Sunday, February 27, 2011

The North

To continue this series of leisurely Game of Thrones fanart-sketch-experiments while I rest and recharge, I have JON SNOW and GHOST (his direwolf!) in the frozen land beyond the Wall.


This was a further experiment in making my own photoshop brushes and slapping on more texture. I expanded and made a bunch more! The new brushes are okay, but I wish I could find a really nice sort of dry-brush ink or charcoal-y simulcrum. (besides just drawing traditionally, of course) :) To the people who are curious about how I normally draw-- I just use my wacom and a regular hard round photoshop brush, start to finish, nothing fancy. (when I need texture, I put it in layers over my work)

Horses are way hard to draw. Also, I am disappointed that Jon Snow in the HBO previews has a dumb moustache. Makes him look too old! He's supposed to be a skinny 14-15 yr old!

18 comments:

Niv Bavarsky said...

This is great, Kali - definitely one of my favorites of yours. Beautiful textures. I really love the dynamic of the stationary horse in the center of the composition vs. the moving wolf facing the other direction.

P.S - My confirmation word was "fists"!

ed said...

Completely badass! Love the muted, dark palette.

Anonymous said...

Are you a fan of Erte? A lot of your work is like a modern Erte. He is my all-time favorite artist, so I look forward to checking out more of your work. Funny the things you find through Facebook.

Nimit Malavia said...

This is awesome! It feels like a really great 'en plein air' painting, for some reason....OMG YOU PAINT IN WINTERFELL??

Hannah Ahn said...

Im in love kali

Kristin Ciesemier said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kyle T. Webster said...

Wow, wow! Another beauty, Kali!!!

annashipside said...

Beautiful!

Bronwyn said...

Oooh, this is lovely! I really like the birch trees in the back with the little fir trees even further in shadow - the sparseness makes a great contrast to Jon's furry cloak and saddle

windeater.blogspot.com

Si said...

Beautiful! You've captured Jon Snow. Now I want to see him facing the camera. Interesting to know about you normal process, and can I say those new brushes of yours are working very well

Anonymous said...

Schweet!

yaoyaoguo said...

can't believe you did this in photoshop. i thought it was gouache. so nice:)

M. S. Corley said...

Really really beautiful piece, I wish I could paint like you

Kali Ciesemier said...

This is a bit late on my part, but thanks so much for all the comments here! It's really great to get feedback when I try out new stuff like this. :)

Kriss-- I love a lot of art deco artists, Erte included!!

About Yea High said...

Fantastic. That is true art. You could illustrate storybooks for a living.

FYI, Kit Harington (the actor playing Jon Snow in HBO's Game of Thrones) is considerably aged up, as are most of the other characters. He has a full beard, not just a mustache in most scenes... though he (and Robb) are both clean-shaven for the Winterfell feast.

(Well maybe not a FULL beard. But he's trying.)

(...trying to be like Ned, more likely than not.)

Keep up the good stuff!

FaBio
Winter-is-coming.net

Kali Jacobs said...

So much love! A wonderful piece for a wonderful story! Can't wait for Dragons to come out!

Anonymous said...

This immediately reminded me of Ilon Viklands gentle, poetic illustrations for Astrid Lindgren's Brothers Lionheart. Yours is darker and more powerful, but I think the stylized look combined with the textures evokes the same faraway fairytale feel. It's deeply gorgeous.

jendraws said...

I stumbled across your illustration website via Domestic Etch. I love looking at your creative process since I am an aspiring illustrator myself. I also felt compelled to illustrate some of the ASOIAF characters also! I'm midway through book four and I'm loving Martin's work. I love your image of Jon, especially the lift in his hair as he turns away.