House Stark
Seat: Winterfell
Words: “Winter is Coming”
Lineage: First Men
Family weapon: Formerly “Ice”, a double-handed Valyrian steel sword, melted down into two smaller blades by the Lannisters.
Notable members: This is the main family of the series, so all of them, basically.
Fun Fact: Brandon the Builder, who supposedly built Winterfell AND the Wall, is a mythic figure from the Age of Heroes. GRRM was quoted as saying that Brandon existed so long ago, it would be comparable to Noah’s Ark or Gilgamesh.
1st banner circa Dec 2014
One of the first banners I ever drew, one of the few using Crayola marker.
This did not follow the canon description of “direwolf racing across an ice white field.”
This is, incidentally, King Robb Stark’s personal banner.
2nd banner circa Jan 2015
Quickly updated this banner to match the description.
This one turned out to be more of a cogi racing across and ice white field than a direwolf.
3rd banner Feb 2015
At this point, I looked up an image of a wolf online to get a better sense of animal anatomy (this goof came up often).
Better, but more of a “trot” rather than a race.
4th banner Jun 2015
My own style starts to show in this one. I had to take some time before attempting this one again.
The arching back drove me nuts, like the wolf was hunching over to fit in the drawing. BAH!!
5th banner Oct 6, 2015
By now, I was dating each banner since I lost track of the order of creation.
I was still struggling with sizing the drawing to fit comfortably. As soon as it was done, I regretted the tone of grey I chose (not “cold” enough for a Stark banner), and the physiology still didn’t look right. I stayed away from this one for a while.
Final banner Feb 29, 2016
FINALLY!!! This project more or less ended on March 1, 2016. Since then, I’ve sporadically done more banners when my mental health hits a slick spot on the steep hill that is my brain. This one, I held off until I was almost at the end until my Super Saiyan pencil powers had caught up for this banner.
I love everything about this; the shape of the body, the wild, bristly fur, the snarl of the snout, and the way it appears like it’s running with no other reference to the subject (no blurry background or momentum lines to indicate movement…just an “ice white” field, which was just uncolored paper.
BONUS banner Mar 24, 2020
I did some ASMR videos for coloring at the onset of COVID. I redid the Stark banner, this time I actually DID color in the background white. When I looked at old banners, the white field backgrounds all started to have a “raw wood” look and feel to it, and they were peppered with pencil debris.
For this, I colored the background white to “coat” the background so no grey would get in the paper fibers. I also tweaked the line weight of the fur. Exact same design as the last one, but DAMN if this new one don’t pop off the page!
