symbol for all fourteen, I used basic color as my individual ‘heraldry’ for each Power, and that on the sigil itself I had assigned each Vala to one of the circles. So here, finally, is the full color version of the sigil, and because such things amuse me, two gifs of our rotating color wheel of doom*.

Bonus points to everyone that can correctly label which 'slice’ is which Valar.

(Originally Ulmo was in a different location, as I struggled between placing the Aratar at the four points and desiring to have spouses and siblings next to each other, as I also see this layout as the seating arrangement of their counsels.)

*yes, a Máhanaxar pun.

Eru Ilúvatar, if you were wondering, is the large white circle in the center. ;)

In order:

Túrin Turambar, Gwindor

Notes:

Not a great deal of characters from “The Tale of Túrin Turambar” needed sigils made, being already done or as a member of a group (human tribe or march-warden of Doriath) and thus not needing one.

But I decided if Beren got his own sigil because of his quest and fame, that Túrin was enough a character, the central figure of his own Middle-earth epic, to need one as well. Followers watched me work on this - the gold is for Glaurung, the red for blood (the red flowers for the seregon on Amon Rûdh), green almost-scale-like pattern, and of course dominated by the Black Sword and the Dragon-helm in the center. It mimics the designs of Beren, and the three Houses of the Edain.

Gwindor, because he was from a noble house of Nargothrond, even if I can’t figure out how or why aside from the fact that he was betrothed to Princess Finduilas, .gets a family sigil. These shades of brown and green where always the colors I had pegged for him, and the white floral element matches the art nouveau embellishments but also looks like a ungulate face. Both are imagery that I find appropriate for him.

Followers should also find this familiar, because it was my EXAMPLE on how I make this.

In order:

Dior, Elwing

Notes:

What, you thought these were done?

I’d debated on whether Dior Elúchil, as Thingol’s Heir and thus someone who must come in and desperately try to fill his role (We get virtually no information on Dior and Nimloth, which I thought completely unfair because they were the two I had the most questions about and were most interested in). But in the end I made him his own sigil because he deserves some attention. It’s basically a deconstruction of Elu’s, with a touch of Beren’s sigil.

Elwing would always get her own sigil in my plans, and for her device I used the second of Lúthien’s designs as heavy inspiration. Aside from some touches of sea blue-green, her main color comes from the secondary aqua accent and some of the dark green from Nimloth. She was Star-spray, and while I could have gone the route of heavy emphasis on the sea and gulls, she was born a princess of Doriath in Tol Galen.

So, just in time for Father’s Day, two sigils for two characters that are very precious to me.

Looking at the two images I can find so far of the Númenorean sigil- and crying.

What the fuck is this? No, you do not do this to me. That center would have been bad enough, not to mention the color gradient rainbow, but the rest of it? (Okay, anyone getting the feeling the 4 designs in the corner are actually their one circular devices, maybe for different regions of Númenor?) But bullshit on me recreating this any time soon for Elros.

I knew that sigil would be a pain, but-

Oh no, It's much worse.

In order:

Elros, Elrond

Notes:

Wow, twin designs!

Okay, what they really are is when I take the absurdly, near-impossibly to recreate complicated Númenor sigil, simplify the outside circles, and revamp the color scheme to something coherent and less like Saruman having his Many-Color phase. Elros has all the blues of Eärendil, while Elrond has more browns, greens, and yellows. The design, coming from the base Númenor, is extremely apparent that it takes its cues from the sigil of Idril (which Tolkien explains that it should), but there are also hints of Lúthien’s second device (and the Bëor). Which again, makes perfect sense. I tried to play up the dual sense of their ancestry here, both boys echoing back to the three houses of the Edain, to Doriath, to Gondolin, and even though they chose different fates, neither is more elvish than the other.

And if anyone characters are entitled to complicated, those two are.

In order:

Tuor

Notes:

Okay, so I had Beren and then made a Túrin, and there was a canon Idril and Eärendil, and I filled in everyone else on the family tree but Tuor. So he deserved his own sigil.

Sigils for Edain means only vertical symmetry.

The background shapes with the spears are directly from the sigil of the House of Hador. The black, white, grays, and blues are from Eärendil - as is the star in the north a call forward to the Star of Hope - and something directly copied from Beren’s sigil. The white wings are a nod to the shield he found in Vinyamar and which he took as his token- Gondolin has more conventional heraldry as opposed to the fractal absurdities of these sigils. Also from the tale “Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin” are the swans that bow to him and proffer a feather each which he attaches to the crest of his helm. And waves shapes at the bottom for Ulmo.

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:
The Silmarils

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.

As a special gift to myself and all my followers, I decided it was time that I tackle that last “Tolkien Original”. I may not ever recreate the full Númenórean sigil (but that thing is a nightmare) but there was one last sigil design from Tolkien’s watercolors that I had put aside. It is the only heraldry example we have not for a person or a country or unit, but for an object. As these are the rather important plot trinkets for several stories in the Silmarillion, and that which gives the published work its name, if any object is entitled to one, it would be the Silmarils. Well, I think the Two Trees themselves would be a little higher on the list.

