Winter is Coming - Galbart Glover

[Rosie]

Hey y'all,

Since this is going to be my first post on here, let me introduce myself first. My name is Rosie and I'm a 23 years old uni student. I believe it was 15 years or so ago when I first fell in love with fantasy, watching the Lord of the Rings movies for the first time. I read the books a year or two later and was completely sold on the genre. But as much as I love Tolkien's work, it always felt like there was something missing for me. That is, until a friend of mine recommended this show called 'Game of Thrones' a few years later, suppose you might have heard of it 

I bingewatched the first two seasons and immediately fell in love with them. Whereas Tolkien portrays the heroes we ought to be, allowing us to escape into an alternative reality to look up to, George R R Martin portrays us as we really are: grey characters with our own motives that don't necessarily align with the good of all. Add to that my preference for 'low fantasy' and the deeper lying message about the dynamics of power and its victims and you can see why A Song of Ice and Fire quickly became my favorite work of fantasy.

Now at this point in time, I had already been playing the Lord of the Rings SBG for a few years. Slowly but surely, I started getting ideas for building an army from Westeros while using the models and rules set I had grown used to. That is, until I went to uni and all those ideas seemed to die a slow death...
And then corona kicked in. After I ran out of Netflix series to watched, I ran into my old models and all the ideas slowly came back. Trying out a couple of things, I finally settled on my newest project: the army of the North.

Why the North? Well I guess that has much to do with how well they portray the somewhat raw medieval vibe that made me fall in love with the series. Their armor is practical yet unique, befitting of the harsh country they live in. Now of course, I could just go with the CMON range. But I'm not too big of a fan of their models. Some, like the Starks and Lannisters, just miss that little bit of uniqueness the show gave them, while others are a tidy bit too much high fantasy for my liking. And of course, it would ruin the fun of looking for days for that one model that perfectly matches what I'm looking for.

Therefore, I will be staying as close to the show portrayal of the different houses and lords as possible. First up will be the Stark swordsmen, who should go up once my technical paints arrive to do their bases. After that, I will be covering most major houses and their characters. Anyways, that's all for now, stay tuned and I hope you'll like the project! For Winter is Coming...

Project Log:

Finished:
Stark Swordsmen - 7-7-2022
Robb Stark - 13-7-2022
Stark Horsemen - 13-7-2022
Greatjon Umber - 19-7-2022
Galbart Glover - 27-7-2022

To do:
Umber Axemen
Rickard Karstark
Karstark Swordsmen
Halys Hornwood
Hornwood Longbowmen
Stark Standard Bearer
Maege Mormont
Weirwood Trees
Rodrik Cassel
Direwolves

[Blackwolf]

Welcome Rosie,
Look forward to your project,I prefer my fantasy a little low too

Guy

[HappyChappy439]

Welcome aboard!

Always good to see more people involved in ASoIaF projects, looking forward to seeing where you take this!

[Golgotha]

Winter/North/Fantasy - ticks all my boxes - eagerly look forward to seeing your minis - welcome.

[Rosie]

Thanks to you all for the warm welcome! Since my latest order from Fireforge Games actually arrived earlier than expected, I am able to give you a little preview while I wait for my technical paints to arrive...



I present to you Robb Stark, the King in the North! He's based on the 'Aylard the Young Wolf' model from Fireforge. Now since I think the model itself resembles Robb rather well, I didn't have to do much in the way of conversions. As you can see, though, I still made two small alterations. For the foot version, I swapped the shield arm with one from the Northmen Commanders. Robb doesn't ever use a shield in the series and I actually prefer this pose too. For the mounted version, I used one of the Medieval Unbarded Horses. His original horse came with padded barding I don't really like the look of and, again, doesn't match with the way the Northern horses look in the series.

Anyways, I hope you like the models and will be back with the swordsmen later this week

[Elk101]

Welcome to the forum. I much prefer the idea of using historical ranges for Game of Thrones, even if you end up mixing the historical periods up a bit it'll probably work quite well. Martin pretty much does that in the books anyway.

[sir_shvantselot]

Fireforge do some fantastic faux Stark models.

[HappyChappy439]

Very effective conversion on Robb!

[Tactalvanic]

Nicely imagined look forward to seeing your other ideas.

and welcome to LAF 

[Michi]

Welcome aboard that crazy train. Please keep on showing your work - I look forward to see something painted! 

[LordOdo]

I think your view of the whole world of ASOIAF is pretty close to mine, so I'll follow with interest! 

[fred]

Welcome on board.

Great start with Robb Stark - its great that you have a strong view of how you want your project to look. Good luck with finding (and converting) the right models to build the force.

[Rosie]

Thanks for all the love! Glad to hear you're eager to see what's coming up. Having received my technical paints, I was finally able to finish the Stark swordsmen:



Now the models were quite easy to find. As someone already mentioned, Fireforge do some excellent Stark models. I just had to add in their Youngwolf shields for them to almost perfectly match their portrayal in the series. For the colors, I too stayed as close to the source material as possible. At first I was a little in doubt, wondering if painting the shields in metal would be a waste of the excellent amount of detail they have, but once the first wash was on, I immediately fell in love with the depth they give.

Another decision I made was to go in rather heavy with the dirt on these models. They are, after all, fighting in the Riverlands, known for their forests, rivers and just rather muddy ground in general. When I put the Agrellan Badland on, I feared I might have gone in a bit too heavy at first. But after doing a wash of Agrax Earthshade, I think the dirt looks just right. Anyways, I hope you like them!

Now I will be adding fallen branches, leaves, grass and rocks to the bases later on, but since I ordered them from Aliexpress they won't arrive for quite a while. Next up on the painting table are Robb Stark and his horsemen. Stay tuned for more!

[Leunstoelgeneraalbd]

Rosie: first let me applaud your painting ! And second a suggestion: please ALSO read the books ! I found them enormous fun, although I hate George Martin for not finishing his series... (;-)).

[HappyChappy439]

Nice work on the swordsmen! And the mud has turned out fine, definitely appropriate for the Riverlands, especially after Tywin Lannister has been through!