Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

The term ‘Lama’ he uses for that is a religious title (incl., f.ex., the Dalai Lama); as best as I can tell the word is totally unrelated

It's also been sometimes mistakenly called a Llama, which is also unrelated to either (though to be fair, Lama is the name of the genus that includes llamas, alpacas, and others).

The term ‘Lama’ he uses for that is a religious title (incl., f.ex., the Dalai Lama); as best as I can tell the word is totally unrelated

Isn't that Gilman's [D?B]?

With the height (if not the style) of the headgear (and in the first image the barely‐noticeable arms), my first thought was rather of the Lamassu (a creature yet to be graced with a place in a CV)

Hm. It looks like it might work as a K4N0CZ. :)

@Bn Em: I like that reference to the Lamassu. Some of the Afrasiab set, the oldest chess set known, have always made me think of that creature. Maybe I was inconsciently influenced :=)?

I will print this design in few weeks to see how it looks like in hands.

With the height (if not the style) of the headgear (and in the first image the barely‐noticeable arms), my first thought was rather of the Lamassu (a creature yet to be graced with a place in a CV)

But I agree it's probably the most centaurine piece model I've seen so far

With the arms and the tail, it is looking a lot more like a centaur

I've added a tail. I put the arm a bit upper (it was not a collar). I reworked the neck a little bit (I guess is what was taken for ... ears). How is it now?

The "floppy ears" is an optical illusion on the white one only. Similarly, the black one has an illusion of a Bishop-like cleft. Neither is a major problem with the others present. However, I'd agree with taking out that ridge across the front.

Otherwise, I absolutely prefer this model of yours, Jean-Louis. It's probably the best-done Centaur model yet, from anyone.

Edit: My comment crossed paths with your second attempt, which is much better. In fact, it's as near to perfect as I could imagine.

I've added a tail. I put the arm a bit upper (it was not a collar). I reworked the neck a little bit (I guess is what was taken for ... ears). How is it now?

This is looking a lot more like a centaur than your previous attempt. But it also looks like it has floppy ears like a dog and some kind of collar, which also adds to the dog-like appearance. Since you’re showing the rear end, adding a horse tail over it would be a nice touch.

Could this one be a Centaur?

Don t worry Kevin for that. All my friendship and thoughts for you in these moments.

Hi J-L

I may have been too critical, based on seeing the picture, like an earlier post of yours alluded to. If you're holding it up close and it looks fine to you, by all means stick with it.

K

@Kevin: I'll see if I can do better.

@Bob: I'm sure you won't stop there. I look forward for your Rasta Knight, Rasta Bishop (!), etc.

Either that, or use a spikey style hairdo on the knight, like a punk-look. :)

I've now created a model based on that idea. Now I just have to figure out how to implement a Punk Knight. :)

(This could lead to Punk Bishop, Punk Rook, Punk Camel, Punk Zebra....)

@ Jean-Louis

If I looked at the right pictures in one of your earlier links (title of it including 'recent', I think), I didn't like the second Centaur option pictured because I thought it reminded me rather more of a bishop, at least without looking too carefully.

Perhaps that can be 'solved' if it's possible to include a lot more of the base of a knight, maybe even up to horse neck level, including much thicker 'carved lines' at the spine (maybe certain Staunton sets are that way?), and having the bend of the figurine somehow eliminated could be good.

@HG: I don't understand what you mean: "Well, the knight-on-a-shaped-base is a move-oriented solution, so it ignores the name entirely."

If you mean that a KN represented by a knight topped with something (a crown, a cross, an helmet) is ignoring the name "centaur", I agree.

I had designed 2 pieces for KN (you can see on my recent page). One is a knight topped with a cross, another one is a bottom of knight, headless, with a greek warrior helmet. Only this second one is a centaur to my eyes.

I was looking at it, in my hands, few minutes ago. I really see a centaur when I look at it. Maybe you and others have a different opinion because you have seen a photo only. It doesn't matter. As long as I, I am seeing something like a centaur, as long as I can explain to any friend playing with me, it does the job.

If someone comes with another idea which I find better, I will update my design. I'm not stubborn. I did that for the archer. For long I thought it was impossible to have an archer design good enough. Until I found one and I changed my mind.

I'm not sure a reverse centaur isn't considered a type of centaur by at least some people, but yes, it isn't the archetype. Still, the guard symbol on top of the knight figurine is what was decided on for Alfaerie 2D figurines, at least, as Daniel is alluding to.

Calling a Centaur piece type a Judge was something I did when somehow I thought I saw no entry for NWF in wikipedia the first time I looked at a fairy pieces wiki (maybe edited since, or I missed it), before I applied to and looked at CVP site. A 3D figurine for a judge-person may be easier to imagine and create, who knows. On the bright side, there are nothing but real people (or rook) represented among Sac Chess pieces, i.e. nothing mythical used for CV warfare in my CV's case.

Well, the knight-on-a-shaped-base is a move-oriented solution, so it ignores the name entirely.

As far as I'm concerned, I want to avoid using a knight at all. I want a centaur. A centaur doesn't have a horse's head. By definition.