But as for the sigil itself, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Yet another brand new star design inside a white circle are the three gems, and the tree in the background, going by the gold elements, is Laurelin. Don’t ask me why Tolkien only put that one tree - maybe as a balance for all the white trees elsewhere, as the White Tree of Gondor represents saplings from Nimloth, taken from Celeborn on Tol Eressëa from Galathilion the White Tree in Tirion that Yavanna made from Telperion. The tree design is very close to that used for the sigil of Haleth.

The Follower Request Hour!

For priimitives: a sigil following her design and guidelines for an OC family. Colorful and fun, with the central motif of a Dandelion.
For princeofmenegroth: a canon character. Saeros needed his own sigil, so I used the same set of olive greens from what ended up for the Nandor, with touches of grey for the moon, as Saeros’s father was named Ithilbor. The leaves are stylized beech leaves, to match the forests of Neldoreth and the columns of Menegroth. Plus one of Daeron’s epithets was ‘prince of beech and elm’, and Saeros was a good friend of Daeron.
For anghraine: Okay, human characters in the Third Age would not have this style of heraldry, but I made an exception (and our Wastonian answer can be that Legolas and Faramir drew this up for her as a gift). So here is Eowyn in her role as the Lady of Ithilien. Round sigil for female, and yes it has radial symmetry instead of the only vertical of mortals, but then the Bëor also had both lines of symmetry, so I’m not too concerned. Emerald field with gold and silver to suggest the shape of a shield, for her famous deed. Around the border are stylized white horse heads for Rohan, though the stars and floral spikes are for Gondor and Ithilien.
For rabababe: The other elven sigil connected to Ithilien in the Fourth Age would be Legolas himself, so I just took the Mirkwood sigil I use for Thranduil and his son and father, simplified the design and lightened the colors, and added some stars for association with Gondor and its Dúnedain.
For berthelien: She asked for something with water lilies, and I was glad to comply. Especially as I use art nouveau flower designs for my sigils, especially those belonging to Sindarian characters. The Water Lilies work well for any of the Teleri, and the strong geometric element, the central pale yellow flower and white base, both can also work for the Noldor or Vanyar respectively. I did two variations- the second one could work for a male character if the 'points’ of the lily pad leaves are retained.
For yavieriel: We’ve talked about our different OCs for Mahtan’s family, and how we both had the idea of one of his female descendants marrying a Vanya and combining both song and smith-craft in blissful harmony. So here is the sigil for one of Mahtan’s granddaughters, who loves beauty and craft and peace. If I have a Noldo OC of Catelyn Stark, then her younger sister is the other nieceof Nerdanel, Lissë, the 'Lysa’ who in this universe marries someone that loves her above all others, who doesn’t lose any children or stand in her sister’s shadow. Who is quiet happy in her home high in the Pelóri Mountains. The design itself starts with the devices for Mahtan, but more russets and oranges and softer flowers.

Morwen - she was beautiful enough to earn the title Elfsheen, but also touchy with inner steel strength and pride. I had some art nouveau roses set aside and thought Morwen would be a perfect match. Made sure to give the roses large and pointy thorns. The green, gray, and red all come from either the Hador or Bëor sigil, as Morwen was born of one tribe and married into the other. The emphasis on circles is also a carry-over from the Bëor sigil.
If Morwen had red roses, then Nienor got white. And I can justify my arbitrariness by pointing out that the ‘Lay of Leithian’ mentions white roses growing in Neldoreth, and Nienor does spend time in that area. Plus white roses seem to be something the ties into Nienna the Vala of grief and winter. (That white roses are also symbols of remembrance, weddings, purity, innocence, and new beginnings…) Same for the use of blue-grays. While based heavily on her mother’s sigil, Nienor’s device also matches that for Túrin with the red rays on gold. And the dragon scale pattern - Glaurung has to be there somehow. The spears are from Hador (and Tuor).

Tar-Míriel who should have been the fourth Queen. For her sigil I had a simple design goal. I took Elros’s sigil, which is a simplification of the Númenórean sigil nightmare, and leeched away all color. Partly because of Tar-Mírel’s connection to the White Tree Nimloth, but also as a call-forward to the flag of Gondor with white on black. Also she grew up and then suffered through Númenor’s decline and darkest days. Not a lot of color nor joy. Some of the shapes are the thin-throat lilies coming down from Idril, but most come from the Númenor sigil itself. Nothing of Sauron or Ar-Pharazôn the Golden - in fact now that I check it has the same palette as the Valar.

