I found it a little unsettling to play chess when the knights didn’t look like horses. So this weekend I made some sketches and a prototype knight made of pine with the intention to replace my ‘armour helmet’ knight sometime soon.
From a design point of view, making a horse shape fit the style of the rest of the set is not easy. From my initial designs I see that I will have to deviate from the hour-glass theme otherwise the piece will be top heavy. The visual center of gravity is lowered by bringing the chest closer to the base – to my eye this is a nicer shape to look at.
From a woodworking point of view, carving is difficult! I spent a few hours on the prototype and still the piece looks more like a dog than a horse…
Getting the shape of the knight right and carving it out might take some time and patience, but should be an interesting exercise in redesign.
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Related posts: Chess knight: preparation Chess knight: carving ALL POSTS in the chess set series.
T r i a l & E r r o r 
Good to see that you have chosen not to settle with a piece that you are not totally satisfied with. Carving is something that is still way, way out of my skill set. I respect any woodworker that carves.
Keep going.
Cheers for the encouragement!
I have tried to keep the carving as simple as possible and it turns out to be very doable, if not a little time consuming. I’m a long way off from being able to produce anything fancy or detailed.
I’ll be posting very soon about the process…