The formidable Belwas, folks! This one was pretty fun to make. I used a wrestler as my reference for the character, back when I was paying for the service and could upload images… as I recall, I spent a bit of time trying to make him appropriately shiny and hairless! Anyway, for Belwas the key descriptor is girth. With the eunuchs in the series, I think we do see a trend towards soft and fleshy as they age, with perpetually soft cheeks. I’ve tried looking up how accurate that is to real life - it sounds correct to me, but I haven’t hit on the right search terms yet, I guess.
I hope you guys like my take on the former slave turned queensguard councilor!
Hi folks! Trying to get back in the groove. Where we left off, I was posting some of the many folks who round out Dany’s POV in Essos. Ser Barristan is a valued councilor to the young queen, of course, and eventually gets his own POV chapters~
If you can’t tell, the show’s choice of actor had a big impact on this portrait. I think Ian McElhinney embodied the role perfectly. As I’m one of those folks who started the series with season one of GoT and then rapidly consumed the books, I end up picturing this casting choice in my head for Barristan… He’s got that honorable grandpa vibe imo!
I really like Grey Worm. His choice to keep the name he had received on the day he was set free moves me a lot. Like, what an incredible tactic the Masters had designed to dehumanize the Unsullied, right? Removed of identity to the point that even their name is an inconsistent thing (but always an insult, I suppose). But then they are freed - allowed for the first time in years to be human. He keeps the name he’d drawn that day, as it belonged to a free man…. aghhh, hits me straight in the heart every time I think about it!!!
But y'all are here for the portrait, not to be flooded by my feels ;P Grey Worm is described as stocky, square, serious, and tireless. Due to the practice of castrating boys in training as Unsullied, he grows no facial hair.
I love Missandei and her ever-broadening role beside Dany. She starts off as a scribe and handmaid but we see her do much more, as she counsels her queen and becomes a dear confidant. She’s wise as well as experienced in administration, and kind to boot.
I know people are excited about the idea of Daenerys and Arya meeting, but I think Arya would like Missandei and have a lot in common!
Daenerys again, this time please ignore the face(again) and let’s focus on the dress and jewelry that I mainly referenced southern Indian fashion, that according to some resources is from 16th century AD. I like to gather a lot of influences from various cultures to build the quartheen dress so this one it’s not the final version of what I imagine of what the dress looks like as it was just for fun.
every week that goes by without tumblr s/pport addressing my multiple open tickets about this blog being marked as sensitive without explanation i will post a bad ipad drawing from when i read affc back in 2020 and my followers too will know a fraction of the pain i suffer at the hands of inept and entirely automated technical support (kidding, kidding)
Day 27:Mythological parallels -> Arya + a coin for Charon
“Then what good is it?”
“As well ask what good is life, what good is death? If the day comes when you would find me again, give that coin to any man from Braavos, and say these words to him—valar morghulis.”
“Valar morghulis,” Arya repeated. It wasn’t hard. Her fingers closed tight over the coin. Across the yard, she could hear men dying. “Please don’t go, Jaqen.”
Arya curled up near the fire, warm and snug, yet sleep would not come. She took out the coin that Jaqen H'ghar had given her and curled her fingers around it as she lay beneath her cloak. It made her feel strong to hold it, remembering how she’d seen the ghost in Harrenhal.
The captain turned it over and blinked at it, then looked at her again. “This … how … ?”
Jaqen said to say the words too. Arya crossed her arms against her chest. “Valar morghulis,” she said, as loud as if she’d known what it meant.
“Valar dohaeris,” he replied, touching his brow with two fingers. “Of course you shall have a cabin.”
“Valar dohaeris.” He pushed off with his oar and drifted back off into the deeper water. Arya watched him row back the way they’d come, until he vanished in the shadows of the bridge. As the swish of oars faded, she could almost hear the beating of her heart. Suddenly she was somewhere else … back in Harrenhal with Gendry, maybe, or with the Hound in the woods along the Trident. Salty is a stupid child, she told herself. I am a wolf, and will not be afraid. She patted Needle’s hilt for luck and plunged into the shadows, taking the steps two at a time so no one could ever say she’d been afraid.