Voronwë was the other request that I felt comfortable to execute- as I had already made Aranwë, based off of Lalwen. Which comes from a mildly popuar fanon that Aranwë was either Lalwen’s son or husband to expand Voronwë’s comment in one draft that he was a lord of the House of Finwë. Which honestly could just mean Voronwë and his family were sworn to the service of the royal family - which he was as a vassal of Turgon. Still, having Aranwë show a connection to Lalwen via the sigils was a fun idea, of which I explain away as Aranwë being Lalwen’s steward or first ranking noble supporter. Thus Vornowë’s high position among the Noldor. Of course on his Sindarian mother’s side he is possible kin to Círdan. And Voronwë’s most important deeds as as sailor and then friend and guide to Tuor, and sailor again. So the golden antler-like shapes of his father (but only 4), but on the blues of the ocean like Eärendil.

The first one is when I decided to play around with pinks and greens. And as I made the sigil, I realized that as this was a device for a diagonal lozenge - that is a male-identifying character - I started to imagine just who this was. Anyways, pink until recently was considered a manly color in Western culture. The greens are among the various shades I tend to give to Sindar, Silvan, and especially Nandor elves. Thus I had the idea of a Nandor scout and leader that delighted in the brink light pink blossoms of fruit trees, who wore a crown of cherry blossoms that stood out from the rest of his green camouflage. A captain that laughed from the tree branches as he slaughtered orcs, as brilliantly ornamental and viciously territorial as a hummingbird (and for those unfamiliar with those buzzers, there is a good reason the Aztec god of war was associated with them). Flamboyant, charismatic, vengeful, this Nandor guerrilla warrior tolerates no outsiders in his forests but a few Sindar and Beren and Lúthien - and only in honor of Denethor and Thingol’s charge to Amon Ereb. He has no love for the Second-Comers, would gleefully turn the Fëanorians into giant pincushions if he ever found them alone, and the orcs flee screaming in terror if they smell the scent of the cherry blossoms. The soldiers of the Army of Valar that meet up with him during the War of Wrath think he’s as rabid and disturbing in his harsh blood-lust as any servant of Morgoth - cautionary fear of what they could become in this war on the shores of the land so heavily tainted by Melkor. So I’ve taken to calling this sigil Sakurai, not just for the cherry blossom pink but for the connection to the samurai - in this case to the dark militaristic take during World War II.
Heledir (Quenya Halatir) translates to “Kingfisher” and if you couldn’t tell from the color scheme, this is a Noldo. Not just any Noldo, but the name for a particular OC. Heledir is a follower of Finrod Felagund who served as the Captain of the Guard for Nargothrond, the direct military subordinate who led its armies and also trained its soldiers. Two of which were Gelmir and Gwindor. Others were among the ten - like Heledir himself - who chose to follow Finrod on the quest to aid Beren, and thus died in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. My Band of the Red Hand. Aside from the blue and oranges of a very Noldor combination (Honestly, Finwë…), I wanted to evoke the coloration of kingfisher birds. The central design is actually copied from Finrod’s original pre-Bëorian sigil, though I added a ray profusion of arrows to show that Heledir was originally a hunter and then the Nargothrond equivalent to Mablung. As for Heledir himself, the captain of guard is a cheerful and prank-loving elf with a warm and protective fostering attitude towards the men under his care. And he loves to drag his friend and civilian counterpart, Edrahil, on long camping trips up to Lake Ivrin. (Yes, borrowing ideas off The Leithian Script.)
Soldier is my tongue-in-cheek reference to two OCs I based of characters from another canon. I’m sure you can guess which two. (Bân and Fâan, aka Zack Fair and Cloud Strife) The elven OCs are a pair of guards serving under Heledir who, when their king asks for volunteers to help in the quest for Beren, these two survivors of the Fen of Serech stand loyally with Finrod. And thus both of them die in captivity in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. They are both exiles from Aman, one a dark-haired Noldo with bright eyes and a personality best described as exuberant, the other with the same blonde hair and at least partly Vanyar background like Glorfindel. Only this former farm-boy is both shier and less skillful than the mighty Balrog-Slayer - though there is a strength there that survives until almost the end. The senior soldier happens to be in a long-distance romance with one of Melian’s handmaiden, who learns around the time Princess Lúthien begs Daeron for help to mount a rescue that no more letters will reach her fair soldier beau. The second soldier has a girl back in Tirion that he wanted to impress by joining the fighting and becoming strong enough to come to her rescue one day. Instead, he will die in the werewolf pits delirious with pain after watching his best friend give up his own life to buy him a few more days. And the girl back home will join the Army of Valar under King Finarfin and punch her way through a few of Morgoth’s fell beasts in revenge for him. The sigil has the central device from Finrod and Heledir, and for once the bright aqua has less to do with Doriath and more to do with mako.

