Imperfectly Period

This was a Rock (I describe it to newer scribes who are scared to mess up as a step above a thank you card since we throw Rocks at people we like as often as we like) for a local artisan who does both metal and leatherwork.  The items on the table are based off his actual works. This was for designing and engraving brass site tokens for an event I ran this past spring, Daffodil Feast and Tournament.  The banner design is copied from the engraving on the tokens and I did my best to make him look like the recipient. At some point in this past year I've stopped wincing at my calligraphy.  Either I've gotten better or I've seen enough "bad" extant calligraphy I no longer fuss.  Probably both. I mean I'm still not entirely happy with my bastard secretary, but I'm pretty happy with this piece.  The artist/illuminator was new and needed a calligrapher so I obliged.  It only just went out at Yule since university kinda ate the recipient’s l...

The warrant I did when I finally got to pass off the baronial A&S champion title, done in my new favourite hand, merovingian, which I learned in a class taught by the lovely Anne Elizabeth Morley. I'm working on my placement and paper usage so I needed to use up some of the blank space, but the only competitor has visual impairments.  I didn't want to put a ton of fiddly painted details that they might not be able to appreciate. Instead I adapted an extant marginal soldier with a flower to a naalbinder, which was the new champion's discipline.  It's simple, high contrast, and wonderfully quirky like the new champion. Even though there was only one competitor, I still blurred out the name on this file. 😅  But it still wasn't a guarantee that they'd be the new champion so...

Recently I've gotten into designing charters.  Not going to get into why, but it's a whole soapbox thing. A Silver Wing (helping newcomers) based on a very worm-eaten Icelandic exemplar.  I got to paint one recently and forgot to take pictures. 😅 A Hafoc (martial) based on the same exemplar.  I fell in love with the derpy elephant on the left.  Then I realized how goofy the faces of the soldiers were and how the castle turrets look like they're screaming.

Have you ever tried to find sources for an 11th century Icelandic style award that isn't yet another runestone?  Nothing against runestone styles, but if your kingdom is so full of Norse culture that a newcomer has asked you if they're required to have a Norse persona, you might feel a need to branch out of the tried and true.  (True story, and was the impetus for me to finally break out of my Hiberno-Norse into full Irish kit). Enter derpy birds and elephants!  I present to you the Physiologus og fleira , 1190-1210 Iceland.  It's severely damaged and in two pieces .     It's hard to see from all the worm holes(?), but along the left there are birds among foilage.   Yes, that's supposed to be an elephant.  I wouldn't have known if it wasn't for the following.  The chamfron is covering the poor pachyderm's eyes!  Horses weren't unknown in Iceland and they had chamfrons, too, that didn't cover their eyes, but maybe the artist found it easi...

A couple of charters I painted this year.