#MY HTTYD post

[purregrine-sokol-arts]

painting a whole bunch of toothlesses is good for therapy

[neytui]

Been reading a fic where Hiccup is the prince of a kingdom and I wanted to give it a try to portrait him like one

Lol so I didn't know you can't reblog with a video so I'll just edit it, here u have a quick speedpaint of it

[thereweredragonshere]

Cat hiccup and his weird fuck ass bird

[midoristeashop]

(Late) httyd anniversary screencap study pt. 2 <3 + process video! (I never show mine cuz they’re full of chem equations and jumpscares but this one is ok <3)

Also random toof

I’ll ever stop thinking about them ok BYEE

[juniemunie]

"The sky was lonely, and you were the tail that I wanted."

[bluejulius]

Howdy Train Your Dragon??

HEAVILY INSPIRED from @tragisbawls western AU and also I believe that one “Howdy Train Your Dragon” post by @wardenofdragons

please let me know if I’ve made any mistakes in crediting but these guy’s posts were my main inspiration fr

enjoy some WIPs, currently I’m making them for reference so I can draw the gang doing some scenes

might have gone a bit insane over the festive season and fallen head first into this western AU. basically everything is the same but instead of Vikings it’s cowboys! I’m gonna colour these all and want to do more art/drawings of this too bc it has been occupying my thoughts lol

more info 👇

- set in a fictional Old West, similar to how the canon treats Viking lore and accuracy, assume this is the same 😂

- in this AU, Hiccup loses his leg before he meets Toothless in some sort of stampede/horse-related accident, which makes Stoic, the cheif of the town, more protective of him/not want him to go near them

- Hiccup finds Toothless as a wild mustang, trapped in a gorge. Hijinx ensue, Hiccup saves him, and they bond.

-Hiccup and Fishlegs live in the same town. Astrid, Lout, Ruff and Tuff are part of a group of travelling cowboys from out of town or somethin lol. Something happens and Legs and Hic have to travel with them for a bit. Haven’t worked everything out yet but if people have ideas feel free to let me know!

- Ruff and Tuff are in charge of the supplies wagon and they often confuse Barf & Belch with their arguing. The poor horses go in different directions or one of them might stop while the other keeps going 😭

- Meatlug is usually seen pulling a little wagon with extra supplies/Fishlegs rides in the wagon sometimes when they go on adventures so she ends up being the slowest in the group, similar to how she is the slowest of the gang’s dragons

- Hookfang is an Arabian horse and he has a really firey temper and has a similar relationship to Snotlout as in the canon. Snotlout made Hookfang rear up on his hind legs once, but Snotlout fell off and Hookfang left him in the dust 💀

- Astrid is the leader of the cowboys. Stormfly has little braids in her mane as that’s Astrid’s way of showing affection.

(alsomyaskboxisopenifanyonewantstodiscusthisauI AM HAPPY TO YAP-)

[snekky-arts]

if you saw me post a version of this a few days ago no you didn't

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

[hijacksecrets]

More post apocalypse AU I did last night (and tweaked a bit today during my lunch break) :>

Sorry I haven't been posting much I've been real busy with work and with art block, but I wanted to use this as an excuse to draw some more environments! I might finish this up more later but for now I'm not gonna worry too much about it :>

[spacenintendogs]

hiccup: my dad after he said "keep the damn dragon off the bed"

[that1notetaker]

Teeth.

[toastchild]

All the (completed at last) How To Train Your Dragon illustrations I made for uni!

[its-raining-tonight]

GOOD NEWS for the httyd books fans!!!

[neytui]

TOOTHLESS TAMAGOTCHI FOR LIMITED TIME ONLY!!!

[thereweredragonshere]

Hiccup and Stoick featuring my headcanon that Hiccup uses his dad as a climbing frame when he can’t reach something

[smallfrogpleasedtomeetyou]

ruffnut doodles cos i was thinking about her today <3

[kingofthewilderwest]

We need to start questioning the conflation of "maturity" with "increased stakes."

