Found a photograph of a few old sketches (the date on the sketchbook says 2017) and brought them into Procreate into my iPad Pro, because everything is more fun in that app. I can’t express just how much I love the brushes in Procreate and how much realistic texture they’ve achieved in designing the brush engine, which is far better than any desktop application I’ve ever used. Here are three stages of the illustration, the first (as almost all of my first stages are) on paper, and the latter ones on my iPad.
I think it was a fitting painting to work on just before the Battle of Winterfell aired on streaming sites across the world. I like the coincidence that the Night King really did pull this Hardhome move once again on Jon, and bumbling Jon Snow had to be saved yet again by Dany and Drogon. I didn’t, however, want to make Viserion white because even though he was a white walker dragon, his original colouring was gold and cream, and the show never really showed him in that light so I took some liberty in colouring him how I wanted. Just while we’re discussing the battle- I quite liked it.
Ser Jorah Mormont will be missed. He died exactly like everyone expected him to, defending his queen to the last. Predictable isn’t always boring, though, and watching it was still heartrending. But the most shattering death of them all? Little Lyanna Mormont, whose defeat of a wight giant was a bitter throwback to Tormund’s fireside story about giant slaying when he was ten. Watching her charge at the giant towards certain doom really shook me; I’ve never liked her character as much as other fans have but she completely won me over in her final moments. I liked that the showrunners gave her that heroic death. People might crib about it being fan service but it was fitting, character wise, and Lady Mormont proved beyond question that she is indeed worth thousands of mainlanders.
Night King Over. Just like that. Sigh.
The Third Floor Corridor 