In order:

Sea Leafing 01, Sea Leafing 02, Kamon Blue, Brandy-lily

Notes:

The greens are pale aspens and sea-foam, which can be a color of the Teleri (Falmari or otherwise). But the rest of the sigil are gold-lined leaves on white, which is Vanyar. Not just the gold on white, but the use of iris-like leaf clusters. So it is the sigil of a high-ranking Vanyar noble. Perhaps one that fought in the War of Wrath and worked closely with the Teleri navy that transported them (which the two groups had limited connect before the War of Wrath but would have a very close working relationship during the 50 years at the end of the First Age). In fact, it is quite easy to imagine an OC Vanya general falling in love and marrying on of the Teleri captains that worked logistics to supply and transfer the troops of the Army of the Valar that defeat Morgoth and usher in the Second Age. The second sigil has darker blues in a sun-ray pattern and fits the feminine circle as opposed to the masculine diagonal lozenge. Thus one of the most interesting families of the Second to Third Age, the blonde mariners that speak in a soft slow sing-song Quenya as they visit ports in Númenor and bring back the lays of Beleriand- the widely popular Lay of Leithian and Narn i Hurin and stories of the Edain. And then I was stumped at what to call the pair of sigils, which others can attest to. In the end I went with a terrible pun, so they are Sea Leafing 01 and 02.

Kamon Blue. It’s blue. The design is a straight copy of a roundel fleuron, and it has eight points and can fit in a circle so it would work for a noble lady, probably Noldor. Simple, clean, monochromatic, also vaguely like a kamon. Which, yeah, the elven heraldric devices Tolkien created seem as much like Japanese mon as they do European coat-of-arms.

Brandy-lily. Narrow lilies in brandy and crimson, with light yellow green stalks and leaves, and some matching stars (no, not just something for the Fëanorian eight-point star on the doors of Moria -which doesn’t even match the eight-point star on Fëonar’s sigil. Stars of every style and point from 4 to 16 fit across the board for every single tribe. They are all the Eldar who love the stars: Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, Sindar, Silvan, even Avari). The floral structure is something that fits with the other non-royal Vanyar sigils - the monks and farmers and soldiers I have made. Though these Minyar monks, I have the feeling, know how to party hard. Someone has to be the monks that (re-)invent champagne.

In order:

Poppies, Snow Lilies

Notes:

A pair of floral feminine sigils for two Noldor ladies. Both are inspired by motif requests - laurelsblue asked for poppies and evenelvish requested snow and lilies. The Poppies are directly inspired by one of Alphonse Mucha’s color lithographs, and the bold colors and geometric maze-work fit the Noldor aesthetic to my original sigil designs. Art nouveau flowers, however, are a Sindarin element, so my story for this device is that it belongs to a Noldor lady born in the Second or Third Age, when the Sindarin culture brought back by the returning Exilies and thousands of elves reembodied in Valinor have influenced visual design in Aman. She’s a very trendy and fashionable young lady and writes sappy poetry about Edain heroes.

The Snow Lilies is the sigil for my OC from this family - if I have a Noldor version of the Starks of Winterfell, I have to have the elven version of Sansa. All her family but her mother and baby brother go into Exile (Most will stay Cousin Edrahil under Finrod), though her father died at Alqualondë, and she breaks off her betrothal to a blonde Vanya punk and goes to live with a much happier and healthier Aunt Lysa. Nor does she lose her Valinorean Hound, Lady. The color scheme is the same as Winterfell, and for once a white flower on a sigil that isn’t nimphredil.

In order:

Beleg Cúthalion, Mablung, Daeron

Notes:

I had sigils for Saeros of all characters and obscure members of Thingol’s extended family, so today’s set finally gives heraldric devices to three important and often-mentioned dudes of Doriath. Even if personally I don’t see them as lords in their own right or that Doriath had the same rigid obsession with lords and individual heraldry as say Gondolin. Still.

Beleg Cúthalion was easy to make a device when I decided to focus on the fact that his famous bow, Belthronding, of which he is named is made of black yew. Thus the red yew ‘fruit’ and four fronds of yew pine leaves. The curved outline evokes a black re-curved bow without being too blatant. All three devices carry over the Doriath-standard black, gray, and silver in order to incorporate its banners.
With Mablung I used the evergreen and muted blue-green colors from accents in Elwing, Nimloth, and other relatives of Elu Thingol. The central design comes directly from Tolkien’s sigil for Queen Melian. As Mablung was chief of the March-wardens of Doriath and both a personal attendant, bodyguard, and most trusted messenger, diplomat, and representative for Thingol and Melian, he’s entitled to it. The rest of the sigil is clearly dominated by the set of large axes. Mablung weilded an ax as a weapon - as did the dwarves of which Doriath had trade and cultural exchange, the Haladim who fought along side the March-wardens, and other heroes in the Silmarillion like Tuor and Húrin. And the curving shape does hearken to a gibbous moon.
For Daeron I had to include the calligraphic lines that appear in Saeros’s sigil but in Menegroth’s blacks and grays instead of Ossiriand greens. Then I repeated the niphredil motifs that appear in both of Lúthien’s sigils because Daeron is obsessed with her (or in older versions is just her older brother and thus not romantically linked). I also included a Cirth symbol (the one for d as the first letter of his name, echoing the g for Gandalf). Daeron is the inventor of the Cirth or Dwarvish Runes. As the inventor of a written language and the premier lore-master of an entire civilization, it was important enough to highlight on his heraldic device. He’s also the foremost elven musician to ever live, but that’s harder to put on a sigil.

