I used a low-mid opacity grayscale layer over my color layers in previous versions to dilute the colors. I'll throw that back in, and yes, do some more blending.

On the decorating side of things, here's the heraldic shield I came up with; I'll be swapping the heraldry in and out.
Click image for larger version. 

Name:	GalvanShield.png 
Views:	352 
Size:	455.8 KB 
ID:	57549