@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.
@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.