In order:

Bortë 01, Bortë 02, Bortë 03, Bortë 04, Bortë 05

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 could not decide on a color scheme, so instead I went wild on variations. Why a vulture? One of my favorite OCs is Bortë, first Queen of Númenor, and she needed a sigil that while keeping the Númenórean frame had a vulture and a sun.

One of my favorite lesser-known or focused-on people are those of Bór the Easterling who did not side with Morgoth and whose sons Borthand, Borlach, and Borlad died in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. I’ve written head-canon posts and fic about them in which one of the visual motifs is a vulture clutching a sun in its talons. Echos of Nekhbet, I suppose, but vultures, especially paired with eagles, struck me as highly appropriate for a semi-nomadic steppe people, as one of my inspirations for them were the Huns (and of which I imagine were the same for Tolkien). Bortë’s name, however, while obviously continuing the Bor- prefix trend of Tolkien’s names, is also a direct nod to the wife of Genghis Khan. As a descendant of Bór and his wife Borte who saved their people after the disaster of the Nirnaeth, Bortë proudly carries the name and wears the symbol of her people.

(Which vulture of these five, I can’t chose.)

Bortë is my answer for who is the mysterious wife of Elros Tar-Minyatur. That she is born in the last decades of the War of Wrath, and her parents are human guides and translators for a platoon of elven soldiers from Valinor fighting up in the northern mountains. She is raised as an honorary niece by these mostly Vanyar soldiers, and grows up multilingual under a blend of influences. She speaks both Sindarin and the proto-Anduniac like the other Edain, is fluent in the regional Quenya of Valmar’s alpine monasteries and rural farmlands instead of the dialects preserved from Tirion and Gondolin, and also knows at least one of the Easterling languages. Ex-thralls from Dor-lómin latch onto her as one of their own, for many have Easterling or half-Easterling fathers. Beloved by those that could not claim only fathers of the Three Houses of the Edain, she will be the symbol for carving a new identity as Dúnedain of the Land of Gift, favored by Eru and the West. Bortë is companions with Elros and his brother Elrond, and the twins remember her father and the other Bór tribes-people who shared the camp with Maedhros and Maglor before the twins returned to Balar and the Bór renounce their former elven overlords and make to the refuge of Balar as well. Bortë’s favorite ‘uncle’ is a half-Vanya distant relative of Nerdanel who proudly creates a sigil for his mortal niece in all but name. The vulture (and vulture and eagle) symbols of the Bór wouldn't necessarily look like this or follow any elven conventions, but I’m using him as my literary hypothesis agent for a more elven conventional sigil for Queen Bortë.

Bortë 01 - The first variation is the vulture in shades of copper and brown on a pale sea-green background. All versions have a small sun framed by wings, as the Second-born are the Children of the Sun. The symmetry is almost perfectly vertical, broken only by the profile head of the vulture. This follows Tolkien’s own rules about Edain heraldry, with only vertical and no horizontal symmetry - and Beren’s asymmetrical hand proves that even vertical symmetry can be ignored. The coppers tie back to the Urundils and the sea to Elwing and the island of Númenor. It’s one of the more natural and muted palettes.
Bortë 02 - The second variation I went with a color scheme closer to the Ancient Eqyptian wall painting inspiration with a blend of blues, greens, and golds. I also added the outline of the island of Númenor behind the vulture.
Bortë 03 - First in the attempt to pair the bird with a starry night sky. As the species of vulture this bird would be based on would reasonably be like the Old World vultures, thus I went with a white and dun color. It’s not specifically any species in particular, but the vultures of Middle-earth aren’t going to be the condors and turkey buzzards with naked heads and black plumage I see outside my window every day. The dark blue background and stars make this complimentary to the devices and banners of Fingolfin and Gil-galad, appropriately enough. Plus I imagine Bortë and Elros having a strong love for Manwë, Varda, and Eonwë, considering they named three of their four children after Varda, Manwë, and/or stars. Plus they fought alongside Eönwë and received a paradisaical new homeland complete with palaces by the Valar. For me, Bortë has always loved birds and the solitude of high windy palaces.
Bortë 04 - Similar idea, only the vulture is the same blues as Eärendil’s sigil - which are also the blues I used for Elros. I bumped up the number of stars to six golden ones, which if you include the sun brings the total to seven and thus a sly call-forward to the seven stars on the banners of Arnor and Gondor.
Bortë 05 - Lastly I did a variation with the bird in shades of crimson and brick red on a solid gold background. Red and gold are my primary colors for Easterling characters.

