I’ve been trying to avoid scenes that merely consists of two people talking to each other. This scene, with Renly telling Ned to strike before the rest of the palace knew King Robert was dead, fit this description. But there was enough drama to work with so I went with it.
It also gave me an opportunity to work on my take on Renly Baratheon. As I pointed out here, he is much more impressive in the books or at least the first book. I tried to capture the look that reminded Ned of Robert in his prime.
“Strike! Now, while the castle sleeps.” Renly looked back at Ser Boros again and dropped to an urgent whisper.
Beyond getting myself stuck doing a scene with too much cross-hatching, this picture of Tyrion Lannister’s recollection of the first time he went to the dragon room in the Red Keep went without a hitch. My only problem was the issue of the lantern. Martin doesn’t actually say anything about illumination. I’ve been finding that when it comes to the small stuff he has a tendency to play fast and loose. The way I see it, what’s the obsession with torches? In a castle, they’re an accident waiting to happen. This is a setting loosely based on the fifteenth century, technology isn’t THAT backward. So currently my policy is that unless Martin specifically says where the light is coming from people are using lanterns.
He had expected to find them impressive, perhaps even frightening. He had not thought to find them beautiful.
I wasn’t looking forward to doing Jamie Lannister’s capture in the Whispering Wood. It was mostly because most of the pictures this week were Lannister scenes, but mostly because I started overthinking the composition again. I spent way too much time wondering where I’d put Catelyn.
I think I’m beginning to get better at armor now. The Northern armor is loosely based on English armor and Jamie’s is loosely based on the Maximillian style.
Lannister raised his head. “Lady Stark,” he said from his knees. Blood ran down one check from a gash across his scalp, but the pale light of dawn had put the glint of gold back in his hair. “ I would offer you my sword, but I seem to have mislaid it... I finally realized it would work best looking at Jaimie from her point of view.
For the second week of my Halloween film marathon, I decided to go with the genre that I’ve been avoiding for me in the year, zombie apocalypse.
I thought I’d start at the beginning, or more accurately close to the beginning, with the second film of George A. Romero‘s zombies series,Dawn of the Dead. It’s been a couple of days since the events of Night of the Living Dead, and the raising of the dead has led to the collapse of civilization as we know it. Fleeing the chaos of the cities, a small band of people finds shelter in an indoor shopping mall. But how long can they last as the dead hammer on the doors?
I can’t say that I liked this film quite as much as Romero’s original film. Perhaps it’s because that since I know quite a bit about visual effects, or maybe because I heard just how much Romero likes to be overly theatrical in his directing style, thatI did not find this film as gory as most people do. Because of this, I found myself paying much more attention to its satirical elements. Technically, it’s not a parody of the zombie film since Romero was inventing the genre virtually from whole cloth. Because of this, it becomes a satire of 80s consumerism with the zombies doubling as the jaded masses.
For the most part, I had some trouble even considering this a horror film. Since the zombies are so slow and so stupid and hardly a danger at all. I had trouble imagining how they could’ve destroyed civilization as shown in the movie. In fact, I kept imagining that after the initial panic they would be very easy for the civil authorities to deal with.
Still, it was funny and very well done in its own bizarre way.
From one of the first films of this genre, we go to a more recent example, where all of the clichés have been identified and labeled and ready for parody. This is the Zombieland.
The zombie plague has occurred and amongst a mob of carnivorous zombies, all that remains are a small number of survivors. One of the survivors, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg)(Nobodyever wants to learn anybody’s names so as not to get too attached to potential victims, so everybody is identified by the city they were born in.)missed the outbreak simply by being in his apartment playing Warcraft and has survived since by sticking to a long list of rules for his own survival and has been gradually drifting back to Ohio in a desperate attempt to find his family. He soon runs into some companions, the ax crazy Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson having the time of his life hamming it up) and cute con artists Wichita(Emma Stone )and Little Rock. (Abigail Breslin). He learns that Columbas, Ohio has been destroyed by the Zombies and how having no other destination, he joins the others to travel to Pacific Playland the greatest amusement park in California. Rumor says it’s zombie-free. (no it’s not)
This was a fun stupid romp that’s all about bashing zombies. It’s actually surprisingly well thought out, though the problem with the genre is that if you think about them too much is they fall apart faster than superhero films.
This one was a little trick. It is the first closeup of Tyrion Lannister and I wanted to solidify my non Peter Dinklage design for him. Frankly, I was a little reluctant to get to it since it shows Tyrion at his most vulnerable so far. It’s almost comical, and this makes it all the more painful since we are laughing at Tyrion’s expense.
On top of all this, I’m still gathering information for all martial types who are not knights. In the case of the Eyrie guard, I gave them sallets with slightly birdlike visor. I fudged the rest their costume by hiding it behind Tyrion.
The last element was the weirwood throne. This could mean anything, starting with a normal, white wooden throne. I decided to follow the example of the show by pretty much making it a weirwood stump with a place to sit carved out of it.
The guardsmen jerked him upright. Tyrion Lannister dangled between them, kicking feebly, his face red with shame. “I will remember this,” he told them all as they carried him off. And so he did, for all the good it did him.
I spent a little too much time thinking this one out. At first I played around with Arya and the Goldcloak looking up at the “Real King of the Castle”. ( Believed by many fans to be Prince Rhaeger’s former pet, Balerion) Unfortunately, three-point perspective is not one of my strong points, and I couldn’t get it right to save my life. I finally went with this simpler approach, which has the advantage of showing Arya’s amazing ability to make friends with ANYBODY.
“That’s the real king of this castle right there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. “Older than sin and twice as mean. One time the king was feasting the queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child.”
