Fan Art: Re-Imagining Game of Thrones

Short version:

        Visit deviantart.com and find thousands of images of amazing fantasy fan art to cover your home, body and cat. Just don't try to sell it.

Long version:

        Screens are everywhere these days but somehow there's less fantasy imagery around. Don't get me wrong, I love Peter Jackson’s vision of Middle Earth and HBO is knocking it out of the park with every season of Game of Thrones, but I don't know, sometimes I just feel there's so much more potential in these stories.

All hail Khaleesi, Mother of Dragons!

        Back in the day, when Warner Bros and HBO didn’t have these franchises in lock-down, you’d get gnarly one-off pieces like this one:

James Cauty's Lord of the Rings (circa. 1972)

        For decades Brothers Hilldebrandt, John Howe, Alan Lee, Graeme Anthony, Mithril Miniatures and Citadel Miniatures had the run of the place (with the permission of Tolkien's estate), each creating their own distinctive visions of Tolkien's world, and as a fan of fantasy this diversity was good for the imagination and for the soul.

        I stumbled on deviantart.com three years ago when trying to figure out if dark elf skin should be black, purple or white- it was like stumbling into an Aladdin's cave of lost fantasy masterpieces. For those who don't know deviantart is a massive online platform where artists congregate to share and comment on each others' work. If you head over there and do a search for "Game of Thrones" or "Lord of the Rings" or "fan art" you're bound to find something interesting (be warned though, some fans like to inject a bit of "romance" into their art). Here's some of the best examples of Game of Thrones fan art:

The Kraken's Daughter by mustamirri

Brienne by Rory Phillips

Cersei Lannister by Elia Mervi

Sansa and the Hound by Alon Boroda

Jaime Lannister by Noiry

Mother Of Dragons, Daenerys Targarien by a-hour

Tyrion Lannister by Jorg Ruber

        Pretty cool, huh?

        What I love most about fan art is the way it frees up your mind to re-imagine the characters again. It breaks Benioff and Weiss' spell.

        But is it legal? The legality of fan art is yet to be tested in Australian courts, but Joanne Teng of the Arts Law Centre of Australia says "most fan-works are unlikely to be excused from copyright infringement" under Australian law (boo!). On the other hand "copyright owners, particularly big ones like film studios, tend to tolerate or turn a blind eye to fan-works in the understanding that there's not much harm in creative fan-activity and is probably beneficial in terms of encouraging their market" (yay!). In other words, fan art is probably illegal, but as long as nobody's making money from it it's probably OK.

        The way I see it, that means I can download and print off fan art to decorate my home without the feds knocking down my front door, at least for now.

        For the record Trollwood stocks as many legal variations of Games of Thrones and Lord of the Rings artwork as we can source. Check out the richly illustrated World of Ice and Fire, Alan Lee's Lord of the Rings Sketchbook, Donato Giancola's incredible Middle-Earth: Visions of a Modern Myth and our collection of Brothers Hildebrandt Lord of the Rings metal signs... and best of all- they come with a clear conscience ;)

        See you next week! (unless HBO sends Bronn round here first)

        Mike 

H. Grant, Diorama Making Goddess of Oz

        Anyone who visited HobbyCo on George Street in Sydney in the mid-1980s will have seen the amazing fantasy dioramas of H. Grant. H's dioramas were action-packed Battle Royales of good versus evil in a no-holds barred struggle to the death. We're talking dozens of minis arrayed on battlements, swarming through dungeons, perched on rocky bluffs... H's dioramas always told a big story, real sagas, epic in their scope and drama. The poses of the minis made sense too; weapons were striking or parrying, Dwarves were dying, thieves were sneaking, stuff was actually happening. The figures related logically to one another and their environment which also helped to draw you deeper into their miniature world.

Crunchy H. Grant goodness

Dwarf sortie

Silent scream

Celebrating too soon?

        H was master of the box diorama, a technique that has largely fallen out of favour. The dioramas transported the viewer without the need for fancy optical illusions or lighting, just an exquisitely hand-painted skyline. As a pimply 13 year old I stood there transfixed, drinking in the spectacle, the quality of the painting, the sheer magnificence of the work and thought "H. Grant, you are a GOD". H inspired me to paint minis and remains a benchmark for me to this day. Years later I learned H stood for Helen (not sure who told me, probably my mate Dave). It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know H was female when I was 13; I’m not sure my adolescent brain could have handled it. Then HobbyCo moved up the road to the Strand Arcade and H's dioramas disappeared from its shiny new shelves. It was gut-wrenching, really. As of today the thread about Helen on the Ozpainters forum has over 1250 views, probably 40-somethings like me searching for their childhood hero.

    
        Considering her influence on a generation of Australian mini painters and war gamers Helen remains something of an enigma. In researching this post I learned that she won the Australian Golden Demon award in 1999, the one year she entered, with a massively converted Dwarf galleon (above). Like a grandmaster she came down from the mountain, laid waste to the opposition and then returned back above the clouds. Check out the detail on that thing, the sheer IMAGINATIVE POWER of it. Helen Grant was one of the first major fantasy miniature painters in Australia, she developed her own distinctive style, and judging by the miniature (ahem) size of her virtual footprint, she's clearly a modest, unassuming person.

        Here’s the (pitifully short) list of the dioramas I remember:

1) The Skeleton Horde attacking the Dwarfs' castle

2) Sewer dungeon (with ogre!)

3) Rope bridge (with knights)

There were others, but years pass, synapses die... If anyone remembers them (or their real titles) please leave a comment. And if anyone has photos of her dioramas post them online immediately! (please...) They're the heritage of the Australian fantasy scene.

        With Trollwood I hope to recreate for people some of the magic Helen created for me all those years ago.

        Honour the gods they say. Well then,

        All hail the Mighty H!

        Update: Read my interview with Helen here.

        Mike

(Australian Gods, Part 1)

* Many thanks to numbat at Ozpainters for the use of his photos.