As of right now I can’t pick which one my OC would use are her personal sigil - or if she changed which version before and after she married Elros, became queen of Númenor, or was used by others after she died as part of her changing legacy.

Because the silence is telling that there is absolutely no canon information about Elros’s wife except that she must have been mortal. All other unions between men and elves or half-elves are noted in the text, even if the fate after death is sometimes left ambiguous. As I’ve written about before, a queen that is at least half Easterling, even if one that sided with the Valar instead of Morgoth, becomes politically undesirable in the later racist imperial mindset of the later Dúnedain. By the time of Tar-Ciryatan, Númenor is conquering other men of Middle-earth by military might, and the King’s Men factions from Tar-Ancalimon on down would not celebrate a queen of less than purely Edain bloodlines, one who spoke Quenya and was close friends with elves and revered the Valar. In the later Númenórean obsession with escaping and staving off mortality, that their forefather Elros chose the Gift of Men would weigh bitterly on the envious kings. Bortë, the Black-eyed Pearl of Armenelos, with her vulture, becomes the ill choice of death, and the vulture is no longer a Nekhbet-like guardian of the winds and motherhood as well as the necropolis but solely the despised death omen. While the vulture still stands over Noirinan, Númenor’s Valley of the Tombs, the royal symbols of Númenor are the sigils of Elros, of the white tree and the eagles of Manwë, until even those fall out of favor.

In order:

Andreth, Edhellos, Rían

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.

Three of my favorite ladies from Dorthonion, where I work off the theme of flowers and coordinating with the sigils for the House of Bëor and the sons of Finarfin. All are mentioned in Tolkien’s work, though only Rían appears by name in the published Silmarillion.

Andreth, a Wise-woman of Dorthonion, sister of Lord Bregor and thus great-aunt to Beren, Belegund, and Baragund, beloved of Aegnor and friend of Finrod Felagund, one half of the philosophical debate about mortality and triumph of good over evil in Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. The first Edain/Elf love story and one which remains unrequited, with discussion of flames and moths and burning of therefore. I purposefully avoided all moth and flame motifs as the obvious cliche, and went with floral symbolism. The long-lived wisteria is a symbol of longevity, of love lost but also perseverance over time, of somber contemplation, of unrequited love (Fuji Musume). Aside from the pale purples of the wisteria blossoms, the greens, golds, and whites are the same as from both Aegnor’s sigil and the Bëor. I especially wanted white as that was the color worn by Edain wise-women, preservers of tribal history. As one of my favorite characters and half of an OTP, Andreth deserved her own sigil. And once I remembered that Edain heraldry needed only vertical symmetry, fitting the wisteria motif was far less painful.
Edhellos - or in Quenya Eldalotë - is one of those usually unnamed wives of elven characters that have almost nothing written about them, only in this case Tolkien did provide a name. Edhellos is the wife of Angrod, and thus in versions where Orodreth is Angrod’s son instead of older brother she would be the mother of the last King of Nargothrond. Though we have no characterization for her, we assume she was Noldor and married Angrod long before the Darkening, and it is telling that her name has a Sindarin version, which implies she followed her husband to Beleriand and lived with him in Dorthonion. I like to include her in stories about the Bëorians and their elven lords, and she’s another quiet and obscure favorite for me to write. Her name means ‘Elf-flower’, which gave me the clearest permission to make a floral device. For a while now I’ve wanted to make a device with irises (as something more than fleur-de-lis), and as they are among other things a symbol of martial valor, it works for an elf living close to the Enemy and willing to bring the fight to him. The sigil itself hearkens back to the clean geometric shapes of Angrod with the heavy black outlines.
For kaywinnet, I made a sigil using forget-me-not flowers of another Edain woman and one that is also one of my favorites going back to my first read-through of The Silmarillion. Rían, the daughter of Belegund and mother of Tuor, she who loved flowers and to make songs and gave her son into the keeping of Annael before she went to the Hill of the Slain in search of her husband Hour and died of grief. Tragic and true love, we both agreed the delicate and small wildflower of the appropriately named forget-me-not was perfect for Rían - plus the color and shape mimicked the Bëor sigil. The frame is the same shape as the sigils for her cousin Morwen.

In order:

Meleth

Notes:

I revisited the color scheme from this device, as it was a palette I liked and thought it deserved something more personally satisfactory. The design is built around the stylized rose, and the bold outlines and emphasis on geometry outweighs the more naturalistic stylized buds offsetting the repeating roundels of the full bloom. Thus it feels more like a Noldo than a Sinda.

