The Green Knight: Back to the Genesis

I’ve always been in awe of the classic Geen Knight model as painted by Mike Mcvey, ever since I started the hobby a decade ago. I’ve not felt confident enough to undertake painting such a great mini… until now. I’ve seen plenty of attempts people have made at reproducing the splendour of the swively-lined-trapping clad destrier, unfortunately, they all seem to end up looking like just that; attempted reproductions, unable to reach the same standard. In order to avoid falling into the same trap, I decided to go back to the origins of the Green Knight and ignore all existing versions of him.

Mike McVey's masterpiece

Simon Armitage, in his brilliant modern-English translation of the legend, gives a brilliant description. From this passage (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2008) Amitage, S., pp.11-15), I noted some particularly interesting features.
Simon Armitage's brilliant modern-English version of the legend

Apart from the obvious “a mountain of a man, immeasuraly high”, which means I’ll probably put him atop of some rocks, and the very greenness of both man and horse, Armitage notes how he wore a cloak “faced with all-white ermine”, his spurs are “green-gold”. The G.W. Green Knight has no cloak, nor am I inclined to add one (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it), but I will use the heraldic representation of Ermine of the horse’s trappings, rather than the now conventional lines. The details of the armour will be in green-tinted gold. Armitage also states “the details of his dress are difficult to describe, embroidered as it was with butterflies and birds, green beads emblazened on a background of gold”. That gives me the pattern for his garments, although I might switch the colours, to paint gold details on green cloth.
Two points in which he will differ from the description are the weapon (he will keep his fine G.W. sword, rather than have an axe) and he’s wearing armour. I’ve decided to painted the armour green-tinted silver. In order to tie in the Arthurian figure with the G.W. Bretonnian, his fleur-de-lys will be reproduced on the back of his horse’s trappings.

At least, that’s the theory…

Joe