Game of Thrones – A Friend in Tyrell

Game of Thrones – A Friend in Tyrell

For today’s Game of Thrones illustration, Ned Stark has just sent men to hunt down Gregor Clegane in the Riverlands. Loras Tyrell is offended that he was not allowed to lead them. As Varys gives Ned some advice he flounces away.

For this series, this is Loras Tyrell’s first appearance. (This series of illustrations. I know he appears about a hundred pages before in the book.) The other thing about this picture it’s my first opportunity to draw the Iron Thone. The first thing an illustrator has to remember that the book throne is nothing like the one on the HBO series. George R. R. Martin’s description is fairly vague, sticking with words like massive, ugly, asymmetrical and very, very sharp. It’s really tempting to want to add cushions, but the book makes clear that the discomfort is the whole point. (Back in my fanfic days, I had an idea for a humorous short story where we meet a man whose job to sharpen all of the blades)

For the most part, I mostly used Marc Simonetti’s version as a starting template. I made it a little smaller so it would fit into the shots of some future pictures I have planned. I made the throneroom smaller as well mostly basing it on the interior of the Amiens Cathedral. (Though it occurs to me with Aegon practically building the Red Keep around the Iron Throne with dragons helping, the throne room could be the only example of Valaryan architecture in Westeros outside of Dragonstone.

As for Ser Loras, the most important thing was to make him pretty. While I’ll need to show that there’s a bit of danger to him. Like Jaime Lannister, he’s a prodigy. In fact, later on, Jaime considers him almost a mirror image of him at that age. However, right now we need a face that both Sansa and Renly fall in love with. I went with making him look a bishonen hero from a Yaoi manga. Someone who, even when he’s furious like now, someone’s first reaction would be, “isn’t he cute when he pouts?”