Maybe for Kevin there is another solution: as for you it's a judge, maybe it's easier to find a representation.

That is how I represented the ferz-knight and wazir-knight in Jocly (e.g. in Scirocco): A Knight on a somewhat taller base (so it is not so easily confused with a normal Knight) in the shape of a cross, oriented along the F or W move.

Either that, or use a spikey style hairdo on the knight, like a punk-look. :)

For representing this piece, why not do something similar to this?

In 3D it could be a regular knight except with an eight pointed collar or base to indicate the extra moves.

The minimum would be to give dates of invention to put the information in a historical perspective.

I copied your list to the page and made the URLs relative. If you want to expand that list or add more content to the page, you can post it here.

As crowns and miters are something worn on the head, some other kind of headgear, such as a helmet or a hat would probably be suitable for a piece with the additional powers of a man. While this might not work as easily for rook+man or bishop+man, these are also rook+ferz and bishop+wazir and are known by other names, such as dragon horse and dragon king. So maybe they could be represented in a different manner. Or all three might be represented by human face pieces like in the Superba set.

Even though chess pieces (unlike the pictograms used in 2d diagrams) are more than just the head or head cover, it is true that the head is the distinctive feature, and the bodies all look alike.

To indicate the KN move in a variant that also features the Amazon, you could leave on the cross. It is very unlikely there will be both a royal and non-royal Centaur in the same variant. Or replace the cross by a spike, to distinguish it both from a Queen and a King head.

The Jocly 3d pieces can provide some inspiration; the Crowned Rook there is a Rook with a crossless King head mounted on top. No room for confusion there; a Rook with a Queen's head would make no sense. For the Crowned Bishop I use a pontifical tiara. Both give pieces that distinguish themselves very well from other Staunton pieces.

The S seems to curve in the wrong direction. A prancing horse doesn't bend his back in that direction. E.g. the Ferrari logo:

@Bob: "I'd go with something like the third image, personally, and also add something to indicate arms". I think it can be investigated with the S shape if the front of the S is going further than where the straight trunk is connected. Also the rear of the S may let think of the tail. Perhaps, the S needs to be flattened, less vertical and more horizontal. To be tried.

"I hadn't thought of it, because a crossless crown is still a crown. Having thought about it now, the cross is the main thing distinguishing the king's crown from the queen's. So, a knight with a crossless crown could easily be confused with an amazon."

I agree. It is what I said too in this thread.

I'm actually a little annoyed that I didn't think of doing it this way myself. I'd go with something like the third image, personally, and also add something to indicate arms.

Now that I think on it, I might just give it a go.

If the idea is to represent the move, the logical form in a set where the Amazon is a Staunton Knight with the head of a Staunton Queen mounted on top of it, would be a King's head on a Knight. The cross could be omitted for the non-royal case.

I'd trusted that Fergus had already thought of that and hadn't found a way to make it work, for some reason

I hadn't thought of it, because a crossless crown is still a crown. Having thought about it now, the cross is the main thing distinguishing the king's crown from the queen's. So, a knight with a crossless crown could easily be confused with an amazon. My thought has been to combine man and horse in some way.

It'll be interesting to see if anyone else can, as it would avoid using a 'reverse centaur' figurine. Maybe a Man's head (from Piececlopedia page for that) on top of a knight could be even better.

As crowns and miters are something worn on the head, some other kind of headgear, such as a helmet or a hat would probably be suitable for a piece with the additional powers of a man. While this might not work as easily for rook+man or bishop+man, these are also rook+ferz and bishop+wazir and are known by other names, such as dragon horse and dragon king. So maybe they could be represented in a different manner. Or all three might be represented by human face pieces like in the Superba set.

@HG: I have just taken the Bishop's base to have a better Stauntob-look. This is very rough, very very. I could change many things, adjust shapes, soften, etc. but on the overall, what about this very stylised form?

A general problem with fairy chess piece figurines is that while the 6 types of Staunton chess figurines are all quite distinct and serve orthodox chess well, for chess variants sometimes in a given CV such as Sac Chess there can a lot of similar-looking types, it may be unavoidable in such a case. Similar issues might happen for other CVs too, even if the practical similarity issue went away for just that particular CV (i.e. Sac Chess). Fergus' main concern is to get a good-looking Staunton-style figurine of a Centaur that can be used both on the Piececlopedia page and seemingly for a lot of CV games, the latter being difficult to imagine in the form of an example collection of them.

Perhaps a Knight figurine with a Man's head at the top would be the best thought for a Staunton-style Centaur figurine, if the Centaur were not a royal version.

@Kevin: this is in the case "where the idea is to represent the move". It is feasible to do this, I have made some attempts, but practically if you play SAC chess for example, it is not nice to have so many "knights" on board, the regular ones, those topped by a Rook, those by a Bishop's head, those by a King's head, those by a Queen's crown. Moreover, KN, QN and RN are too much similar-looking I can tell. Of course, those in love with horses will be delighted :=)

As this page is under the light, I have several comments. We have a header saying: "The Piececlopedia is intended as a scholarly reference concerning the history". Indeed, the first section is Historical Notes. But, there is almost no history at all in this section, and no scholarship. The minimum would be to give dates of invention to put the information in a historical perspective.

