Westeros

The Fear and Blood teaser has now been screen capped, with our usual commentary. Over fifty images from this one, with only a handful which closely duplicate anything we’ve captured before. Of particular note in this video are our first look at Winterfell from a distance, a beautiful shot of King’s Landing, and more. We have quite a bit to say regarding the Winterfell shot in particular, in relation to the books. All in all, this show is obviously going to be a feast for eyes!

You can find the start of the images here, and the first shot here.

HBO has now released several of the new featurettes which we’ve previously posted about as being available at TV.com, both the Baratheon and Lannister featurettes… and one that was not available there, featuring House Targaryen, which you can see embedded below. 720p is always nice to see!

To keep on top of the latest Youtube videos, we very highly recommend subscribing to GameOfThrones, the official Youtube account for the series

George R.R. Martin has just announced that plans are already under way for the 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar, with French artist Marc Simonetti—known by fans for some of his beautiful covers for the French editions of the series—set to provide the art. An example of his art can be seen below. As we posted yesterday, the 2012 calendar by John Picacio is available for pre-order, and GRRM notes that Picacio has fully completed eight of twelve pieces, with two nearly complete and two at a rough stage.

In other, interesting news, George mentions that there are discussions at HBO to possibly create a Game of Thrones calendar which would feature photography of actors, scenes, locales, and the like.

And now there’s a veritable bonanza of new videos, as Fancast has many videos up in a clips section. Many of them are described as portrait pieces, highlighting a number of the significant characters of the series, including Daenerys, Jon Snow, and King Robert. Others are behind-the-scenes pieces, including 7 minutes on weapons and 7 more minutes of stunts and fight choreography.

Although it was suggested you had to be a Comcast subscriber to see the videos at this time, although some reports claim that’s not the case. Whatever the truth, it certainly seems those outside of U.S. (e.g. us) can’t see them, so here’s hoping that there’s a short exclusivity window and HBO will be releasing them soon! But for those in the U.S., or at least those who are Comcast subscribers, here’s a couple of embeds to whet your appetite

Oh, man, Christmas has come very early indeed, as TV.com has the first look at two of the forthcoming featurettes, featuring House Lannister and House Baratheon. See them below. The Lannister featurette gives us our first look at Charles Dance at Lord Tywin(!) and the Baratheon featurette gives us our first look at Gethin Anthony as Lord Renly and a brief glimpse at Eugene Simon as Lancel Lannister… at the boar hunt scene.

IGN has posted an exclusive gallery containing four, brand new official posters for HBO’s Game of Thrones. The posters feature quotes from each character. Ned gets, “Winter is Coming”, of course. Daenerys’s picture—which shows her with a dragon egg—has, “I do not have a gentle heart,” which is a new line (though may be referencing a line from Jorah in the novel). Robert’s is a new line, “Killing things clears my head,” as is Cersei’s, one which we’ve heard before, “Everyone but us is the enemy.”

It looks like these were taken at the same photo shoot where they shot the Iron Throne teaser. Terrific shots, and great quotes, that help give a sense of the characters.

I’ve received permission from HBO to post a few more photos that were taken by Parris McBride, GRRM’s wife, while we were visiting the production in Belfast. The image to the right may be of particular interest, depicting as it does the Scottish actor James Cosmo—probably best remembered by many film fans from his role a the elder Campbell in Braveheart—in full costume as Lord Commander Mormont. There’s also a photo of John Bradley-West and Mark Stanley together in the Castle Black set.

You can see these images from my set visit here. An index of my full reports, which feature some of these images as well as some choice selection of official images and screenshots, can be found here.

The L.A. Times pop culture site, Hero Complex, has a new story featuring Game of Thrones. With an extensive look at executive producers and lead writers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, this is certainly one of the most interesting articles we’ve read of late concerning HBO’s new series. We particularly like the suggestion at the end that both appear keen to remain as showrunners for the duration.

The Suvudu cage match challenge continues! Jon Snow put the hurt on Richard K. Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs, and now it’s on to the next challenge: Beowulf, the great Geatish hero of the old Anglo-Saxon epic. A worthy opponent, but can he stand up to a son of Winterfell with Valyrian steel in his hand and a direwolf at his side?

I don’t think so.

Go here if you’d like to vote, and read the commentary from Suvudu and their comments!

The U.S. tie-in cover for Game of Thrones now revealed and is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com and other retailers. Again, featuring the official poster art with Ned on the Iron Throne, it’s a strong image, although purists may take issue with the title losing the the article to match the TV series.

Taking a look at the entry also reminded us of the fact that the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar is up for pre-order, featuring the stunning art of award-winning artist John Picacio.  We’re hoping that the next couple of months will provide us some more previews, but that image of Ned Stark with Ice in front of the heart tree of Winterfell is pretty amazing in and of itself…

And, via Olaf, it’s been noted to us that there’s a four book set now available, featuring the four new covers with some HBO trade dress on them. Rather handsome. You can see a mock-up of the box with the books in it here, from Random House’s catalog.

The third link in the Maester’s Path is now online! This is another great puzzle from HBO and Campfire, featuring the Night’s Watch and the Wall!

We’ve screen captured and commented the latest featurette introducing the Starks, and there’s certainly some great images of the characters, the locations, and some other odds and ends. Winter is coming indeed…

You can see the gallery (totalling 40 new shots—we avoided duplicating images we have from prior previews) starting here in the bottom row, with the first image being this image from the very cool map (hope they sell posters of these at some point!) that shows some of the locations in the Seven Kingdoms that fans all know and love.

We’re holding off on the screen capture of the “Fear and Blood” trailer for a bit, to see if HBO will release a 720p version.

Voyager has announced that the U.K. tie-in cover for A Game of Thrones—retitled Game of Thrones to match the HBO series’ title—can now be seen at Amazon.co.uk. Much as expected, they’re using the official poster art from HBO, featuring Sean Bean as Ned Stark on the Iron Throne. A great, moody image that’s sure to help sell books. HBO has recently released t-shirts featuring the image.

Big Download has a good interview with Regis Robin, the designer of Cyanide’s Game of Thrones: Genesis real-time strategy game. Some interesting details come out, such as the role that misdirection will play in the game and more about the historical setting of the game, which starts off 1,000 years prior to the time of the novels.

Making Game of Thrones has posted up two brand new videos, a teaser and a House Stark featurette! See them below: