'Game of Thrones' season 8: Winterfell set being built

The production sets of “Game of Thrones” season 8 are currently being constructed in Northern Ireland. A leaked picture gives fans a first look at the Winterfell castle, which is still in the early stages of being built.

The production crew is back at Moneyglass, Northern Ireland, where the crew members are currently hard at work building the Winterfell set. A leaked picture on Winter is Coming shows the castle set taking shape.

At the moment, the structure walls look red. The crew is expected to add the faux-stone later.

The other leaked picture is from Wolf Hill Quarry, a location that has been used by the crew for the past years. This is the location where the frozen lake scene was filmed for season 7, including the money shot of the dragon Viserion. The location at that time was made to look like a flat, frozen lake. Now, the concrete surface remains, and the crew can use it to build any other set, depending on the needs of the story.

Filming will reportedly commence sometime next month. A major portion of the first few episodes will be the war in the north. Winterfell will be where most the action will take place, at least in the first few episodes.

Meanwhile, five spin-off TV series are being developed by HBO. It is still early to say how many of them will get the green light from the network and actually get made into a show. In a recent blog post, George RR Martin confirmed that Bryan Cogman is writing the fifth show. Cogman has been working with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss even before they were tasked with producing “Game of Thrones.”