The Vulture King

One of the illustrations I had the pleasure of doing for The Rise of the Dragon, by George RR Martin, Elio García and Linda Antonsson.

The Vulture King is a figure I consider very interesting because of being a title rather than an individual character, and also one of the last consequences of the conquest. I think it's very curious the parallelism with the King of Westeros: the way the dornish war and the conflict against the crown embraces the figure as much as the rest of Westeros does the same with the king on the iron throne, and even the red keep VS the red mountains.
In this case, I tried to represent him as a dornish man who calls himself "king" but who doesn't really lives as such at all: his clothes are elegant stolen pieces and too used; despite of living inside his mountain "court" his face expression shows no trust, so in addition his dagger gives every step with him; his beard is shaved to show his face and make it recognizable, but it also denotes that it's impossible to have the same kind of elegant beard of those who live in palaces instead of caves, a fact that also reveals the dirt in his face, the sun scars and the non very abundant meals.

"The first rose in 37 AC at the start of the reign of King Aenys I Targaryen. In subsequent generations, several other leaders of rebels and outlaws in the Red Mountains called themselves "Vulture Kings" after the original, but whether any were related by blood to the first is unknown (...) according to a semi-canon source, one Vulture King may have been a Blackmont, whose sigil depicts a black vulture with a pink infant in its claws"

The Vulture King