• Courier-Spiel by Albers, 1821: (Councellor)
• Renniassance Chess by Eric V. Greenwood, 1980 (Page)
• Royal Court by Sidney LeVasseur, 1998 (Crowned Knight)
• Cobra Chess by Derick Peterson, 1998 (Duke)
• Jupiter by Adrian King, 1999 (Centaur)
• Fantasy Grand Chess by Peter Hatch, 2000 (Wolf Rider)
• Kung Fu Chess by Tim Bostick, 2001 (Tiger)

Then, why 4 lines talking only about Fergus Duniho's variants? Why these variants would deserve more attention than the other ones?

There are other variants which are using a KN compound. For example Cataclysm (Greg Strong, 2007), Reformed Courier-Spiel (Clément Begnis, 2011, as a Paladin), Sac Chess (Kevin Pacey, 2014, as a Judge). I'll be silent about my own variants.

Second, like HG I think it is not necessary to have a section about "AI Art" here. It completly modify the purpose of this page. @Fergus, I would suggest you write a separate page where you show your drawings made with AI as I have done myself with my 3D-printable creations. Having 1 illustration is one thing, but I do think it is not good that you place your own things in pages which are of general attention. There is some confusion here.

Re: "If the idea is to represent the move, the logical form in a set where the Amazon is a Staunton Knight with the head of a Staunton Queen mounted on top of it, would be a King's head on a Knight. The cross could be omitted for the non-royal case."

I'd trusted that Fergus had already thought of that and hadn't found a way to make it work, for some reason. It'll be interesting to see if anyone else can, as it would avoid using a 'reverse centaur' figurine. Maybe a Man's head (from Piececlopedia page for that) on top of a knight could be even better.

@HG: your post is inspiring. I'll see if I can come to something.

If the idea is to represent the move, the logical form in a set where the Amazon is a Staunton Knight with the head of a Staunton Queen mounted on top of it, would be a King's head on a Knight. The cross could be omitted for the non-royal case.

If the idea is to represent an actual centaur, rather than just an arbitrary man-horse chimera, the Staunton style seems to lead to something like this:

That is, omit all upper extremities, and only leave a stylized version of the lowest for support. The one in the middle already breaks Staunton style by abandoning cylindrical symmetry (ellipticity is used in the hind legs and torso, and excentricity in the horse body).

The tail is in fact already dubiously detailed; if the cut in the Bishop's head was deemed enough to represent tusks, the tail should probably be represented by an upward diagonal cut just above the legs...

Of course it would be quite possible to apply further symmetry breaking (rightmost image) to get still further away from Staunton abstraction and closer to realism: the hind legs and torso could be slanted backwards, the horse's body forwards. An indication for the horse's front leges could be added, dangling down like it is prancing.

@Kevin: "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."

If you look at my recent page, the reason why I've made the base of the "Knight with cross" smaller is to avoid the confusion with the Amazon.

Also, putting a horse's head on a Man's base is just the opposite of a centaur, as said by others in the comments. It keeps the idea of mixing horse and man, but on a different order.

In this discussion, my opinion is that a certain level of abstraction is possible, if not desirable, with Staunton style. I imagine if the challenge was to design a Bishop, I guess not many, human or AI, would come to what is a Staunton Bishop today.

At present, each image represents a different idea or a different enough variation on the same idea.

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.

I have to agree here, at least in principle. No more than three or four AI illos should be present on a Piececlopedia page, and even that many only when there are that many different versions to help with people's inventiveness (or that many different representations of the piece, as is the case with he Carpenter / Templar / Doughnut / Yar*). In this case, I'd suggest keeping the full-figure centaur and the two that I pointed out.

Even so, I wouldn't object to "Art Gallery" pages being a part of this site, similar to the Craft and Photo pages.

*The Yar is out of my Tifinagh set, and so technically counts as my own invention, though it does have the same move pattern as the other three and so counts for these purposes.

I do plan to eventually reduce the number of images, and with that in mind, I suppose using comments has the advantage of keeping the images around for reference even if I do decide against some of them later. So first I'll post the new images here for reference, and then I will remove some from the page:

For a more compact piece that would work well with Staunton pieces, it helps to move away from a literal representation of a centaur and instead portray the bust of someone with both horse and human features. In a literal sense, this might be a reverse centaur or a were-horse, but at least it gets across the idea of a centaur better than a more human-like bust of a centaur would. Here are a few pieces generated with this kind of depiction:

Along a similar vein, we may have a horse wearing a helmet.

Or taking inspiration from the knight in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, we could use a knight in a horse-shaped helmet.

From Google blurb, when I searched for 'meaning of reverse centaur':

A reverse centaur has the head of a horse (non-human, relatively stupid, but trainable) and the body of a man complete with human hands. It's the human hands that are the key.Jun 27, 2023

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.

I edited my last post a bit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

I conceived a Centaur like that:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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: