House Lannister Knight & Warhorse [Completed]

With freehand paintings of the House Lannister heraldry completed, my first Game of Thrones knight on a warhorse miniature is now done. This project contained seven freehand paintings of the heraldry, which was insane from my point of view seeing that my only prior experience was to paint chequered designs on a Bad Moonz ork's weapons. But I am certainly glad I threw myself into the deep end as it has given me the confidence to attempt more complicated freehand designs of other Houses found in the continent of Westeros, the main world where George R.R. Martin's characters play out their fate.  

House Lannister Knight on a warhorse

Side view (left) of the House Lannister Knight

An alternative option would be to paint the cloth on the knight's helmet yellow

Using freehand over decals was to me key in making this mini project stand out. Then again, the choice is largely out of my hands as the existing decals found in the plastic model kit, which is the Warhammer Bretonnian Knights, are not suitable for use to represent the various Houses found in the Game of Thrones world. Some such as the dragon and lion could perhaps be used but having some miniatures with decals while others have freehand paintings would look odd in my opinion.

Banner pole is bending back slightly as if pulled back by the banner blowing in the wind

Side view (right) of the House Lannister Knight

Even after all these years, the Bretonnian sculpture looks awesome 

This Bretonnian Knight miniature conversion project marks the first of eight (for now) that will be used to represent the many Houses found in the imaginary Game of Thrones world of Westeros. Next up will be House Clegane, a close ally, or more accurately, the hatchet men of House Lannister.

Front and back view of the House Lannister Knight on a warhorse

Continuing my experimentation with videos, I shot a short video displaying the House Lannister Knight in 360 degrees. As I am still new to taking videos of miniatures, the colours came out a tad darker than expected. At the very least, it gives a better all round view of the miniature concerned.

Thanks for checking out the latest painted miniature of my ongoing Game of Thrones project. Although the Lannister Knight was a tough challenge for me, I had fun doing it. And I am really looking forward to more freehand madness in the miniatures to come.

Knight of House Lannister [WIP]

As work on the second miniature in my Game of Thrones project enters its final stages, I am essentially putting the finishing touches to the knight in preparation for the final three House Lannister heraldry that I intend to paint freehand on the knight's shield and banner. 

Lannister Knight - a work-in-progress

Managed a smooth texture for the golden lion atop the knight's head

There was a mini-first for me in the painting of the Lannister Knight. Finally after many tries, I achieved my best ever result with metallic gold paint. I have always struggled in getting smooth textures when using metallic gold paint so I was chuffed it turned out better than my previous efforts. 

Front and back views of the Lannister Knight

Painting the banner was also rather fun as it allowed me to practice getter smoother transitions between the shadows and highlights, in this case for red cloth. Less time was spent on getting a smooth paint transition on the shield as most of it will be covered by the House Lannister heraldry. 

House Lannister banner, also a work-in-progress 

Using the banner to practice smoother paint transitions

Only thing missing in the shield is House Lannister's heraldry

Once all the freehand heraldry has been painted, all that is left to be done would be to glue the separate pieces of the knight together and onto the already finished warhorse.

Lannister warhorse awaits its knight

With some experience under my belt, I am hoping the next three freehand heraldry paintings I need to do will turn out well because one's eyes will naturally tend to focus more on the shield and banner. I have already picked out the perfect record as music to paint by - Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - so all I need to do now is roll up my sleeves and get to work. Soonish ... I hope. 

Lannister Warhorse needs plus one for a tourney

Notwithstanding some nervous moments in what was my first significant attempt at painting a freehand design, I have largely come through the experience relatively unscathed. Fortunately none of the four heraldry designs of House Lannister's lion was messed up beyond recognition. Though not perfect, all four heraldry designs are, at the very least, still fairly similar to and recognisable as the lions you would usually see on a coat of arms in medieval times.  

Lannister Warhorse, hear me ... neigh?

More work was done on the warhorse in the way of highlights. So the cloth had the brightest red in my arsenal painted on the edges; the warhorse's tail got some grey highlights; while warhorse itself and it's leather straps received GW Bestial Brown and Snakebite Leather highlights respectively.

More highlighting work was done on the red cloth, leather straps and horse

Incidentally, this was also the first horse I ever painted. But I guess it doesn't really count as most of the warhorse is covered with armour and cloth.

Front (left) and back (right) views of the Lannister Warhorse

Now all that the warhorse needs is a knight to ride him to a jousting tournament. However, work hasn't really started with the Lannister Knight. As you can see below, to date most of him is just white undercoat. From the looks of it, there might be space for another three to four heraldry designs.

A Lannister Knight to be

I hope the knight will be as fun to paint as the warhorse has been. If I can do a good job with the Lannister Knight, it will give me the boost I need to go on and complete a further seven knights from the various other Houses found in the Game of Thrones realm. This project might seem a tad too ambitious for a painter of my skill level but by doing it I I hope to get better at painting freehand. 

