The Tourney at Harrenhal was the first illustration I made for The World of Ice and Fire, so it makes sense for me to post this first.

I received the briefs for my World of Ice and Fire illustrations all at the same time.
After a good read at the text (hey, I read some of it before you people!), I had decided that the Tourney was the most challenging, so I tackled it first.
Here it is.

I do this all the time, by the way. Once I get the most difficult thing out of the way, the rest feels like a walk in the park.

Anyway. What concerned me back then was that I had to depict a crowd, and in this particular case I couldn’t get away with a blurry background with random faces.
For the Tourney at Arrenhal, the crowd was the thing.

George R.R. Martin, in fact, wanted all the main characters in the audience to be easily recognisable.
Most of the main characters in the saga are depicted here: King Aerys, Princess Elia, her brother Prince Oberyn, Lord Arryn, the knights of the Kingsguard including Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Gerold Highower, Prince Lewyn Martell, all the Stark siblings, Robert, Jon Connington, Ashara Dayne.

This meant I needed to do some research, and think carefully about their arrangement.

I can’t deny that getting the composition right for the Tourney at Harrenhal gave me a few headaches. Since all the faces had to be recognisable, I had to keep the main stage quite frontal. At the same time Rhaegar couldn’t be seen from behind, and had to be on the left side of the spread.

I also had to depict Harrenhal, and convey its size, the fact that it was partially in ruins, and all that.
It did take some tweaking, I must confess.

Below are my personal sketches to try and figure out value masses, how to light the scene and experiments of the sort.
I never showed them to the art directors, they were just doodles to figure things out.
I made many more, but I can’t find them, sorry.

This is the first sketch. The subsequent revisions were just small (albeit important) tweaks, so I’m not posting them here.

Now, as far as the story goes, The Tourney at Harrenhal is possibly the most important event in the Song of Ice and Fire setting.

Rhaegar, as the winner of the Tourney, had the right to choose his Lady by dropping the Queen of Beauty’s laurel on her lap.
Instead of choosing his betrothed, Princess Eliana Martell, he picked Lyanna Stark, going as far as forcing her to stay with him.

Needless to say, this pissed a lot of people off. All the events you will read in A Song of Ice and Fire originate from this choice, and we really wanted to get this topical moment right.

Here’s a bit of the feedback I got:

We’ve always imagined that the perfect image of the tourney at Harrenhal would kind of let you pick out all these figures in the stands, each with their different reactions when “the smiles died”.

Jon Arryn and Robert and Lord Hunter joking a moment before what was happening dawned on them, Ned watching as Rhaegar was about to stop in front of his sister (who must have been seated quite close), mad Aerys glowering in the distance, Elia stiff-backed and trying to act as if nothing was wrong, Jon Connington probably looking vaguely sad (read: jealous), and so on.

We went through several stages of feedback for this Illustration, and George R.R Martin even sent me pictures of his personal diorama so that the idea he had in mind was perfectly clear.

After further feedback, more research, and a few months’ hiatus to allow the authors to finish the text, we got to the Illustration you see at the top.
Yes, the perspective is a bit “fake”. There were things to fit in the page: the gutter, the faces and so on.

This is the best I could do, right?

Anyway, more to come soon!

by Paolo Puggioni

11 Responses

1. Mike says:

   November 6, 2014 at 14:05

   Is this digital or traditional paint?! Thanks!

   Reply
   • Paolo Puggioni says:

     November 6, 2014 at 14:10

     All digital:)

     Reply
2. Armand says:

   November 23, 2014 at 14:35

   Ok Master Paolo, something wrong: “instead of choosen his betrothed princess Elianna Martell..”
   The correct name is Elia Martell, and at the time of the tournment she was not Rhaegar’s fiance, she was his wife and they had a daughter.
   And more: probably she was pregnant again at that exactly time, because the tournment was on 281, and prince Aegon, second son of Elia and Rhaegar, born on january 282.

   Reply
3. Andrew says:

   August 23, 2015 at 08:36

   Great art! I must ask, is that Robert standing up, and making sure Brandon doesn’t stand up and do something stupid?

   Reply
   • Paolo Puggioni says:

     August 24, 2015 at 09:56

     Thanks! It is Robert, but – by the brief – his feeling was more or less “I’ll crush that guy, but first I’ll squeeze Brandon’s shoulder real hard because now it’s not the time”:)

     Reply
4. Serena says:

   October 2, 2015 at 05:35

   I notice that the earlier version of Lyanna shows her as more conventionally feminine while the final version shows her as more of the wild tomboy she was described as with the short messy hair and plain brown outfit. Was that change due to George Martin’s clarification of her character?

   Reply
   • Paolo Puggioni says:

     January 31, 2016 at 16:04

     Hi (apologies for the delay, for some reasons I didn’t get post notifications).

     There was a lot of freedom for the depictions of the characters (within reasonable limits).
     You’re right in that Lyanna is supposed to be indeed quite “wild”.
     Given the occasion though, it made more sense for her to be in rich clothes and as regal as possible:)

     Reply
5. Eduardo says:

   October 21, 2015 at 05:04

   Great painting, one of the best of the book.
   I just wanted to know who is who. Is the guy besides Robert Ned? Which lady is Elia?

   Congratulation for the work!

   Reply
   • Paolo Puggioni says:

     January 31, 2016 at 16:00

     Oh dear, I never noticed this comment, my apologies!

     I’ll have to dig out the brief, to be honest I don’t remember who’s the guy behind Robert at the moment, aha.
     I’ll update soon:)

     Reply
6. Wedla says:

   March 6, 2017 at 11:30

   hey, can you specify the people in the illustration in order?

   Reply
   • Paolo Puggioni says:

     March 6, 2017 at 11:57

     Right,

     this is long overdue, as other people asked for it.
     I had to go back and look in my inbox from 2013 to find the brief, I couldn’t remember all of them myself:)

     The knight is obviously Rhaegar Targaryen.
     First row, from the left: Ashara Dayne, Princess Elia Martell, Prince Oberyn Martell, Brandon Stark, Lyanna Stark, Eddard Stark, and (standing) Robert Baratheon.
     Second row, from the left: , Jon Connington, Prince Lewyn Martell, Lord Hunter, John Arrin.

     At the top, Mad Aerys Targaryen.

     Reply