refined chess poster

after talking with joel ive decided to simplfy my design so heres the final simplified layout for my chess poster

complete the posters, i used and orthogonal view for the main artwork in front of the set at each end on a background. Ive done two versions, one with a checkerboard background and one with a rendered one, i prefer the later just not sure if it can be submitted as the render was not done on illustrator, anyway here they are

couldent help my self so i took the pieces over to sketchup, made a quick model and rendered them using vray, they turned out nicely and i think they work really well as a set.

Pieces, 2d

So from my sketches ive designed the pieces from front on in illustrator, each piece represents the way it moves on the board and is very simple yet i think effective in design

Inspiration

So ive been thinking about what ill do for a chess piece and have ahd no ideas until i actually played a game. Ive decided on basing each chess piece on how it moves on the board. So here are some initial sketeches to get me going and to illustrate what i mean, sort of like a beginners chess set.

so i found two pieces i liked form the olden days. This first one is of a european queen form 12th century spain. Its a good piece just because of the detail, i looks like a sculpture just by itself.

This next one is my favourite because it looks like a modenr interpretation of a chess piece yet it is actually and ancient one depicting a king on elephant back.

New Brief

So this new brief is basically to design a new set of chess pieces and use them to create a black and white poster. Should be interesting, will start with some research