How the Painted Table on House of the Dragon came to life

One of the most extraordinary set pieces in House of the Dragon was the Painted Table. We initially saw it in Game of Thrones in one of the apartments on Dragonstone. The spinoff brings it to life, and it is a sight to see. In the show, it is explained saying the lava inside the rock glows when lit candles are placed under the table. But here is how it was brought to life in reality.

The House That Dragons Built offers an insider’s perspective of each episode. For the last episode, a segment in this series explains how this idea came to be. The showrunners credit Claire Nia Richards, the set decorator on House of the Dragons. The production designer, Jim Clay, says, “Claire had this idea that she wanted to make it illuminated from volcanic fire underneath the table.” Co-showrunner Ryan Condal explains, “This was completely a pitch by the set dec[orator] and the art department, which I love, ‘well what if it was made on this polished stone, and if we put fire underneath the table it would light a furnace that then would light the table from within.’ Of course, I just leapt at the idea.”

The Making of the Painted Table

The showrunners wanted to bring the table to a more accessible and central area, referring to it as the “equivalent of the small council table.” And the designers wanted to portray how the table would have looked in its heyday. Condal says their primary objective was to just take a cast of the original table and paint it to make the worn-out parts seem newer. Claire Nia Richards provides deeper insights after the new idea was adopted, “I just wanted to make it come alive a bit more in the sense that we’ve got all these contours within the table, but you can’t actually see them. What I really love is lighting through things and the kick that you get off certain things.” She continues, “So the main part of it was this obsidian rock effect which has a gold running through it; it’s a bronze.”

The set decorator initially wanted to put a fire underneath the table but considered it too dangerous. “So we had to re-mold the table and
create a clear fiberglass top so it became a light box in essence. The LEDs that are in there a huge, massive process to get that set up,” she explains. “And also because of the color of the pigment of paint that we used on it to get those contour colors you had to really mix the
different lighting to get it right. So we need to put more yellow into it to make it a little bit more like fire. So yeah, it was a whole kind of process of research and developing.”

But the process yielded an outstanding result, and no fan would disagree. What was your reaction to the new and improved painted table? Let us know on our discord server.

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