A clan crest from the realm of fantasy

Another picture from my Johanna Basford Enchanted Forest book. I'm not moving through the book in order, but picking pictures that I want to do.

I went for this because of the sword, thinking it would be an exercise in coloring metal. From my readings here and there, metal, being highly reflective, is rendered by highly contrasting shades, say black (or dark grey) and white, sitting starkly next to each other. And any other color that appears on the surface would come from reflection of objects nearby.

But this sword is pretty small, and so gives little opportunity to introduce any other color.  I decided to stick with black and white.

It. Didn't. Quite. Work. Did it?

The rest of the picture... well, it was a matter of sticking to a palette of greens and not straying too far from that. Nearer the bottom, warm greens, orange, beige, brown. Nearer the top, a cool, silvery green sits below the two birds, done in blue/green/red.