Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

In Ralph Betza's cspigs chess, this piece is worth six points.  It
certainly is more powerful than a Rook in the early and mid game when the
board is crowded, but loses steam toward the end to faster pieces like
the
Bishop and Half-Rook (a rook limited to four spaces per move).

I used to call this piece a 'Paladin', but I like 'Centaur' better.

Since most of my attempts to have an AI generate a picture of a centaur have been very inaccurate, I modified the one image I got that came close, this being of a naked female centaur with weird horns and both a deer tail and a horse tail, as I had actually asked for an image of a doe, and I used this as a source image to generate images of a male centaur. As I got something closer to what I wanted, I used it as a new source image, and I eventually got the image I put on this page. Here is the modified image that I began this series of generations with:

Seems good so far as a rough attempt. If you want any further inspiration, you may recall the old 'The Mighty Hercules' TV cartoon had a young centaur sidekick named Newton for that main character - e.g. you may find the old show in places on YouTube.

In contrast, my two attempts as they appear on Thingiverse:

And what I was able to achieve in a half-hour putting those same models through Paint 3D:

(Those might actually work, if I use a less stark shade of white.)

If you want any further inspiration, you may recall the old 'The Mighty Hercules' TV cartoon had a young centaur sidekick named Newton for that main character - e.g. you may find the old show in places on YouTube.

I used to watch that on CTV before going to kindergarten, but I think I would prefer a more majestic and more mature looking centaur.

True. I thought Newton's maleness and the cartoon artist's body depiction might help, along with any further imagined changes (such as aging in appearance) that you might make to a centaur figurine on the path to finalizing it.

Since a centaur is part man and part horse, I think the one on the left, which has a helmet and four horseshoes, works better than the horseshoe piece on the right.

I have added some more AI art illustrating suggestions for how to portray a centaur in a manner more compatible with Staunton pieces than a full figurine piece would be.

It seems we are turning into an art website, now that 75% of the pages is devoted to art, and only a quarter contains actual information. (And that is even discounting the ads...)

Perhaps we should move the website to the domain www.chess-art.com, instead of chessvariants.com?

A figure with a horse head or helmet doesn't remind me of a centaur.

Keep the snark to yourself. This is chess variant art, and it falls within the purpose of this website.

A figure with a horse head or helmet doesn't remind me of a centaur.

As I was saying, it is hard to accurately represent a centaur without using a fully figurine piece. But some people are interested in representing a centaur in a manner that would be a better fit with a Staunton set. This is a difficult challenge, and I am using AI art here to illustrate some of my ideas for how this might be done. If you think you have a better idea for how to represent a Staunton-compatible centaur, please share it.

Yes, I wasn't satisfied my self with a crowned Knight like this.

I conceived a Centaur like that:

The crowned knight would be suitable for a game like Cavalier Chess or Fusion Chess, where the centaur is royal, but for a game such as Sac Chess, where it is not, something else may be more desirable. In my photograph for Sac Chess, I used Peter Ganine's Superba pieces for the so-called crowned pieces, because these have human faces, and this conveyed the idea of being able to move like a man.

The second image is hard for me to see as a centaur. Without the horse head, it is hard to make out that the neck and what's left of the mane are horse parts. So my first impression of it was that it was a weird abstract shape that for some reason has a curve where other pieces don't. It would work better for me if the horse part were more obvious.

The fact is that if you remove the horse's head, there is nothing more left than what I kept. It is not immediatly seen on the photo but the piece retains the mane of the horse as well. In game play, when hold in hands, it comes clear and straight that the Centaur has the Knight's bottom. So, I am very happy with this, it does match with the Staunton set.

The fact is that if you remove the horse's head, there is nothing more left than what I kept.

That's why my suggestions don't do that.

Your suggestions are what, these horses with a Louis XIV's wig? I like my abstract centaur as it fits with the rest of my pieces. You asked HG for a better idea. I just answered with my own idea. If you don't like, no problem. I force nobody to like. I just offer my work for free for those who will be interested, if any.

I think the generally best idea for all situations is "if you cannot do it properly, better not do it at all".

The world will not become a better place by spreading around crappy solutions because these were the best one could think of.

Perhaps representing something that is recognizable as a centaur requires a level of detail that is incompatible with the level of abstraction (no arms, no legs...) of the Staunton design. In that case it would be a mistake to go for a realistic representation. Use something more abstract. Like bowling peg with a horse tail sticking out at 1/3 of the height.

Re: do it properly or not at all: The Wright brothers did not wait for a more effective solution before they made their idea for an airplane known. They put it out there, like a placeholder, perhaps for others to improve upon (and they eventually did). The way of a pioneer is not easy, and often unprofitable for the self.

Your suggestions are what, these horses with a Louis XIV's wig?

Only the two most human ones have something approximating that. What makes the difference for them is that their hair covers the side of the neck. Most of them have manes or mane-like hair that goes down only the back of the neck. One has a helmet with bumps on the back to give the suggestion of hair.

Indeed. Slavish adherence to perfectionism is a roadblock to getting anything done. It's better to do what we can for now even if it is imperfect. A bad solution may inspire someone to come up with a better one, or feedback may lead the person who came up with the initial solution to come up with a better one. In biological evolution, science, and other endeavors, improvement comes through trial and error. So we shouldn't be trying to discourage people from offering solutions we don't like. Instead, we should just critique solutions we don't like and try to offer better ones if we can.

The fact is that if you remove the horse's head, there is nothing more left than what I kept.

That's why my suggestions don't do that.

This also is the main criticism that I have with your Centaur, Jean-Louis. (It doesn't help that it appears to be backwards in most of your renderings -- this most recent being an exception -- which makes it harder to recognize.) It's why it doesn't look easily recognizable as a Centaur to me.

The idea that I had of the helmeted figure with four horseshoes does seem to be* the most effective idea to date, even if my execution was weak. The horse-headed, helmeted humanoids that Fergus posted is another good compromise; I particularly like the second one on that row (if my style was a bit less abstract, I'd try for something like it myself), or the middle horse-helmeted knight on the last row.

*Emphases on this phrase; I'm not 100% satisfied with it myself.

I haven't dug back thru all the comments, but has it been suggested that a Centaur might be represented by a tall piece (like a Staunton K's base) with a horse's head on it (like a Staunton N's head)?

Such a piece could become royal simply by adding a cross on top, if desired, as Jean-Louis did with an earlier image he gave (except that in that one, the base was not as tall as for a Staunton chess K, if I recall right).

edit: another possibility is to use the base of the Man, up to the neck, from the picture in the Piececlopedia entry for a Man, and put a horse's head on it.

edit2: a possible issue with any of these ideas is if a horse's head's weight might make such a piece fall down fairly easily; perhaps a slender-sort of horse's head might avoid that.

I edited my last post a bit.

Snark or not, I agree with H.G. that this is entirely too much art for a piececlopedia page. If you wanted to get feedback on the various outputs you've generated (to decide on one or two for the page), that should've been done in comments.