You may have noticed that I have a fascination with mythology and fantastical creatures. My last 3 campaigns have all focused on this side of my work; Celestial Beasts, Bestiary 1 and Bestiary 2.
Bestiary 2 focused on horse-related creatures of myth and legend and for my Pintober project campaign in October I'm dialling up the spook-factor for more 'horsing around' and creating a pin collection inspired by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:
Painting of the Four Horsemen by Viktor Vasnetsov
I made a first pass at a design for Conquest last week but...
...though I like the expression on his face I didn't feel like I was getting the right Apocalypse vibes from this design so I decided to keep the armor concept but rework the pose and expression to make it more dynamic and dramatic!
I want all the horses to have a sense of movement and madness so at the moment I'm doing some more reference sketching to help me find more interesting poses for these Horses of the Apocalypse. Here's a few of my sketches so far:
pencil/digitalsketches of horses in various poses
Among these sketches you can see the pose and expression I combined to create my second pass at the design for Conquest, which I'm much happier with:
Conquest WIP
Some of you might not be familiar with Conquest as a horseman, as I wasn't either before I did a little more research into the mythology. Apparently though in the modern day most of us think of the Four Horsemen as War, Famine, Pestilence and Death, originally Conquest represented both pestilence and war as an invading force, while War represented civil war specifically!
I loved the idea of creating a proverbial 'white knight' horse that is just a little mad, representing western history of the 'noble' invading force. And I also love the idea of creating stretch goal pins featuring additional horsemen, including an interpretation of Pestilence but also some representations of modern Apocalypse I think I could have fun with: Pollution and Nuclear War!
What do you think of the design and idea so far folks!? Do you have any ideas for additional 'Horsemen'? Perhaps something for environmental disasters?
