"For the Gods, for the Empire and for the honor of the Fallen"- Battle Cry of the Catro-Katrarian Military.

My second entry for contest. I first heard the song the other day, while with my parents (first problem). Its Darryl Worley's Have You Forgotten. My father made his usual comment about a morbid obsession with September 11th 2001. I suppose he forgets that its probably the defining moment of my generation and the single event that set into motion so many events on the world stage, as well as a very strange chain of events that pointed me towards a real government career (I want to join the FBI one day) Then dealing with one of those "9/11 Truth (gag)" nuts just helped the process along.

The horse is Marowar (http://mondeis.deviantart.com/art/Manowar-Quick-Ref-120951506) and the rider is my character. She is called Tigress by Moongara and her inner circle and Anubis's Avenger by normal mortals. Tigress is a demi-god who is some mixture of Valkerie and a Hungry Ghost on steriods. She is also the first officer of Moongara's starship (I suppose eternity does get boring). Her job is to punish those who break the "don't kill innocents" rule that the gods of the Empire laid down at the beginning of time, among other duties. In this image, however, she is shown in another role, that of avenger of the dead who also reminds people not to forget their fallen. In the Catro-Katrarian Empire, forgetting your dead is a really good way to have lots of things go wrong very fast, since ghosts retain a great deal of the magical abilities they had in life and are all to happy to remind you that they are there. The barrier between mortals and the supernatural is thin at best so what would seem rather extreme interms of beliefs to humans make perfect sense to them (but they would find Dia de Los Muertos very normal) I choose her because she seem the best fit for this piece since it seems to me (particularly given the last US election) that there has been a collective forgetting of the events of 9/11/01 and what it was indicative of. The US is back to tabloid news...I wonder how long it will be before it bites us in the rump.

The figures are both wire core with fabric skin. The horse's armor is steel with copper laminate (lots of silver solder involved). The rest of the horse's gear (blanket, saddle) is leather with copper stitching. The horse's collar is lost wax cast copper on steel (that collar was a nightmare to do, its very thin and cracked in two at one point but I soldered it back together) The rider's headpiece and pants are leather with wire stitch/ornament. Her shirt is woven beads. The rider's sword and horse's horn are both cold forged steel wire. The flag is also woven beads. The platform is plywood and flooring bamboo (something or another) painted black, inspired by the set for the play I worked on last fall, The Baccae.