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Direwolves


corund

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  • 4 weeks later...

If you are talking about True Blood, they are using actual/real wolves in it. Not CGI.

And yeah, I hope the CGI used for the direwolves doesn't suck too.

yeah and we are covered for the first two books at least by the actual wolves , arent we?

so practically we worry about cgi that will be implemented in three years time from now? if at all? and they will propably enlarge real wolves then too.

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I don't see why/how it would be a huge problem to continue using huskies or dogs/wolves but use CGI to increase their size. Of course, I know next to nothing about CGI so it's almost certainly not as simple as that first line indicates. That's the route I'd take, as opposed to creating entirely CGI real animals, which are almost always corny-looking unless tons of attention and detail are put into it.

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I beieve the mom direwolf is either CGI or a construct, and the newborn pups are genuine husky pups.

Real wolves or huskies could be used for a while since the direwolves are still in their growing stage according to most of the book. Also,forced perspective could work (like Gandalf meeting Frodo in LotR). A full grown direwolf is bigger than Bran's pony.

Saddle my pup, I'm riding to town tonight!

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  • 1 month later...

I'm hoping they're using Tamaskan dogs for the young direwolves...at least for the majority of the 1st season, the direwolves aren't supposed to be full grown, so no real need to use CGI for them there.

Tamaskan's are a mix of German shepherd, Malamute and Huskey, and the dogs they're using look (at least from what I saw in the behind the scenes featurette released by HBO) exactly like my Tamaskan dog. He's 2 years old, and weighs 85 lbs and can look me right in the eye when standing on his hind legs (and I'm 5'11''), so they'd be the right size for a juvenile direwolf (that is to say, bigger than a normal dog, and closing in on real-life wolf size).

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That sounds about right. I know that Kristian Nairn mentioned during his panel at Octocon that most of the direwolves look like "Husky/Alsatian/wolf crosses", and that they're absolutely stunning. The combination certainly sounds very similar to my untrained ear, especially since he had no official information on what the dogs were.

The only one that isn't a mix is Ghost, which he described as probably an albino Alsatian.

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FWIW, we should we worrying about what the dragons will look like. The wolves should be comparatively easy.

I imagine they'll be CGI, and since we won't see them until towards the end of the 1st season, they'll be able to use a good amount of money on making them look good.

The direwolves will have to be CGI once they're full grown, but as juveniles, dogs will work just fine.

EDIT: In case no one has googled "Tamaskan dog" here's a link to some pictures.

http://img132.imageshack.us/i/tamaskandog5jz0.jpg/

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I imagine they'll be CGI, and since we won't see them until towards the end of the 1st season, they'll be able to use a good amount of money on making them look good.

The direwolves will have to be CGI once they're full grown, but as juveniles, dogs will work just fine.

EDIT: In case no one has googled "Tamaskan dog" here's a link to some pictures.

http://img132.imageshack.us/i/tamaskandog5jz0.jpg/

Well, right. I just mean that the biggest challenge to the CGI guys will be creating the dragons. The direwolves should be cake comparatively.

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I dont know much about dogs or wolves but according to Wikipedia there is a large breed of domestic dog called American Alsatian which is bred to resemble in bone structure, size etc. extinct direwolves. They are of course smaller but would fit perfectly as juveniles.

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Well, right. I just mean that the biggest challenge to the CGI guys will be creating the dragons. The direwolves should be cake comparatively.

Dragons are a lot easier. Firstly, they don't have hair, which although it has improved a lot in recent years, never looks quite photorealistic in CGI. Secondly, dragons don't exist, so you won't be comparing them to the real thing and finding them lacking. Note how you can often tell when an actor is replaced by a CGI double in an effects scene. They just don't quite move "right"

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Here's two different possible looks for the real dire wolf species - these are artist renditions based on either a North American origin or a South American origin (their range included both).

That's really cool about the American Alsatian being bred to look like dire wolves. I never knew that about the breed.

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