See, this is the issue. You post something that I think genuinely looks cool, but when people point out that it kind of looks like sperm, instead of just saying, “Oh dang, I didn’t even think of that,” your immediate response is to get defensive and strike out.
Maybe the fact that everyone is talking about it should tell you something. It looks like sperm. And what context? The colors? Plenty of flags have symbols whose color does not reflect what it looks like in the real world. For all I know your fictional world is the mythical land of Vas Deferns.
Not taking criticism very well here. Water and blood droplets almost never have twisty tails like what you have depicted. I’ve shown this to a couple people now to make sure I’m not crazy and all have said “is it supposed to be sperm?”
Dude you gave your 'drops' squiggly tails. Drops don't squiggle.. Sperm squiggle This isn't on us being weird. Trust me you players on gonna see that flag and think sperm.
Droplets do not look like that. They don't abruptly pinch off into a little tail. In reality they're spheres but the symbol at least is basically a circle with a point on one side.
Also, color doesn't matter. If you put the outline of a skull and make it purple, it still looks like a skull. If you draw the outline of a sun and make it green, it still looks like a sun. If you draw the outline of a sperm and make it red or blue, it still looks like sperm.
There are lots of symbols on flags or heraldry that are not the literal color of the real life object. If you want it to represent blood or water, make it more of a teardrop shape than a head with a tail. A circle with a distinct wavy line coming off of it is going to look like sperms or tadpoles to most adults. A circle that tapers to a point will look more like a drop of water or blood.
None of the gouttes you linked to look as much like sperms as the OP's flag. Luckily, for him, he didn't read the Wiki that says water is depict as silver/white or it would really look like sperm.
The second link is from an unofficial Society for Creative Anachronism site, so 9 and 10 aren't registrable, according to the SCA's College of Arms in the March 2013 cover letter.
As this is true for that time in history, its not true now and anyone looking at this is going to say wierd looking sperms flag. A lot has to do worh the number of droplets too, 2 to 3 might be drops many of them looks like sperm
I know you're defending yourself in another comment and I'm not here to be a dickhead, but droplets arent typically depicted this way. Perhaps some culture does/has but I mean, liquids form tight droplets in our gravity.
Unless they're not meant to be free-falling droplets but more flowing/dripping off a surface?
The way the droplets are designed is based on a heraldic symbol called a Goutte. They happen to often appear like sperm. I’m actually down with OP keeping it as is.
After looking at the pictures in Wikipedia, I could see that, problem is OP made the tail part of the drop too thin so it ends up looking like flagella
Everyone shitting on the first one but I think it looks cool :( maybe the squiggle part can be changed up a little to avoid the... tadpole resemblance but I think it's cool
ITT: a lot of people who think cartoon pictures of sperm are more relevant to a medieval worldbuilding idea than medieval style depictions of droplets.
I love seeing OP argue with people about their opinions on the flag. Don't post about your flag on the internet if you don't want to hear people talk about how it looks like jizz. NSFW tag plz.
Urgh, this IS the heraldical guttée, or droplet. There are coats of arms that incorporate it. The fact that we now know how sperm looks due to microscopes ruined this figure - kind of cool if you ask me - permanently. I love the first flag and while I'd reccomend changing the shape to some other stylised droplets if it was to be represented graphically in a movie or as an illustration (just judging by how crazy people went over it), it's perfectly fine for its purposes, and IS accurate in terms of incorporating medieval design.
I can imagine the first one trying to invade a much bigger entity with lots and lots of soldiers, but when one soldier penetrates the bigger entity then the bigger entity becomes solid and cannot be penetrated anymore.
The first one reminds me of Super Mario, specifically the climbing Koopa level. I'm not sure why, but maybe it's the colors (the shapes are really cool too, gives me some vibes of those ghosts in Super Mario lol)
Okay, I didn’t see sperm like all the other personally, but still not droplets. I saw flames. Droplets typically follow gravity and aren’t represented like that.
My girlfriend saw sperm tho. :D
im seeing a lot of ppl say they thought that the symbols on the first flag look like sperm cells, but personally i thought it was supposed to be the ghostly fire that i sometimes see in anime lol
The colors of the first flag are very close to matching the palette from this assembly of shapes commonly seen on New Hampshire flags and patches from the Revolutionary War
The droplets don't look like sperm cells to me. But if you want to avoid people thinking that, maybe you could thicken the stems of the tails slightly.
Both are kind of gaudy, but in like an endeading way. I would consider using a more saturated shade of yellow for the first one, to contrast better with the red, although that might mess with the vibes a little. I would defnitely change the proportions of the second one so the horizon is centered (also, your sun would look better if it were slightly lower wrt the horizon [also also, the wavy sunbeams would look better if they were symmetrical, rather than all pointing the same way]).
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u/CharlesOberonn Mar 12 '26
Spermistan and Eggcelltina