The Sleeper's Den

I never really posted about my all-new membership of westerosorting... I rather predictably ended up in House Tully, and now it is my duty honorably to win points for my family.

This picture was painted for the Modernisation contest. The challenge was to reimagine ASoIaF characters in a modern setting. For some reason, I started wondering what car the Starks would drive if they lived in a modern-day Winterfell, and I ended up with this. I don't particularly like cars and I don't think I've ever really drawn one, and while I was sketching this I repeatedly considered leaving the ugly thing out altogether, but that would rather have defeated the purpose of the whole picture, so I persevered :p.



( Off To King's Landing... )

NB: Would you believe I mislaid my Sandor Clegane?! And he looked so promising D: ...

By request from thirteen_ravens, I present to you Brienne, the Maid of Tarth, and Ser Jaime Lannister, commonly known as the Kingslayer. Brienne is too pretty, but despite that, I really like how she came out. As for Jaime, meh, he could be better.

I ship these two, obviously. Is there anyone who doesn't?

*

I have been trying to draw Sandor Clegane, too, but in case anyone has failed to notice, I'm not particularly talented for gore or ugliness or that kind of stuff, so when I try my hand at a burned face it will come out a an ever so slightly blemished one :p.

In the works: Jon, Sansa, and more Cat & Ned (of course!).

These are on Canson Montval paper, if anyone is interested (10,5 x 15,5 cm).

I finished my portrait of the Starks. It was more difficult than I thought it would be with only one arm - after all, I need only one hand to hold a brush. Mixing paint was less easy, especially if paint has to be squeezed out of tubes, and just taping my paper to a board was simply hard :p. The worst was that I splattered paint over the top of my painting - not too much, fortunately, but enough to stain my original lightly :/. All in all it came out fine though :).

The complete image is large-ish, so I put it behind a cut. Have a detail first:



( Lord and Lady Stark )

...I think I must have been halfway into A Dance with Dragons: Part 1 when I suddenly felt the need to draw chibi!Ned. I've never drawn chibis before... XD

Everyone: meet Silly Ned Stark.



Eddard Stark seems like the last character to inspire a silly version - but maybe that's why George R. R. Martin drove me in that direction.
( Whyyyyyyyyy? )
And with that, I'm almost running out of ASoIaF. I am currently 240 pages into the last volume and 6 episodes into the tv series. It has dawned on me that soon I'll be waiting for George R. R. Martin to publish new stuff. *sigh*

Also, I'm thinking of joining westerosorting, and have discovered that I can't decide on a third favourite character. After Ned and Tyrion, I can't really think of one character that really rises above the others. So I'm trying to decide between
- Cat Tully
- Sam Tarly
- Brienne of Tarth
- Jaime Lannister
- Bran Stark
- Jon Snow

It's difficult... If I sift out the characters who have character traits that I really don't like, I'm left with Bran, Jon and Sam; but Cat and Jaime are more entertaining than any of them. Cat I don't like entirely because she reminds me too much of myself. Jaime I don't like entirely because, even though he's improved a great deal, I still can't stand his swagger. What to do?

...Or how ASoIaF dominates my life ;P.

...Obvious Ned Stark love is obvious -_-. My love for House Stark is partly related to my love for Gawain - more about that below the cut, for people who can't be, or don't mind being, spoiled for ASoIaF.

State of the AsoIaF: am 140 pages into A Storm of Swords: Part 2. So if you haven't got that far yet, and are afraid of spoilers, don't go behind the cut...

( Stark/Gawain )

More Kundry, because I adore her. Even though she's quite horrible. Or maybe because she's quite horrible.



- Speaking of horrible, I annoyed my fellow moviegoers last Friday by squeeing every time Loki appeared on screen in Avengers. I can't help it, he may be a villain but I just love him to bits! I wonder if it's Tom Hiddleston's voice or his smile, both of which just about make me melt ;-). That, and Loki is just ... you know ... he tends to bite off more than he can chew, realises that he's getting himself into trouble, and when it looks like he's winning, he finds that he can't make the tough (read: really really mean and nasty) decisions that he should make to cement his victory. He can't kill Thor because he doesn't really want to kill Thor. I do love me a villain who becomes a villain because he thinks that's what's expected of him. And villains who are major drama queens, of course ;-). Mind you, my soft spot for Loki, the Marvel version, is based on the films and the, um, three Marvel comics I've read. I'm quite sure that he does much nastier things elsewhere in the Marvelverse than he does in Thor: Ages of Thunder, Thor, the Mighty Avenger and Thor and Loki: Blood Brothers. He's only fun when he has more than one dimension, and I doubt he is always given that much.

Incidentally, going over Loki's Wikipedia page I noticed that normally Laufey is Loki's mother, not his father as in the Marvel universe. That struck me as kind of funny, especially as it is apparently unusual to have a matronymic name in the Norse pantheon.

My friend bettyboop_comic rolls his eyes at the fact that I root for villains so often, and it's true, I do occasionally find them more fun than the good guys. I guess the thing that draws me to them is that they often seem more human and recognisable than straightforward heroes. Heroes are only interesting if they are liable to be tempted by the easy way out, or by wicked deeds, or by other things that are tempting to normal people. I'm especially fond of villains who are 'pushed' towards the dark side, if you want to call it that, and preferably pushed by the 'good' guys. I sometimes think that one reason why I like villains is that I'm such a law-abiding citizen and, as Oscar Wilde said, 'When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy'. You know you mustn't be bad and mean and nasty because that would be wrong, but if you're always good, that absolutely doesn't mean you will always be treated well. Sometimes you would be mean and nasty and evil if only you dared, wouldn't you? Well, I would. I guess that if I thought I could be really good at being bad, I'd try my hand at it ;p. And villains, well, they just go for it. Of course they are only interesting as long as they are occasionally beset by doubts - again, like normal people.

Now that I'm finally reading A Song of Ice and Fire, I find I'm rooting for the good guys again. So far, the bad guys are just too ... bad. Maybe they'll become a bit more human in future books. I mean, they are fun in all their Ebilness of Ebil, but I'm not going to forgive them for crushing Eddard Stark. Not ever. Because yes, even though he's not to be tempted by the easy way out or by corruption (so far :p), I'm rooting for Ned Stark all the way. Why? Because, even though I have only reached page 456 of the first book in the series, I JUST KNOW that dear noble Ned isn't going to make it. Which will make me sad. Because he's decent and most of the court isn't. And his decency is SO not going to be rewarded. *sigh*

So, you see, I *can* be on the side of the white hats ;-).

My favourite ASoIaF characters so far:
NED STARK
Arya Stark
Jon Snow
Tyrion Lannister
Littlefinger (because I can't help myself :P)

I'm a little bit annoyed by the fact that there's only one female character on the list. Hopefully there will be more as I read on...

NB: Don't spoil me please. I still think George R.R. Martin seems to need a LOT of pages to get his story told, so I need the suspense to remain intact and carry me through...