John Picaciois a tiptop - talented cover artist whose art has beautify many of your favourite novel — but many people now make out him good as the creator of the 2012 Song of Ice and Fire calendar . Picacio ’s iconic artistic creation has helped to capture the lustre and squalidness of Westeros for many readers . Here , in the first of a series of articles , he gives us a step by step tutorial on how he created the calendar ’s version of Eddard Stark , lord of Winterfell .
Oh , and you ’ll really need to click the trope below , to enlarge them and see all the amazing contingent and progression from image to image .
In 2008 , I spotted George R.R. Martin on one of the party floors at Worldcon . We jaw briefly , and I mentioned that I ’d be intimate to ferment with him someday . He said he ’d definitely keep it in mind . One class later , we endure into each other again at the Montreal Worldcon . This fourth dimension around , he asked me to go the bar where we could talk at length . He ask if I ’d ever read his A Song of Ice and Fire books . Unfortunately , I had not at that point . The truth is that I spend most of my indication time devour manuscripts when I ’m assigned cover Job , and joy reading of novels ( specially elephantine ones ) is rare . Since I ’d never work on ASoIaF properties , I had n’t had a opportunity to read these books that many of my booster described as ‘ literary gap ’ .
George necessitate if I ’d be interested in working on a calendar base on his A Song of Ice and Fire serial publication . “ Which month ? ” , I answer . “ Well . All of them , ” said George . At the time , I was mosh with the most cover gigs I ’d ever juggled in my intact life history , plus finishing Elric artwork for the same parent company that was going to publish the calendar ( Random House ) . The sensitive thing was to pass on the chance . My response was of course : “ Let ’s do this . ”
Eddard Stark was the third artwork I ferment on of the twelve calendar work , and he plough out to be one of my very favorites . And of row , he was eventually chosen by Bantam to be the cover of the calendar .
He began as most artworks do — as a series of thumbnails and quick - adumbrate ideas . This one was the sketch chosen as most challenging by George , editor Anne Groell , and artistry manager Dave Stevenson . I agreed . As raw as this small draftsmanship was , I could see this piece finally being a soulful portrait of one of the most iconic grapheme in the serial . At least I hop it might be .
To get there , I did a better - realized survey of the thought . I suppose about my friend Khalil as a potential springboard for my adaptation of Ned . I ’d worked with him antecedently on other jobs , and his face and manner was familiar and evocative when thinking about this particular job .
I ask Khalil to do a bit of modeling for me , and shoot some photographs of him . These were to help me fancy out the frame and luminosity . As you may see from my down - and - dingy reference shot of Khalil , the road to a drawing is not a simple “ copying ” of an original photograph . As cool as Khalil is , he was the point of departure from which I could build my visual modality of Ned , but he was far from an exact blueprint to follow .
For instance , it took me six draft of drawing to get that face right because I had a special imagination in my capitulum of what I wanted , and Khalil ’s facial semblance was n’t the answer . It took time to get there . peradventure six drafts just for that face ? I cultivate out the entire composition via a rendered draft . I think drawing is still the aspect of artistic creation that afford me the most pleasure . I never get old-hat of it .
The bod was looking good , but that background featuring a Weirwood tree ? Nice start , but lacked deepness , I thought .
I did several more bits of drawing rescript — improver and deduction — that I overlaid onto the original drawing via Photoshop . The drawing and paintings were all constituent and small-arm I created in the tangible world — pencil and/or paint on illustration board — and then scanned in ( or photographed ) , imported to my Mac , and composited via Photoshop . you may see how the background need more profoundness and scale of measurement . The piece improved greatly once I found the right balance and mood .
I ’ll spill more about how I ramp up up color in subsequent A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar posts . For now , have a look at those carmine leaves . plain , they were n’t a part of the composition earlier . They were in fact an summation that came at the remnant of the process when I realized that the portrayal was good but lack motion . It was n’t energizing enough . Winterfell ’s red Weirwood leafage were the answer under my nose all along . I recall they really help oneself to splice the whole physical composition together and move the eye through the small-arm .
I ’m felicitous to say that this artwork of Eddard Stark is not only the cover prototype for a 2012 calendar that has been hugely pop , but this picky artwork was choose by the jury of the 19th Spectrum Annual for cellular inclusion in the next yearbook .
John Picacio is a 2012 Hugo Award finalist for Best Professional Artist . correspond out his work atwww.johnpicacio.comand watch him on Twitter at @JohnPicacio . He ’s appearing this weekend in Kansas City at the Spectrum unrecorded show , and will have some cool surprisal graphics treat for George R. R. Martin / A Song of Ice and Fire buff in attendance . His next io9 post about the process of creating the 2012 calendar nontextual matter will feature Bran Stark .
BooksFantasyGame of ThronesGeorge R.R. MartinTelevision
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