The creation of an Ice henge for Game of Thrones

The conclusion of this week’s episode of Game of Thrones has everyone talking about the reappearance of the White Walkers, the identity of their leader (played by British-American actor Richard Brake), and the child’s shocking transformation. The finale of “Oathkeeper” occurred within a ring of frozen pillars, and thanks to an in-depth blog from Glacial Art Ice Sculptors published last Friday, we now have a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the site.

According to Glacial Art:
“The ice henge would consist of ten spikes of ice, three of which had to be replicated exactly, and a central ice altar; each spike was made from three separate pieces of ice which had been fused together and weighed around 300 kilos. In the end the collected weight of their ice henge – plus spares – was around six tonnes.”

They go on to say:
“There were two cranes overhead holding lighting and sun shaders; there must have been about thirty trucks and lorries, about a hundred people running around doing their various tasks. Not to mention the white walkers in full make up and armour.”

“We spent a lot of time creating a natural jaggedy texture to the ice,” Mat of Glacial Art says, in the blog. “This starts to melt away quickly as the ice warms up.” The sculpting artists used tools such as CO2 fire extinguishers, blow torches and chainsaws to maintain the ice sculptures throughout two days of filming.

For more details on the process, read the full blog post on at Glacial Art’s website.

• Published on 04/29/2014 at 10:03 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 12:42 PM CDT