Comtesse lodie of Royaume de Franconie (French)

Usually, when it comes to drawing a woman warrior, the most famous of them all would be Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc in french). She could be dressed in the most elaborate attires to the most historically accurate, fitting her status as a prominent figure in the history of 100 years war. However, instead of Joan of Arc, I wanted to try something different where I can try to utilize as much as creativity and room for improvements to my current skills. Mounted battle is perhaps one of the trickiest, since I'm very bad at drawing horses, but then again, hopefully the viewers won't mind my limited drawing skills .

In this drawing, Countess Iodie of Burgess is draw in the typical 13th century knight attires, with surcoat over mail, knight sword, dagger, as well as the "enclosed helmet" which is thought to be the precursor to the great helm. The helmet itself is not worn for artistic license in order to show the mail coif, worn over some protective padding on her head. Historically speaking, her heavy armor and armaments would have costed enough money for us to by a 3 bedroom house today (that too, excluding the horse); As such, not only the character depicted here is rich, but she would have been also physically fit to be able to fight in that attire. For my historical references, the Fresco depicting a scene from "Iwein" by Hartmann von Aue in Rodenegg Castle, South Tyrol, Italy, is used for the fabric and early great helm. As for the overall style, I based it on the two french effigies of Jean de Bretigny in Ourscamp Abbey, Chiry-Ourscamp, Oise, France  & Renaud of Saint-Vaast of Abbaye de Saint-Vaast, Arras, Pas-de-Calais, France

On the other hand, a mounted warrior is not enough without a battle scene, so I decided to depict her and her retainers charging through the besieging line, probably in an attempt to sally forth from her besieged castle. Most of them were depicted with various armaments from the 12-13th century, which kinda made the scene rather anachronistic. The infantry guard which is being attacked is depicted in the typical gambeson and kettle helmet, though I decided to include a scale armor as well for variety. I would imagine she took the desperate attack from refusing to surrender and after her husband death; Medieval battle norm dictated that should the besieged refuse to surrender, the defenders within the walls will be executed upon capture (unless they are nobles and could pay ransom).