At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are watching me, she thought. She pushed upon both doors at once with the flat of her gloved hands, but neither one would budge. Locked and barred. “Let me in, you stupid,” she said. “I crossed the narrow sea.” She made a fist and pounded. “Jaqen told me to come. I have the iron coin.” She pulled it from her pouch and held it up. “See? Valar morghulis.”
They will tell you that she has been known to bring aurochs down all by herself, that no trap nor snare can hold her, that she fears neither steel nor fire, slays any wolf that tries to mount her, and devours no other flesh but man.
One time I saw this New Yorker cartoon with a piece of penne pasta answering the phone and saying, “Fusilli, you crazy bastard! How are you?” and now I cannot cook fusilli without thinking you crazy bastard
The Green Grace is a major player among the Ghiscari nobility. She’s described as over 80 years old, with thinning skin, but still retaining her grace and piercing green eyes. I wish I could show her veiled as she is in canon, but that’s beyond Artbreeder afaik!
I think this is the last of Dany’s courtiers that I’ll be posting for a bit. If you have any characters from the Essos narrative you want me to work on, drop me an ask or a message! I have a couple minor characters from Tyrion’s POV where it intersects that I hope to post, like Penny and Sweets, but again, let me know if there’s someone in particular you want to see me try my hand at.
Posting some more councilors from Meereen! The Shavepate is described pretty straightforwardly as having a heavy brow, small eyes, a big nose, and yellowy skin. I fear I may have made a more attractive man than was intended… Of course, that’s always a matter of personal preference, yeah? Regardless of his looks, he’s a reliable commander and a fierce man.
One of the things I love about asoiaf is the way prophecy can apply in multiple contexts. The “beware the perfumed seneschal” bit is one of many warnings that can be seen to reference more than one character. This particular seneschal is another of the Ghiscari serving Dany in Meereen. Reznak mo Reznak is as oily and obsequious as they come. Otherwise, all we really know is that he is small and old and fleshy, soooo I hope you like where I went with it!
I had a lot of fun trying to establish what you might call the Ghiscari phenotype. The books describe amber skin and wiry black & red hair, with various eye colors. For Hizdahr in particular, he’s described as pale and long faced with flawless skin. Dany says he’s a real looker, too! He shaves off his wings and his beard as well for her. I thought to give him simply stubble, but I liked seeing the streaky red throughout the beard when it was close cropped, so please pardon this inaccuracy!
Discussing fictional races is always a contentious area, so I hope you guys recognize that I mean well! Anyhow, fan interpretations of the people of Meereen vary a lot. I think folks kinda want to force racial representation in where it’s not really present to that degree? When I first started making Meereenese characters, I automatically depicted them as pretty dark skinned because what I’d seen on the show and all the stupid white savior conversations being had about Dany’s plotline seeped into my brain. And frankly, wiry is a typical descriptor referring to type 4 hair which is more common in black people. But that’s bringing stuff to the text that isn’t actually there. I want to stay true to the text, that’s like my biggest motivator. Even so, I wanna respect that people headcanon all sorts of things. If you check my Artbreeder page and look for the Meereen tag, you can see other variants I explored.
I swear, this dude was designed to stump gifmakers and artists working in mediums like mine. George knew and did it on purpose.
Finding the sweet spot between the attempt to be accurate to description, and also maintaining the realism in style for the portrait, was my main issue in making Daario. He’s colorful, as y'all are aware, but editing of colors in Artbreeder tend to be imprecise. If the ai recognizes a spot as hair, regardless of if it’s accurate, most genes working on hair will include all such areas. So beards are tough to differentiate from scalp hair, and even harder to isolate a moustache at that! This is also a problem in trying to create turbans… Every attempt I’ve made in that area has seen silk head wraps as hair -_-
