To make your life easier, steer clear of horses with barding! Then pick a coat of arms that you are happy painting. Arms started of fairly simple with two tone colour fields split by vertical, horizontal or diagonal lines. Stick two the basic colours, red, blue, black, yellow and white. Don't put the metals (yellow and white) next to each other and your laughing. Things got complicated when people intermarried and the arms were quartered. You don't have to have a complex animal on coat of arms. If you want to get adventurous give yourself a border round your arms or paint on a label (a horizontal white bar near the top of the shield with three small vertical 'tabs' dropping down at equal spacing, this denotes the son of the bearer of the original arms.