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.
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.