The King in the north scene is the one of my favorite in both the show and the book.
Regrettably, it was one of the hardest one to figure out. In the show this scene takes place in the ruins of a darkened castle. In the original text it takes place in the well lit great hall of Riverrun. It was dificult figuring out how to fit both Greatjon Umber and Robb Stark in the rectangular format. This was before I realized I had gotten the seating wrong. I had gone in assuming the Greatjon was part of the crowd with Robb, Catelyn and Edmure Tully sitting up front, when actually the Greatjon is sitting right next to Robb. It was also frustrating that I couldn’t find what the Greatjon looked like. I’ve been trying to avoid the show and other illustrations and stick to how the book describes people, but all Mr. Martin says about the Greatjon, is that he’s HUGE.
In the end, I think this one came out as… okay for me… but not much more.
He pointed at Robb with the blade. “There stands the only king I mean to bow my knee to, m’lords,” He thundered. “The King in the North!”
Another iconic scene with Ned and Catelyn in the godswood. This one I found elusive and it took me a few false tries before I got a good composition. I still think I flubbed the perspective a little bit.
I found myself focusing on the weirwood itself, just what it looks like and just how the carved face would look. (I’ve seen everything from a fully carved face to simply two holes for eyes and a slash) I assume that the Winterfell godswood is one of the older ones and would have one of the more detailed faces. Also based on some of the fan sites I’ve been following, I’m not quite sure that weirwood is even a plant anymore and because of this, they stick out in the forest for reasons beyond their lack of color and red leaves. I’m almost imagining their “bark” to almost seem like a hard smooth skin.
Cateyln found her husband beneath the weir wood, seated on a moss-covered stone. The greatsword Ice was across his lap, and he was cleaning the blade in those waters black as night. A thousand years of humus lay thick upon the godswood floor, swallowing the sound of her feet, but the red eyes of the weirwood seemed to fallow her as she came. “Ned”, she called softly.
I’m finally getting to actual popular scenes, from the book, in this case the first appearance of the crypts of winterfell as well as the first time Lyanna Stark is mentioned. The biggest problem with this picture is I had to do way too much crosshatching.
They went down to the crypt together, Ned and this king he scarcely recognized. The winding stone steps were Narrow. Ned went first with the lantern.
This was probably the hardest scene to do so far because all of the information for the scene was actually two pages before the scene itself. Also, I because I couldn’t imagine a puppeteer manipulating a marionette with one hand I would have preferred to have them be hand puppets but Martin specifically says they are made of wood. Trying not to spend too much time doing research I made them stick puppets that work… somehow.
This also brought me to an issue of wrapping my head around how different the book is from the show specifically of all the characters who look nothing like their screen version it’s Lysa Arryn. I don’t have a problem with it since I think Kate Dickle is one of the best castings on the show due to her remarkable resemblance to Catelyn Stark’s actress Michelle Fairley. However since I’m doing the book, not show I have to remember to stick to the text.
“Behind her, Lord Robert shrieked with delight as one of the puppet knights sliced the other in half, spilling a flood of red sawdust onto the terrace.”
We go from the innocent times at Winterfell to the simmering intrigue of King’s Landing at the Hand’s Tournament.
I’m currently in the process of coming up with designs for the cast on the fly and this is the first of the pictures where I had to think about what people looked like. I did a preliminary sketch of Robert, though I’m afraid he still looks a lot like Mark Addy. Selmy was a little harder mainly I couldn’t help wondering how much armor a King’s Guard would be wearing. Yes I know the bulk and weight of full armor is greatly exaggerated, but there is a great difference a knight fighting on the field and a knight as a bodyguard for his lord in a castle. For Ned, I gave him a very long face since that has been described as the default Stark look in the books.
I’m mostly happy with this though I had several thoughts after the fact of the positioning of Robert in the foreground. I just assumed he was bending down to throw the breastplate… that’s the story I’m sticking with anyway.
“for a moment Robert was so angry he could not speak. He strode across the tent, whirled, strode back, his face dark and angry. He snatched up his breastplate from the ground and threw it at Barristan Selmy in a wordless fury. Selmy dodged. “Get Out,” the king said then, coldly. “get out before I kill you.”
This week I watched comedies about homebuilding, more specifically the horror that is a fixer-upper.
The first film on my list was H. C. Porter’s Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Melvyn Douglas. Cary Grant plays Jim Blanding a successful Ad executive who feels cooped up by his New York apartment. When he and his wife Maureen (Loy) realize that buying a new house is actually cheaper than the apartment remodeling they have been planning, they jump at the opportunity to buy a house in Connecticut, despite the warnings of their friend and lawyer Bill Cole.
They soon realize that the house is not quite the steal they thought soon having to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch… and that’s just the beginning of their troubles!
I had mixed feelings about this film. Make no mistake, Loy and Grant had great chemistry, but I found the humor to be inconsistent. Considering a lot of comedy comes from witty dialogue, it is a bit of a contrast that a lot of the plot being carried by sheer stupidity with the Blandings bringing almost half of their problems on themselves.
The other thing I found strange about this was how much culture shock this film provided me. The big one was how Bill Cole merely hanging out at the house raising peoples eyebrows. The other one was realizing how much inflation there has been since the forties. I kept had trouble believing that the main character had a New York apartment with a wife, kids, and a maid, with an income of 15,000 a year!
The next film on my list Richard Benjamin’sThe Money Pit starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. Hanks and Long play Walter Fielding and his girlfriend Anna Crowley. THey’ve been having financial problems ever since Walter’s father embezzled millions of dollars from his firm. To make matters worse they’re thrown out of the apartment they’ve been subletting from Anna’s ex-husband Max (played with narcissistic glee by Alexander Godunov. Finding a place in New York is impossible though.
Walter gets a tip from on a great deal, for a beautiful old house out of town that he and Anna jump on. However, this turns out to be a con with the house starting to fall apart nearly as soon as the purchase is made.
It was interesting to watch the Hanks’ early career as a comic actor along with Long’s attempt to break into film. Otherwise, this film suffers from most of the usual problems of eighties comedies with most of the humor dependent on physical humor and dumb pratfalls (and face it once you’ve seen Tom Hanks fall through a floor once you’ve seen it a hundred times.)
