Blazon to SVG Coat of Arms Plugin

Name: Heraldry for SVGSketch
Author: SVGSketch

Quick answer

The Heraldry plugin parses blazon text - field, ordinaries, charges, tinctures - and renders the coat of arms as ordinary SVG shapes. It previews the emblazon as you type, flags unknown terms with spelling suggestions, supports quartered and impaled arms, and keeps placed coats re-editable as blazon.

Steps at a glance

Write a blazon

Type a blazon in the Heraldry plugin - field first, then charges.

Check the preview

The shield, parse status, and any warnings update automatically as you type.

Place the coat of arms

Click and drag on the canvas to place the coat at the size you want.

Refine or re-edit

Restyle the shapes directly, or select the coat to edit its blazon.

From blazon to editable emblazon

Write a blazon the way heralds do - "Per pale wavy argent and sable, on a bend gules between two mullets counterchanged three roundels Or" - and the plugin builds the coat geometrically: party divisions and complex lines of partition, ordinaries from the fess to the bordure, furs like ermine and vair as real spot and pane shapes, and counterchanging computed by clipping.

Everything lands as ordinary SVG paths grouped by meaning - the field, each ordinary, each charge - so the placed coat restyles and edits like anything else on the canvas.

A vetted charge library

Pictorial charges - lions, eagles, griffins, dragons, unicorns, wolves, fleurs-de-lis, roses, towers, and more - derive from license-vetted public-domain and CC0/CC BY Wikimedia Commons artwork, converted to clean vector outlines with provenance recorded per charge. Geometric charges - mullets of any number of points, roundels with their traditional names, crosses, crescents, gouttes - are generated parametrically.

An unknown charge or misspelled term fails with a clear message and a nearest-term suggestion rather than guessing.

Marshalling and stays editable

Quartered arms ("Quarterly: 1 and 4, ...; 2 and 3, ...") and impaled arms (two full coats per pale) render as recursive sub-coats. Placed coats remember their blazon: select one and the plugin panel regenerates it in place from edited text, with a single undo step restoring the previous version.

Included workflows

Blazon input

Type or paste a blazon with a live shield preview as you edit.

Famous arms presets

Load the blazons of England, France ancien, and other historical arms.

Five shield shapes

Render on a heater, banner, lozenge, roundel, or cartouche outline.

Re-editable coats

Placed coats keep their blazon for in-place regeneration.

FAQ

Can SVGSketch draw a coat of arms from a blazon?

Yes. The Heraldry plugin parses blazon text with its own grammar - built on the structural rules heralds use - and renders the coat as editable SVG shapes.

Which parts of blazon does it support?

Tinctures including stains and furs, all the party divisions and field variations, eleven complex lines of partition, the ordinaries and their diminutives, peripheral ordinaries like the bordure and canton, counterchanging over two-colour fields, semé strewing, and quartered or impaled marshalling. Crests, helms, supporters, and mottoes are out of scope - the plugin draws the shield.

Which charges are available?

Over fifty: lions in several attitudes, eagles including the double-headed eagle, griffin, dragon, unicorn, horse, wolf, fox, bull, dolphin, swan, falcon, cock, dove, pelican, fleur-de-lis, rose, escallop, martlet, crown, sword, key, tower, anchor, sun, stag, heads of the stag and boar, hearts, and the geometric charges - mullets, roundels and their named variants, crosses, crescents, lozenges, billets, and gouttes. Unsupported charge names produce a clear error with a spelling suggestion, not a guess.

Does it understand older blazon styles?

Victorian back-references like "of the field" and "as many" are parsed and resolved with a style note. Rule-of-tincture violations are reported as a warning, never blocked - plenty of real arms break the rule.

Is the drawn coat editable?

Yes. The field, every ordinary, and every charge are ordinary SVG paths in named groups, and the coat as a whole remembers its blazon so it can be regenerated in place from edited text.