Lochac Livery Collars II

Another set of SCA peerage collars, this time in colour.

I had already designed a set of Lochac Livery Collars for use by the peers in fealty within the SCA Kingdom of Lochac. In 2015, the SCA created a new peerage: the Order of Defence, so it was time to make a new link for the livery collars.

Development

Rather than add to the original monochrome series, I decided to make the new link as an enamelled design, which would also work with my original SF joiner links. Once the Order of Defence link was in production, I designed a full set of new peerage links to complete the set.

As for the previous set of links, these were professionally cast in lead-free pewter and plated in fine metal. This series was then ‘enamelled’ using resin. There is usually a clear finish put over the top to make a smooth surface, but I asked for this to be omitted, so the final result looks closer to the historical enamelled pieces.

The Designs

Defence

The badge of the order is: Three rapiers in pall inverted tips crossed (tinctureless). I drafted some early designs and sent them to the five inaugural Masters of Defence for their thoughts. The final design was for gold swords (as fine as possible) laid over a white enamel ring.

The new links were made in time to be presented to the new, sixth member of the Order.

Laurel

The design for this was straightforward – a simple ring wreath, inspired by the same illumination, but this time in colour. Creating a design where the walls of the cells were the right thickness for the technique proved trickier than I expected and it took several rounds of finessing before the design could be cast.

After the initial run, I had a request for some in silver, so I ordered a small number of these too.

Chivalry

Again, the concept was straightforward, following the plain version I had done years before. My experience with the Laurel meant I had a better feel for how to make the reversed design work, so the final design took less time.

Pelican

I had never really been happy with the previous Pelican design – it had too much fine detail and was not bold enough to ‘read’ well as a cast design.

So I came up with a range of new designs, based on several different medieval representations of Pelicans in their Piety. I put out a poll to see which option people preferred and the clear winner was design #4 – not the one I would have chosen!

I combined elements from a few sources for this design – including the lovely basketweave nest from a 15th century tomb.

Rose

I tried a few new designs for the Rose – a more open ring, and a full circle design, but neither appealed. In the end I went for a simple rework of my previous design, which really came to life in colour. I had planned to just do white roses (for Lochac) but many people wanted red roses, so I did both.

I am still pleased with these and always enjoy seeing people wearing them.