Tincture

A tincture is any color, metal or fur used in heraldry. The two metals are Or and Argent. The five main colours are Gules, Azure, Vert, Sable and Purpure. The two classic furs are ermine and vair, taken from the winter coats of the stoat and the red squirrel.

The best known rule is the rule of tincture: don't put a metal on a metal or a colour on a colour. A gold lion goes on red or blue, not on white. Before color printing, engravers showed tinctures with lines and dots. In the system Silvestro de Petra Sancta published in 1638, dots mean Or, vertical lines mean Gules and a blank field means Argent.

In the coat of arms maker, the color picker lists tinctures by name: Or, Argent, Gules, Azure, Vert, Sable and Purpure, then Tenné, Sanguine, Murrey, Bleu celeste and Cendrée. Any custom color works too. The heraldry colors guide covers what each one is said to mean.