Cheers guys
I agree with both of you I like the drama of the black outline and the moody border. I've been working on borders and brushes with varying levels of success. Here's where I'm up to right now...

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I did the knotwork border using a cool font from 'Fontineed' Celtic Border Font, Download Celtic Border .ttf truetype or .zip Free - FontIneed

It was a bit clumsy going round the whole border and I had to copy and paste a couple of sections. Then I just made three layers to give it a bit of depth. Not exactly the feel I am looking for but it's close.

I drew the 'scale' border in photoshop but I need to antique it. Any tips on how to do this would be appreciated.

I also sketched out some images to convert into brushes but I'll upload those in the next post...

Cheers
Peter