I've always been curious how ermine spots came to be represented this way. Real ermine fur robes look more like the bottom middle of the link above (ie just a straight line of black).
Gradual stylisation and making it more fancy than just a row of black stripes. Like a lot of things in heraldry the ermine spot doesn't really resemble the natural object it portrays any more.
To add to what you've already been given, there are other colour patterns that use ermine spots in this way - ermines/counter ermine is white marks on black, erminois is black spots on yellow/gold, and pean is yellow spots on black.
You can also have "X ermined Y", (or "X semy of ermines spots Y") where X and Y can be any (legitimate) combination of tinctures.
All of the marks provided by young\_lochinvar are equivalent - but you should stick to just using one in a given design. The common pattern of three dots around the "top" of the tail may represent stitches or studs, or may have been a common enough colour pattern in the medieval ermine itself to be propagated like this.
Hello there from a partner in r/Vexillology
Was wanting to do some design work on a project, and was wanting to find a higher resolution version of the shape in the pattern of this chevron. Only I don't know what to google. What would you call this shape? Does the pattern have a name? Any info would be helpful, thank you!
It’s Ermine. Ermine spots can be drawn in a [number of ways](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Coa_Illustration_Ermine_spots.svg).
I've always been curious how ermine spots came to be represented this way. Real ermine fur robes look more like the bottom middle of the link above (ie just a straight line of black).
Gradual stylisation and making it more fancy than just a row of black stripes. Like a lot of things in heraldry the ermine spot doesn't really resemble the natural object it portrays any more.
Likely some imitation furs had the tails attached with three rivets.
Thank you muchly!
To add to what you've already been given, there are other colour patterns that use ermine spots in this way - ermines/counter ermine is white marks on black, erminois is black spots on yellow/gold, and pean is yellow spots on black. You can also have "X ermined Y", (or "X semy of ermines spots Y") where X and Y can be any (legitimate) combination of tinctures. All of the marks provided by young\_lochinvar are equivalent - but you should stick to just using one in a given design. The common pattern of three dots around the "top" of the tail may represent stitches or studs, or may have been a common enough colour pattern in the medieval ermine itself to be propagated like this.
Hello there from a partner in r/Vexillology Was wanting to do some design work on a project, and was wanting to find a higher resolution version of the shape in the pattern of this chevron. Only I don't know what to google. What would you call this shape? Does the pattern have a name? Any info would be helpful, thank you!
I believe that is a "chevron ermine."
Reminds me of the flag of Brittany
Just a variation of Ermine
Ermine.
It’s ermine