First of all, im not sure if im posting this in the right section of the forums, so please admins revise it and put where it should be. I was struggling to decide whether this should go into the historical sections or here.
Ok now about the idea itself.
I have an interest in heraldry since as far back as i can remember, and over the years have gathered and also created a substantial amount of graphic assets/materials. I want to make use of that which i have already acumulated, and the idea is to create a comprehensive heraldic atlas covering all medieval Europe. This is an ambitious idea, because i want to cover not just the national emblems but go in depth into provincial heraldics (duchies, counties) and to some extend also cover the heraldry used by the nobility, church and chivalric orders. The period im hoping to cover would be generally XII-XV century, as prior to that heraldry did not exist in its modern understanding. Im not sure 100% but i havent come across a similar atlas that would cover all Europe, so im thinking this is an original innitiative at least in that regard.
That is the idea of what will be covered, and now a few words about the format.
The end goal i have is to have all of the heraldic designs recreated as vectors, high quality images that can be scaled and used as a resource. I want to make it a pdf book format, and it would NOT be for free (cause that will be a ton of work, hundreds of vector images). Im not planning to make a fortune off of it, but not everything can be free. This could be a useful resource for modders of all medieval themed games for the years to come, and for any fans of heraldry ofc. The commercial version would also include large full page illustrations and some other bonus artworks.
There would be a free version for TWC that would consist of rasters - that any modder can turn into vectors if they like, so that would be free for this community.
I will primarily focus on the artworks, and im looking for anyone who would like to help with research or historical background - i want to include descriptions of different heraldic traditions, basic explanation of heraldry etc. I want to stress here that all and any text work input will be available for the free TWC version.
I also have to add that im generally a busy person, so this will not be my number 1 focus anytime soon, but its most likely a project to be developed across the span of many months or even years. The task ahead is quite monumental, especially as i only want to use my own assets. There would also be illustrations of historical sources but only as comparison, and if can be legally used.
First i will be planning the general layout, cause im not yet sure if to go with alphabetical order or just go region by region geographicly, then i start with the national/royal heraldics designs.
If anybody is interested to assist with this project, let me know.