Hospital Sketch #2: Jon Snow and Ghost

The second of today's hospital room sketches.

Dr.Sketchy’s Philadelphia - Game of Thrones

"The night was bright, and full of wonder."  That's how the saying goes, right?

On March 27th, Dr. Sketchy's Philly managed to feed my obsessions with a Game of Thrones themed night over at the Philadelphia Art Museum!  I was late, the place was packed with knights of summer, bravos, hedge knights, and camp followers..., and it was all still amazing!

Dr. Sketchy's - Philadelphia's boss lady, Candy Mayhem, as Catelyn Stark

Nothing fancy on my part this time - all quick, pencil sketches (but for Jon Snow's bit of watercolor pencil and water pen).  You can see my vantage point from the pic above, so a lot of side and back sketches this time.

Jake Matthews as Jon Snow, and Amy Houser as Brienne of Tarth

Amy Houser in her awesome suit of armor, again, as Brienne of Tarth

Meagan Rumberger as Dany and Jim Black as Drogo.

The theme of the final sketch was to incorporate dragons and stallions in the image.
After this pose, Jim proposed to Meagan via a fake pose request!  Congratulations to the couple!

I would really like to make the final sketch into a black and white digital image.  I'll have to mull it over a bit more, and see what I can come up with.

WIP: Griff / Jon Connington

I did a bit of digital work on the ASoIaF sketch of Griff (i.e. Jon Connington) I previously posted:

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Warm-Up Sketch: Drogo

Quick digital warm-up sketch: Khal Drogo

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Cover Photos: Mel

An old image turned into a Google+, and a Facebook, cover photo:

G+ - Click to enlarge

Facebook - Click to enlarge

PS - I have been absolutely addicted to Guild Wars 2.  Wonderful game!  Buy it, love it!

Warm-Up Sketch: Griff

"But there was no mistaking Griff.  "That will be enough shouting," he said.  A sudden silence fell upon the river.  This one will be trouble, Tyrion knew at once."
--ADWD, Tyrion p. 119

As important as "Griff" is in ADWD, I am surprised I haven't seen any portraits of him attempted.  I thought I might try one with a quick warm-up sketch.

My thoughts are that Griff should appear as your stern, but cool uncle, but not the boring disciplinarian that Stannis might appear to be.  I also added the beard, since it's there when he arrives back in Westeros.

This may end up as a digital portrait at some point, but I am not sure if I want to save this for after I try a quick sketch of "Young Griff" as well.

Jaqen H'ghar, Valar Morghulis

Before season two of HBO's Game of Thrones started, I did a a few quick sketches based on a photo of Tom Wlaschiha to see if I could get an idea for an image of everyone's favorite introduction to the Faceless Men, Jaqen H'ghar. I finally got around to working on the image idea for Jaqen, figured out how to tell Arya's story with it, and finished it all up (unfortunately, the season is well over with at this point).

I originally wanted Jaqen, Arya, and the coin to look like a vector image with a white background.
The coin never looked correct without some detail however, and this led to many changes.
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Here are two of the aforementioned initial quick sketches, just for the sake of showing where the original idea for the image started.  I hadn't even seen a picture of Jaqen's hair yet, but it was pretty obvious from the books that it needed to be long; the shock white on his left side was a simple redo after viewing.

See, and I made it through this post without spoiling a single thing from the book!  Someone call the Citadel in Oldtown and have them send Pate to deliver my prize!

Community & Game of Thrones: a Mash-Up

This had to be done...

Community returns to TV on 3/15!
Game of Thrones returns on 4/1!

Clearly, a mash-up was in order: all of the main Community characters, as characters in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.  I behaved; everything is based on the GoT TV series where season 1 and season 2 meet, so no spoilers this time around.  Honestly, some of the matches and jokes were so obvious  the Winger explanation of the E Pluribus Anus flag was running through my head while making them.  Others are hopefully subtle enough to appease the true Community (and GoT) aficionado.

Enjoy!

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Greendale is coming!

Warm-up Sketch: Tyrion

A random, quick and dirty warm-up sketch.

W.I.P.: Oberyn Martell

Back in July, I was sorting through old images and posted an image which I wanted to franken-update at some point.  At first I thought it was going to be the hawk that got the royal treatment, but it turned out to be the face from the main image.

My favorite character in the A Song of Ice and Fire series (along with Arya, to be honest) is the Red Viper of Dorne, Oberyn Martell.  I really wanted to do a drawing or a portrait of him at some point, and looking at the image in the old post I felt I had the basis for the image.  The original face had to be reworked a lot, but the general look I was going for was already there.

Here is the initial work in progress:

It is no coincidence that his pose mimics a certain beer commercial character... 

At this point, it looks as if the armor (the flat grey will become scale mail), neck and skin tone are going to be my biggest challenges.  I have been wanting to do this pic since reading Storm of Swords, so hopefully I can do the character justice and crank out the finished version sooner rather than later.

Melisandre

A digital portrait of Melisandre based on the casting of Carice van Houten for Game of Thrones - Season Two:

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The night may be dark and full of terrors, but it may be due to the fact that it is also inhabited by a seductive red priestesses who summons both the dark and the terrors!

Also, as a quick follow up: if she happens to suggest that there is still time to spill your wine, spill your wine!

Work in progress pics

The reference used for the original sketch was this photo, and all rights, credits and such for the photo itself go to the proper photographer/source.

An "Other" Avatar

A bit more goofing around with ASoIaF icons and vector-image avatars and logos.

The Others

For fun, I wanted to see what they'd look like in a very short, visual "cliff notes" chapter summary.  I like the illustration part and the "Overview", but the "Aftermath" was lost somewhere in between information, humor, and a choppy and/or bland text layout.

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Raven Mail

Rmail.  In the game of mail...

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Logos? Icons? Avatars?

While doing the "Shagga's Catchphrase" image, specifically the little Shagga illustration at the bottom right, I became really intrigued with the idea of doing more bare-bones, black-and-white, vector-art-like icons/avatars/logos for the ASoIaF characters and groups.  I am not sure if I am envisioning them as usable icons on a map, game tokens, or buttons, but that wasn't the point so much as sating my continuing ASoIaF obsession I suppose...

Here are the first few in the batch:

The Night's Watch

Post-ASoS Jon Snow

A cleaned up version of Shagga

Balon Greyjoy

Balon Greyjoy (click to enlarge)

Originally, this was supposed to be a take on the Victarion Greyjoy helm described in A Feast For Crows.  Unfortunately, in my haste I glazed over the parts where it described the helm as black and covering most of his face (not to mention picking greens and blues as base colors, ignoring the gold cloak he wears).  Ultimately this turned into a portrait of his older brother, Balon Greyjoy.  Funny enough, I despise the villain (I blame him for much of Theon's ...ahem... poor life choices) and would have never picked him for a portrait, but I'll chalk this one up to some foul trickery of the Drowned God and wash my hands of it!

Original helm sketch/concept

Faceless Men

A Song of Ice and Fire cartoon trifecta is in play!  It is a Braavosi conspiracy!  Valar morghulis!

PS - Valar dohaeris!
PPS - For another, non-comic, Faceless Men-related image, click here.

Shagga's Catchphrase

Another Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones cartoon - this time exposing Shagga, son of Dolf, and his infamous catchphrase:

The 1st National Bank of Lannisport

A quick Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones cartoon, poking fun at Tywin Lannister: