From armour to Emmys: Meet the NI creatives bringing Westeros to life
A costume designer from Northern Ireland has said she's "absolutely thrilled" to be nominated in the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Lorna Ó Ríordáin is being recognised for her work on HBO's A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
A prequel to Game of Thrones, the series is based on George RR Martin's three novellas telling the story of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg, affectionately referred to as 'Dunk and Egg'.
Ó Ríordáin said: "This is as good as a win to be nominated. It's the icing on the cake if you bring it home but for everybody this is the part to party."
The show is filmed in Belfast, with Ó Ríordáin part of the team nominated in the Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes category.
Originally from Enniskillen, she said there were "a lot of new things in the mix" for her when working on the show, including working with armour.
"I have done a lot of period drama over the years and period film, but the scale of this was definitely much, much more challenging, much bigger.
"The time frame to have everything ready for shoot was quite a challenge."
For Ó Ríordáin, designing costumes is "a work-through process".
"It starts with the script and discussions with the showrunner and with various departments, the production design.
"We come up with the world that we want to create and then we all go into our own little rabbit holes."
And when it comes to creating that world, the smallest details can help bring a character to life.
When helping to design costumes for characters, like Baelor Targaryen, she thought about "where they originated from" and how she wanted to convey that he had a "power" about him.
"I thought, well, dragons, volcanic places" when thinking about the fabric, she told BBC News NI.
"For the shape of it I looked at medieval emperors from Persia and Japan," she said, adding that they developed "something very regal".
She sketches to "get the spirit of the character" and then works out how materials like armour "actually move".
"We made fastenings and closures that were very rocky and organic," she said.
"I think that was an example of how we work through with texture and textile to give somebody a resonance, a character, something individual to them."
Ó Ríordáin was also the costume designer for the 2026 film The Death of Robin Hood which has just been released in cinemas .
'This is kind of a big deal'
Makeup artist and hairstylist Anna Knight, from Holywood, has also been nominated for an Emmy for her work on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
Cat Coogan from Belfast is also nominated alongside Knight and their team.
Knight is in the running for Outstanding Period Or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Hairstyling.
For her, the nomination initially didn't quite feel real.
"One of the girls from the team posted a screenshot of all our names, basically, and it was just a complete shock."
At first she thought: "It's very cool to be nominated for anything", but then realised "this is the Emmys, this is kind of a big deal."
Knight helped bring the people of Westeros to life, one hairstyle at a time — and on Saturday she'll be swapping Holywood, County Down, for Hollywood, LA, as she hits the red carpet at the Peacock Theatre for the Creative Arts ceremony.
She describes as being "on a high" when she started working on big shows, adding that "the crews in Northern Ireland are amazing".
"I was lucky enough to be asked to look after and do the hair and makeup for the main actor."
Speaking on Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme , she describes the experience of watching shows she's worked on.
"When it's my own work, I hide behind my hands a lot of the time".
Her advice for anyone who wants to get into the industry is to "keep going".
The Creative Arts Emmy Awards will take place on 5 and 6 September.
