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It's kind of funny, just this morning I told someone I'm not really much of a music person. Few hours later, I'm posting some! But this is so pretty and so cool!



Make sure to watch through the credits, they're quite funny!

My A Song of Ice and Fire 2012 Calendar arrived today. Kudos to Amazon for packing it in a box instead of wrapping it in paper or something. My postal delivery person will bend and fold anything and everything that can be, to fit it in my little mailbox. Box > mailman!

The calendar itself is okay. Unfortunately I won't be able to use it at work (way too many half-dressed women, too much blood, too much "not office norm") and I never use wall calendars at home. The art is... sort of okay, too. I've seen so much fanart that's a whole lot better. I'm really kind of surprised, as popular as the book series is, I would think they could get some top artist to do the art. (Or maybe a top artist did do it, and I'm failing to understand their artistic style or something... but even non-artist me can see when a bare human foot isn't drawn well or a wolf's face is scrunched in an unrealistic way).

*looks closer at pictures*

I mean seriously, the art is just really off. The first month's picture is Bran. The kid's hand is way, way bigger than his head. His foot is nearly as long as his leg from ankle to knee. His head seems really oddly made, like there's too much head and not enough face, yet his face is really big. Oh, but his other hand is normal sized.

Second month is Jon and Ghost. The wolf is just embarrassing, looks kind of like a plush wolf that's been bent out of shape. Jon isn't much better (again, there's some kind of head/face issue. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it's like his face is too big for his head).

Maybe it's just men he can't draw. March is Daenerys and she looks fine (though rather underdressed, which wouldn't be an issue for many). There's something seriously, majorly wrong with the horse she's sitting on though. I think the poor beast broke its neck and then half melted.

April's Rob Stark is actually pretty good. Just a close up of his face. Poor Arya lost her hand in May, it seems to have experienced the same melting that Daenerys's horse went through. Her poor hand looks like it's made of two or three hotdogs, semi-melted like wax.

So anyway, yeah. If you've not bought it, I would not recommend it at all.

Edit: Have some pictures! I don't have a scanner, but I took pictures of a couple.

Jamie's o-face.

Everyone's favorite dwarf.

Here there be dragons. I can see what the artist was going for with the horse, I think he meant it to be running at the "camera" and turning at the last moment, but it just doesn't work.

Edit2: How about some good (non-fandom) artwork to balance things out? I love this person's style. So simple, but I love the style.

Date: 2011-07-21 10:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] amanuensis1.livejournal.com
Thanks for that Cello Song link, it was wonderful!

Date: 2011-07-21 07:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com
Welcome! And agreed!

Date: 2011-07-22 09:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hammerstorm.livejournal.com
Pretty sure all those are from different artists and look a lot like just- mediocre illustrations.

Date: 2011-07-22 03:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com
Nope, all are by the same person, John Picacio.

Looking at his website, I'm seeing a lot of the same things I had problems with in the calendar. Like this one, the first one I saw on his site (http://www.johnpicacio.com/images/large2010/ELRICfinalcoverart.jpg). I can tell what he's trying to do, but that front hand being so big (bigger than his head) doesn't work for me. The horse looks really odd, too (head/neck/chest). I know he's trying to do a perspective thing, but it just doesn't work for me.

I wonder if this one is supposed to be human (http://www.johnpicacio.com/images/large2010/INTERIOR2picacio.jpg)? It's got the same hand-size issue without a funky perspective being attempted, and the neck/head are really odd. And wow, look at his hand compared to the arm without the sword on it.

And yeah, they're not horrible terrible awful pictures, I'm being picky because I'd expect the artwork for a calendar for this book series to be darned near perfect.

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