Exquisite Turmoil

I’ve decided to go with a dapple horse for this particular knight. Unfortunately the lighting in the picture is awful so you can’t really see the coloring very well (it looks more brownish than gray in this picture and the.. uh.. dappling.. is practically invisible). I’ll attempt to take a better picture later (after I finish the head, likely) so that anyone who cares can get a better look at it ^_^ I think that this is my favourite knight so far. I really like #2 (the red martlet) because the gold / white / red look so nice together, but this heraldry is my favourite, even if the colors are not.

I need to figure out how I’m going to do my unit champions and standard bearers. I’ve been considering having the champions incorporate purple into their heraldry to make them stand out from the rest of the unit (as I intend to give them lances instead of stupid swords), but I was also kind of thinking that my standard bearers should be painted to match their standards..

Anyway, if both the standard bearer and champion are painted differently from the rest of their unit, I’m afraid it will look too.. glaring. Having one model with differences is one thing, but two? I just can’t decide..

Speaking of standards — my embroidery kit for my first standard arrived. I decided to go with a woman. It just seemed so much more striking to me. Hopefully I’ll get a good start in on this banner while I’m stuck at the hotel all week (July 3-8th, I believe) while Jamie is visiting. It’s on a 40 DPI scale and we’re looking 2″ x 2 1/2″ so.. well.. a lot of stitches. Hopefully it won’t take me more than a few weeks of working on and off, including the time out at the pool.

Looking at the image, however, just makes me despair over my standard bearer! I don’t want him to clash with his banner so I can’t just stick the banner on a random knight.. it needs to be color coordinated. I’d like to try my hand painting the woman’s face on his shield, but I’m really not sure that it is something I could manage. I’m not really a painter — the freehand that I do is very geometrical in it’s way, and painting a woman is, well… not. Ah well, I suppose that I have a few spare shields, so I can always give it a try and see how it goes. If I hate it, I guess I can just scrap it and pick some kind of feminine symbol (a lily or something) as the charge instead.