The man who made House of the Dragon sword fighting scenes look real

A blacksmith has described the surreal experience of repairing swords and painting background weapons on the set of the Game of Thrones prequel.

Series two and three of House of the Dragon were filmed around north Wales, and Aaron Houghton worked as an armourer on set, making sure all the actors looked authentic in the fighting scenes.

Based on George RR Martin's epic fantasy novel A Song of Ice and Fire, House of the Dragon stars Matt Smith, Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke.

Aaron is now combining work on the sets of productions when they come to the area with using his blacksmith skills to teach people how to make knives, swords and axes.

He is currently working as an armourer for Excalibur, a fantasy feature film from Wales.

"You have up to 500 people on one project going on, they're all there, it's like a moving village," said Aaron of, from Betws-y-Coed, Conwy county.

"Working on set is absolutely surreal, but in an amazing kind of way.

"A lot of people get starstruck with these actors but they're just people you're working with. "

House of the Dragon filming came to the country after the show received funding from Creative Wales - which provides financial backing to attract major productions to Wales.

Set about 200 years before Game of Thrones, it chronicles a catastrophic civil war and brutal struggle for power.

Aaron put in an application for one of the six shadowing places and ended up working full-time in the armoury team.

The paid placement ran for two months from mid-May to July in 2023, and he was asked back for series three in 2025.

This was released in June, with Happy Valley star James Norton and Wales' Rhys Ifans joining the cast.

Filming took him from sets in the Trefor granite quarry on the Llyn peninsula to the Dinorwig slate quarry near Llanberis in Eryri to smaller locations including Beaumaris.

In his teens, Aaron was an avid martial artist, and became fascinated with historical European martial arts - which use centuries-old techniques using special swords.

The medieval and Renaissance duelling was given a boost by its depiction in fantasy novels and films, and is also popular with people interested in military history.

Aaron started teaching historical forms of combat but couldn't afford to pay for the specialist equipment for his pupils.

His father then taught him some basic forging methods using an old forge at their home in rural Eryri, also known as Snowdonia.

"It spiralled out of control. The group got bigger, I started doing a bit of metal work for my projects in college and before I knew it I was at university studying it," he said.

After his metal work degree at Hereford College of Arts, he went on to teach blacksmithing - making anything from historical scroll knives to swords, axes and fire pokers.

"I read Game of Thrones when I was younger growing up in the mountains," Aaron said.

"When the show came out I enjoyed the sense of realism that they put into it.

"It always captivated me that they would do things a bit differently."

The weapons for House of the Dragon are made in Hertfordshire.

But the on-set armoury team had a key role to play, working out of the back of a truck with buckets crammed with up to 50 swords.

"I was like a kid in a candy shop," Aaron said.

Actors are filmed with swords made of plastic, aluminium or steel depending on the scene, and Aaron also made sure background extras had the right sword on them when they moved closer into shot.

"Knowing what swords look like in real life helped quite a lot," he said.

Steel swords can be used for close-up shots, Aaron said, while a lighter aluminium version is used when sword actors are walking around.

"If they're doing something a bit more active - maybe they're walking over dangerous terrain or they're going to be fighting with it - then they get the synthetic version, which is a cast polyurethane one which has to be painted to look as close to the original as possible," he added.

For stunts involving falls and rolls, the actors use a rubber version which is completely flexible.

"The director likes to really experiment with different things and change the shot slightly, and we have to be right there to change the sword," he said.

For the third series he was also tasked to make a collection of daggers which was used on set.