A Guide To Heraldry By Whoahsweet on Oct 02, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

A Guide to Heraldry is a great book if you are curious about various historical arms or wish to have a useful pocketbook for heraldric designs. I personally use it as a guidebook for painting historically-accurate medieval soldiers and it's especially great for this use! It also serves to help you create your own arms if you are interested or creative since it includes guidelines for colors, shapes, patterns, and gives you good reasons to use each and what they symbolize. Lastly, in addition to the patterns you'd see on knightly shields, you also see the type of designs knights would wear on their helmet and surcoat. Almost all pictures in the book are in color which is a godsend since most books of this type only has descriptions and black and white depictions of arms.

In addition to the terrific illustrations, the book includes a history of arms. It outlines the purpose and historical footnotes to the changes in arms.

All in all, it is a wonderful hardcover book for a bargain price.