More inspiration/references

I was reading the Art of Pixar's Brave not too long ago and noticed that in the concept stages the artists had designed a lot of character themed Celtic knots/motifs

(there are also some lovely bear ones but google is giving me nothing)

These reminded me of the land of Rohan from the Lord of the Rings, which is home to the horse lords, and so have lots of lovely horse motifs kicking about, and they're very Celtic/Pictish looking. 

For instance, King Theoden's sword has two horse heads on the hilt(?)

 And the Golden Hall of Meduseld has horse heads at the tops of the pillars...

as well as the flag of Rohan...

With all this, plus a class trip to Dublin and a visit to the Book of Kells, it got me thinking that since the myth of the Kelpies is a pretty old one, it would make sense that they would be depicted in Celtic or Pictish knots. I've been giving it a shot recently but it turns out that knots are bloody difficult to draw, as it's pretty mathematical, but it's something I'm willing to work at. With this is mind, we've been lending a more Celtic feel to the ongoing texture design for the Kelpie, and it's giving us some really cool results.