Games of Thrones, like other classic sci-fi series, has inspired a fantastic collection of artists. This year’s calendar features the work of Marc Simonetti.
George R.R. Martin took to his Not-a-Blog to make the announcement, “The official 2013 SONG OF ICE AND FIRE calendar is on sale at your favorite bookstore, br[sic] it brick & mortar or internet (if it’s not, time to find a new favorite bookstore). Some gorgeous artwork by Marc Simonetti this year.”
To give fans some insight into his process, Marc Simonetti made a behind the scenes video that shows how he creates one of the calendar’s pages from start to finish. The video truly shows how criticism of digital art being “not real art” is completely invalid. The details, time, and talent are quite apparent. Simonetti has drawn for a number of epic fantasy shows before. The gallery on the official Marc Simonetti website displays some of his previous A Song of Fire and Ice work where he has done the cover art for various foreign editions of the books.
Although there is no indication of what is being drawn in the video, the final picture is a spoiler for Martin’s most recent book A Dance With Dragons. It is unlikely that a fan of the TV series would understand the scene and who and what is being portrayed. However, beware the comments on YouTube. Also, fans of only the TV series may not want to visit Martin’s website where the scene is more fully described. There are more photos on Amazon.com, but again be aware that the finished product contains major spoilers for all of Martin’s novels.
Though having a calendar may seem routine in some fandoms, fully-illustrated calendars have only been produced in 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013 for the A Song of Fire and Ice series. In that time, no artist has ever done more than one calendar. According to the A Song of Fire and Ice Wiki, the inaugural calendar was a mixture of character portraits and scenes. The 2011 outing was an all scenic theme on the various castles in the series. In 2012, character portraits were all the rage, but they were not reflective of the actors in the HBO series. Now in 2013, classic scenes are the focus.
What do you think of Simonetti’s choice of color and design? Is this a product that you would buy?
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