Early days of a Lannister Warhorse

Progress on my Game of Thrones Lannister Knight project is still at the very early stages with work primarily concentrated on preparing the canvas for my first serious attempt at painting a complicated freehand design on miniature. With the shield-like emblem measuring just 12 mm by 15 mm, I was first tempted to just use a decal for the heraldry. However, I couldn't find any suitable ones hence my hand was forced and it was either abandon the project or suck it up and try some freehand painting.

Freehand painting of the House of Lannister heraldry

Before making the freehand attempt, I had practised drawing and painting the heraldry for House Lannister on a piece of paper in order to try and build some muscle memory into my hands. Having completed one of the four freehand heraldry designs on the warhorse so far, I must say it is turning out better than I could have ever hoped for. Taking into account, the scale and the unevenness of the 'miniature canvas' involved, I am quite content with the results so far.

Programming muscle memory into my hands with some doodling practice

As for the rest of the warhorse, more work needs to be done especially in the highlights department. That is something I will be tweaking as I go along but most of my effort will go into painting the freehand heraldry designs because if I mess those up, it won't matter one bit how the rest of the warhorse is painted. It also serves as an excuse to get in some badly needed freehand practice.

One Lannister heraldry down ... three to go

Work on the rest of the warhorse still in need of fine-tuning

If all goes well, I should complete the Lannister Warhorse soon before starting work on the knight proper. Thanks for checking out my progress on the Game of Thrones Lannister Knight. Stay safe!

Game of Thrones project ... one house at a time

It has been a while since I found myself fully engrossed in a fantasy novel or for that matter find books to break the hold that the Horus Heresy series has got on my precious reading time. George R.R. Martin's books make for a nice change of pace from my usual W40K fare and also serves as an inspiration to start what is turning out to be a huge a medieval/fantasy-themed painting project.    

Major houses in the Game of Throne novels

From the start, the obvious choice for a Game of Thrones project was the Warhammer Bretonnian Knights. This box set allows me to build up to eight knights on horseback, each of which will be painted to represent a different house found in the novels. 

Warhammer - Bretonnian Knights of the Realm / Knights Errant

Just as I was attracted to Chaos or "the perceived bad guys" in the W40K universe, there could only be one house to kick start my Game of Thrones project ... House Lannister. Rightfully hated or just plain misunderstood? Judging from the many online haters and fans of House Lannister the answer is not as clear cut as one would assume. But the Lannisters and their supporters e.g. House Clegane do make very good subjects for a miniature painter so that's where I will begin my journey.

A potential knight on horseback for House Lannister

Actual paint work on the miniatures have not yet begun but I have done some concept work in trying to paint the heraldry of House Lannister. After tracing out the shape of the shield according to scale, I tried to practise painting the heraldry of House Lannister - a golden lion against a red background - the results of which you can see below. I found the online tutorial by Bailey to be most useful for this purpose. This test run gives me more confidence to tackle freehand painting, which I expect a lot of in my Game of Thrones project when trying to accurately depict the heraldry of the many houses.   

Test run on painting the House Lannister heraldry

With the wealth of fantastic miniatures to choose from, I will not be limiting my Game of Thrones project to just Warhammer miniatures. For House Lannister, I will also be using the Crusader XIII C as a proxy for Ser Gregor Clegane aka The Mountain, of House Clegane as well as Dark Sword Miniatures for the Lannister twins of Ser Jaime the Kingslayer and his sister Cersei. It is possible that miniatures from many other companies will eventually be used for this project - Deus Vult miniatures as introduced by a fellow blogger comes to mind - but these minis will do for now.

Front view of Nocturna Models Crusader XIII C.

Back view of Nocturna Models Crusader XIII C.

I found the Nocturna Models miniature to have a face that is eerily similar to that of actor Conan Stevens who plays Ser Gregor Clegane in the HBO series. Well that excuse is good as any to use it as proxy for The Mountain. Overall, the build of the Crusader XIII C isn't that far off from the physique of Ser Gregor Clegane. The shield also provides an opportunity for some freehand painting of House Clegane's heraldry which comprises three black dogs on a yellow background. Most importantly, the Nocturna Model is highly detailed and will be both a pleasure and a challenge to paint.

Ser Gregor Clegane as played by Conan Stevens

Eerily similar profile between the miniature and actor

While there are many Lannister characters that I want to paint, the obvious ones to start with are Jaime and Cersei. For these two I will be using Dark Sword miniatures whose Jaime and Cersei miniatures have superb facial expressions sculpted by Tom Meier.

Despicable or just good at the game of thrones?

Dark Sword had two fantastic miniatures to represent the Lannister twins

Looks like I have my work cut out for me. This project will run concurrently with many others on my painting workstation. Well, life is short so I had better get started!