It's not to say higher stakes is always a bad choice. The first half of the How to Train Your Dragon book series has an endearingly whimsical, child-like feel. Hiccup's issues in the first half of book one are an obnoxious, cat-sized Toothless pooping in his helmet. The movie adaptation might have made the book and its counterpart distant cousins, but it was a thoughtful move to alter concepts to the appropriately theatrical: books and movies aren't the same medium. Hiccup riding alone on Toothless, exchanging fire blasts with a mountain-sized dragon, and losing his leg came off as well-done storytelling.

Hiccup staring at a prosthetic never happened in the book. He didn't lose his leg in his encounter with the Green Death. It was, as the creative powers behind the movie said, a result of the increased stakes. They didn't do this just to be more dramatic; they did it because it seemed that, based on how their narrative was going, this made sense. And this was a soft, quiet, shocking, breath-taking scene that instilled how good the movie handled its stakes. It gave us a reflective reaction to consequences that audiences might not have expected. This movie understood timing, pauses, quietness, narrative arc, poignance, reflection, emotion, love, and heart.

We know about the conflation of live action as "more mature" than animation. But a medium doesn't change maturity levels. We all know that's bogus, and many analyses have been given on that. Disney live actions add extraneous gunk, down to Gaston having a past relationship with war (so I've heard, from the people who actually watched the movie), and Disney giving us the sad scoop on why Belle's mom isn't around. Furthermore, lots of times, when I see the conversion of animation to live action, I notice creators feel a need to "raise the stakes" -- in line with the erroneous view of "giving maturity."

But "higher stakes" often means inserting action in place of mindful interaction. I feel today's Hollywood movies, in their treatment of "action," don't let movies pause and breathe anymore - ergo, they don't let us think. Isn't it more juvenile to actively avoid thought in favor of "hey look I made the building go boom"? There may be less "stakes" in introspection and mindful dialogue, but that's what gives it its maturity. That's how we went from Iron Man 1, with its grounded treatment of war and abuse, to the mindless high spectacle MCU is today.

Snappy one-liners or moments that clap at contemporary issues don't substitute for maturity. What can make a story mature is characters grappling with issues in a natural narrative through-line. A snappy one-liner is its own form of speedy spectacle.

We know about the conflation of "gore and sex" with "mature audiences." I believe they're right that graphic sex and gore is designed for adults. But that doesn't make it mature, and that doesn't make it the only way to target a medium for adults.

"Realisticness" isn't maturity. Per above regarding animation: realistic visuals are nothing. And if you think that putting more Debbie Downer material into your adaptation makes it more adult, you have to ask yourself why the themes that spoke to people's souls got muddled in its midst. We weren't mature enough to interact with the most subtle, nuanced, and impacting voice of the story. But hey! Look! There's more corpses, I guess!

It's not the visuals, it's not the events. It's not the "things." It's not the basic insertion of the external. Get past the superficial, get past the top layer of presentation. It's the mind. It's the ability to think. It's the ability to be still. It's the ability to be interested and attentive when something is slow or quotidian, because we can understand why that is important for narrative growth or arcs or themes or commentary on the human condition. It's the ability to know when and when not to include something. It's the ability to make resonant impact. It's the ability to be deep with your emotions or your themes. It's the ability to take what you have and grow it in a way by which we can derive something deeper.

Maturity is critical thought and well-conducted, appropriate responses to content of any kind.

As DeBlois tells Empire, the move to live-action brings a different emphasis to How To Train Your Dragon; a new heft, both physically and emotionally. “It’s so dialed-up in terms of stakes — having a fully credible, photo-real dragon stomping around trying to kill him,” the director says.

And maybe that DeBlois quote is taken out of context. Maybe there's more going on than that one sentence conveys. Maybe Empire is making their own erroneous assumptions. But "so dialed-up in terms of stakes," isn't, on its own, a good appeal. The animated movie already dialed things up - and knew when to include or not include something. A live-action that imitates the visuals of the animated movie exactly, as if no independent thought has been done to its unique adaptation, to the pros and cons of the medium, to what a independently-presented story needs and doesn't need... It has to make you wonder: how many conflations of "maturity" are going on?

How long are we going to keep making our own conflations?