If I were to assign any canon character to this sigil, my personal pick is Meleth, the nurse of Eärendil for when he lived those first seven years in Gondolin. Though she appears only in the Book of Lost Tales, then again, most of the lords of Gondolin also only appear in that same document, and fandom knows them. We have no clue about her origins aside from the fact that her name is Sindarin for ‘love’ and that she would have been a valued servant of Princess Idril and young Eärendil.

In order:

Ilsë, Swans

Notes:

Here are two sigils of which I am quite proud of how lovely they turned out, both for Teleri OC ladies strongly connected to the Swan-ships of Alqualondë.

The first is my OC, Ilsë, of which I have written about predominantly in this fic here. She is the oldest daughter of Elmo, born in Cuiviénen during the period when her uncle Elwë first goes to Valinor, and was named for the same starry silver hair. When the Teleri are sundered between those that wish to keep looking for the missing Elwë and those that chose to follow Olwë onto Valinor, Ilsë leaves behind her parents and two younger siblings. In Valinor she becomes Olwë’s right hand, one of the foremost captains of the swan-ships, a woman who delights in the sea and teaching the younger elves how to sail. They are both precious to her, and her grief is cold and terrible and only partly assuaged when Elwing comes and convinces Ilsë to return the land of her birth and the family she had forsaken. Her device uses the colors of her father and uncle, the aqua on black and grays, instead of Olwë’s lighter beachy palette. The flowers, though in that Sinda turquoise, has the stylized shape of red spider lilies, which especially in Chinese and Japanese culture are strongly associated with death and cemeteries, and many legends attached to them about separation or meeting someone you will never meet again. They’re also called hurricane lilies for they tend to bloom after heavy rainfall. Thus the symbolism couldn’t be more perfect for Ilsë. The center holds a compass rose for nautical navigation and the points around it initially were waves but ended up more like shark fins. Which, again, make them perfect for Ilsë.
The second Teleri OC belongs rightfully not to me but to crocordile, as she requested a sigil for her character that attempts to recreate the famed Swan-ships which hold a sacred cornerstone to the people of Alqualondë and which were stolen and destroyed. While she never succeeds in recreating an exact replica of the beauty that was lost, she is still highly respected for her shipbuilding and her skill and love of sailing the deep ocean. Beluwen loves Ossë’s swans, and like my Ilsë sails to Beleriand during the War of Wrath. Thus her sigil needed swans above all. I used some art nouveau panels for inspiration and added hints of ripples and reeds. The color scheme coordinates with one of the earlier Teleri sigils I made, the colors soft and cool and evocative of the sea.

In order:

Sun, Purple Glass, Cherry Blossoms, Emerald Filligree, Paddle Blades, Red Diamonds

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 needed some more random Noldor sigils. I wanted to go back and reuse some of the banners' color palettes to expand a few into sets.

Sun was going back to the combination of blue and orange and the sun motif of Finwë and seeing if I couldn’t use that same concept and do my own take. The points not only turned out more flame-like than I initially hoped, but ended up looking like the Fire Nation crown from Avatar. Happy accident. The darker cobalt blue background and a predominantly yellow with only some orange accents creates a more pleasing color combination than the orange and blue of the Noldor royal house. The owner of this sigil would not be actually related to any of the Finwions, but the motif of the ‘winged sun’ will be symbolically Noldor.
Purple Glass was simply going back and using the creatively titled Purple sigil and using the same limited palette for a new device. A rondel for a feminine sigil to complete the set, and the design itself simply constructed by making an interlace of circular shapes. The end result reminded me of stained glass. As the first sigil was one I pegged as Noldor but possibly Vanyar, I can expand of the hypothetical OCs by stating that this is the device of a skilled Noldor family or guild known from their stained glass artistry, which is in high demand not only for the fashionable houses in Tirion but also for buildings in Valmar. ( yavieriel’s headcanon about stained glass and Maiar and Vanyar have been adopted completely).
I had made a sigil using some pink, though I felt bad having a sigil named for sakura and then not actually making a solid pink cherry blossom sigil. So Cherry Blossoms rectifies that by having a clean bold design of the five-petal cherry blossom repeated eight times in a ring, similar to other sigils I have made for female characters like Arwen or Celebrían. And the geometric nature and limited color palette means this device fits my personal criteria for a Noldor instead of Sindar.
Emerald Filigree is the same limited black, white, and green of the Emerald sigil from the random page, only instead of something constructed from simple shapes, here I indulged in more narrow intricate lacework and floral motifs, while still trying to keep the design geometric and bold reliance on color-dominance to fit with the sigils I have set aside for non-Lindar characters.
Paddle Blades was hard to name. I wanted the device to be mostly red and white and to return to the circle surrounded by triangular rays fanning out in points from the circumference which characterizes the designs for Finwë and Elwë. It ended up looking vaguely like the propeller of a boat or plane, or perhaps paddles. Dark blue background a la Fingolfin or Gil-galad, and thus we have a generic Noldor family with a long established history.
Red Diamonds is the same color scheme as Red Loops, only with eight kite-shaped gems in a simple and square device heavy on the right angles. Very Noldor.

