DDwarks: Yes, you will! With that said, I may have to revisit this idea later on. If people start abusing this mechanic and donating $1 in an attempt to save $35 later on, that seems to be against the spirit of what I'm trying to do. I might make it (from this point on) only applicable if someone pledges a certain amount, but you personally will still get the heads-up.
rylla: It's mostly (I'd say 70%) a personal choice. When I was thinking of these knights and who best embodied the vanguarding force of them, the first thing that came to mind for my model was this female friend of mine. She has been on the forefront of trying to make environmental change, both on the picket lines and in her work as a scientist, and also physically trained her body to be one of the strongest women I know. Her personality was fairly brash, very quick to excite, and very hardheaded in her arguments. That's the biggest reason, and the most subjective.
On the objective side, admittedly, I wondered a bit about the "acceptability" of having a female knight considering how classicaly they're male, but after looking at a huge range of examples in media where equality across the sexes is growing, especially in roles that are considered "aggressive" or "powerful", I kept seeing huge amounts of support. Jyn Erso from Rogue One, Rey from Star Wars, Wonder Woman's reboot, Game of Thrones' Brienne of Tarth, etc etc.
One of the largest influencers in my personal circle is Zarya from the video game Overwatch. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume most of you aren't familiar with that video game, but the short story is that she is a muscular "tank" class character in this game, in an environment where women traditionally take the "shy, slim, coy" types. In Russia, she's been used as the international symbol for female equality and gay rights, and nobody in the mainstream gaming world has taken any offense to this. This tells me, from a research-based perspective, that my decision to make some knights female will both be 1) accepted by the mainstream and 2) adored by particular small segments.
For reference, here is Zarya
http://gameranx.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Overwatch2-Zarya.jpg
I appreciate everyone's feedback and questions, and I will very hopefully be finished with another painting today! Fingers crossed!