If There Are Two Lucia Fans I'm One Of Them, If There Is One Lucia Fan That's Me, If There Are No Lucia

princess saera targaryen, from a fresco in the sept of a motherhouse in king’s landing, commemorating an endowment by queen alysanne and daughters, c. 83 AC

my gorgeous commission by @shripscapi! take a peek under the cut for the historical references she reworked so beautifully.

i have always maintained targaryen fashion should be byzantine inspired, and that was my request to liesl. she works so brilliantly with historical costuming, and in her portraits of renaissance fashions captures the sense of a contemporary portrait - and that’s what i wanted here, the spirit of a real historical work of art. i sent her two images of mosaics of byzantine empresses, theodora from the basilica of san vitale in ravenna (left) and irene of hugary from the hagia sophia in constantinople (right). both commemorate donations to churches, and the foundation of a religious institution at the height of the realm’s prosperity under jaehaerys and alysanne’s rule and a demonstration of good will between crown and faith after the adoption of the doctrine of exceptionalism is something alysanne as queen consort absolutely might do.

as byzantine empresses reshaped the face of imperial constantinople as patrons of its religious and civic architecture, it is fun to imagine the continuing interactions of the targaryens shaping their capital city. the women are included in wider family groupings - imagine alysanne and alyssa and maegelle etc offscreen - communicating the female face of imperial/royal power. here is saera at 16, on the verge of being brutally discarded as incommensurate with that correct feminine image, as indeed not a few byzantine princesses were. exactly the vibe of a lovely and haunting historical document of a woman’s life in the snare of power i’ve encountered in many a museum or palace that i was going for, which makes the story of saera’s disgrace resonate so strongly.

I really like the detail of the thorny vine wrapping around Lucia’s ankle in your new piece!! I know u said she’s shoeless bc u didn’t want to draw shoes but!!! One could argue her stockinged feet being exposed could represent her leaving herself vulnerable to hurts she thought she was safe from 🤔💭

ah! the shoes I was referencing are actually not lucia’s. they are a specific type that I don’t like and didn’t want to draw andrea in so I just put him in a pair that is technically plausible I think but about stylistically 10 years too modern for the period he’s in. lucia’s feet being bare were intentional for the reasons you suspected :)

Hi hello @a-fall-of-stars came out of nowhere with the steel chair with this beautiful art piece made by the lovely @shripscapi (which hi hello, I'm gonna have to commission a matching Aegon one)

Screaming, crying, rolling around and losing my mind. This is the most abby-est art I've ever ever seen and I'm *losing my mind*

do you sell prints, i would love to have your brienne on my wall 🥹

I do not :( but if you want you are welcome to make a print/take it to a print shop yourself!

I’m extremely normal about the fishing game 👍

ppl keep talking about the hands on this one so I am going to let you in on a secret: I just took a picture of my own hands as reference. you, too, can do this to make your life easier… <3

The queen wore a high-collared black silk gown, with a hundred dark red rubies sewn into her bodice, covering her from neck to bosom. They were cut in the shape of teardrops, as if the queen were weeping blood.

playing dolls with them and making them kiss

something I drew for myself after wrapping up the last of my commissions

i’m still allergic to making my canvases sizes that work well with posting so details under the cut

follow up question regarding fashion inspo-- do you happen to have a pinterest board or know of other places to look for non tudor fashion that you could link? my own search has been pretty fruitless. also rly love how you draw and render fabric!! ty for ur insight and thoughts :]

thank you! this is a pretty broad question so I'm not sure that I can give the most helpful answer but I find this timeline by the FIT to be a nice, quick visual guide for period trends. Unfortunately it primarily focuses on the regions of current day England, France, and Italy, so no Rus fashions to be found there, but you can poke around pre (and post, if you like) Tudor period/outside of england to see what late medieval and early modern people were wearing as depicted in art of the time.

Rus fashions are harder to dig up and I don't have great advice there... Resources in english kind of suck but you kind of just have to scour... I try not to get too hung up on accuracy for asoiaf stuff, since at the end of the day I'm combining a bunch of different styles that I like into a fantasy setting, so I'll take pieces from bilibin illustrations, or period shows, or whatever other crumbs I can find.

unfortunately I don't have the most organized process but hopefully that is somewhat helpful!