(No bonus points if you can tell what unrelated characters from a non-Tolkien series these are inspired by.)

In order:

Princess Tutu, Krahe, Odette

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.In my long list of characters from other series reinterpreted to slide into the Silmarillion and thus eventually get a sigil or two, my desire to have ballet in post-First Age Valinor meant an homage to Princess Tutu was inevitable. If you are unfamiliar with this animated series, do yourself a favor and watch it.

Tutu is a recreation of the pendant Ahiru/Duck wears when transformed into Princess Tutu, over a stylized view of her tutu complete with the accessories. The colors come directly from it.
Kraehe is Rue’s alter-ego as the Raven Princess/Odile figure. So I took the tutu-like element of the central circle, made it black and mimicked a tulle under-layer, and added on top the red to symbolize the raven’s blood. Still the hint of her true nature in the bit of white flowers (or swan feathers?). For who is to say Odile’s love is impure?
When I created the swan sigil for crocordile, I looked at several art nouveau swans as inspiration and knew I wanted to recreate another of the designs for a second sigil. It's the same base and colors as the first Tutu device, with yellow swans for the yellow duck that becomes a girl becomes a ballet-themed savior becomes a swan. Brainstorming how to incorporate some of the PT characters, I came up with the idea of Ahiru as a Maia of Ossë and Uinen who lives in the Bay of Alqualondë as a duck or swan, and who upon seeing the sad and damaged souls of those returning after the War of Wrath, in particular the white-haired soldier with amnesia, the knight too afraid to pick up his pen, and the elven maiden that fears no one would love her, wishes to help them heal. She takes upon an elven form to interact with them, mostly through the healing power of dance. Her costume in the series was heavily based on that of Princess Odette from Swan Lake, hence the name for this swan-motif sigil.

In order:

Dwarrowdame, Guilin

Notes:

Dwarrowdame is for cybermanolo who asked if I could make a sigil for one of their dwarven OCs. Now just because the various dwarven groups and city-states undoubtedly had their own styles of heraldry, that doesn’t mean those long centuries of cultural exchange in the Pre-Sun Era of Beleriand with Menegroth, and later Nargothrond and then Ost-in-Edhil in the Second Age there wouldn’t develop a style for personal heraldry embracing elven concepts. At least that’s my Wastonian answer. So using her clothing as inspiration, I made a sigil to reflect this noble lady’s skill and sense of refinement.

The second request was for a canon character; houseofguilin obviously wished for Gwindor and Gelmir’s father, Guilin. For Guilin I naturally started back at Gwindor’s sigil and removed the fleur-de-lys. From there I went in the direction of a floral element fanning out at the points. By the end of it, the device became very intricate and left no doubt in my personal head-canons that Gulin was a Noldo trying harder than he needed to impress everyone in Nargothrond. His sons love him, though (if not his corny dad jokes).

I will try to make a few more sigils I’ve long wished to make (OCs of mine, mostly) before the trial runs out. But here! Finally rounded out to fifty!

Inspired in part by a cute fanart going around this morning, the next interlude in My Little Quendi: Friendship is Magic, a breather moment from the suspenseful two-part episode where everyone is wondering if the magical princess will be able to rescue her true love and the wise king in time.
During Enchantress Nightingale’s coerced stay in Hidden Canyon Castle, she befriends not only the cool talking dog but darling Sparkle Blossom, who wants to know why Nightingale is so set on marrying a mortal pony. They also share muffin recipes and compare favorite songs.
The phrase “hung like a horse” comes up.

A series of scenes for My Little Quendi celebrating Father's Day, with all the generations of fathers and their daughters across three ages.

Laughter echoes through the palace of Tirion (Finwë with Findis and Lalwen)
Learning to swim off the coast of Alqualondë (Olwë with Eärwen)
A proud father encourages his daughter’s talents (Mahtan with Nerdanel)
A joyful race through the dark woods of Ossiriand (Galathil with Nimloth)
“We’ll find our uncle and cousins, mule-kick their jaws in until they apologize to us. Then we’re marching up to the Black Foe, and we’ll kick his jaw in." (Fingolfin with Aredhel)
The most precious flower of the House of Finarfinwion (Orodreth with Finduilas)
He never wants his daughter to forget her mother either (Turgon with Idril)
Reunited: “Dad, I’m alive.” (Elu with Lúthien)
“Lookie, Daddy, I’m flying!” (Dior with Elwing)
A father says good-bye in Lothlórien, thinking that they will meet again soon (Celeborn with Celebrían)
"I’m home.” (Finarfin with Galadriel)
And finally, a father reads to his baby girl about all the pairs just like them who came before, and share the same bond (Elrond with Arwen)

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Silmarillion Sigil Set 17
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