#Think toothless from httyd and an alligator

[thebrokenmechanicalpencil]

@quibble-auk I might be reworking my Tired Dad design for Comet.

I mean he'd look more like a gladiator right?? His mimicry gets better as he gets older. (He still had armor on is exposed stuff though, its just thinner I think, he's not that dumb) I took inspiration from your comic of him, and I'm gonna keep working on it. I may have made him too thick, like dude is supposed to be lean.

Ignore my awful anatomy, I draw too many head shots.

[headfullof-ideas]

Fun fact about my HTTYD/The Deep fic: Toothless was almost Jeffrey. He was written with the name Jeffrey for a time. I thought it fit, Jeffrey is Ant’s best friend, he also has a broken tail, it made sense. But then i started figuring out the finer details of the plot further down the line, got to the riders terrible terrors, and realized that Jeffrey as a Terrible Terror made more sense. He would even get to keep his original colors!

But then i realized i had to rename the Night Fury, and went with Toothless like Hiccup did. Because that still made sense. Ant named a baby alligator ‘Snappy’ and a Polar Bear ‘Barry’, i think he would absolutely come to the same conclusion as Hiccup when naming the dragon with retractable teeth

This holds no relevance to the plot or anything, i just thought I’d share it cause it was a fun little behind-the-scenes kind of thing. A tidbit from the early stages of planning and polishing the fic in the long run

[fangdoesstuff]

The HTTYD hyperfixation from my childhood is back with force

anyways ngl? the live action looks good in so many aspects so far! But other things do look bad. My opinions will be shot out into the infinite space of the internet!! (long af post after the break)

Good stuff:

The actors seem to be taking it very seriously and I think they fit the roles well. Especially in the new trailer, in the scene with Hiccup arguing with Stoic about Toothless, bro. There is so much more anger in Hiccups voice like HELL YEAH!!

Some of the dragon designs look great RAHH!! So far Stormfly/the deadlynadders look good, and tbh Toothless (although very similar to the original movie) looks so cute!

Ehhhh Stuff:

Hookfang… he looks so… boring? yeah. Misses the charm of the original and I think he doesn’t have a very good silhouette, they need to exaggerate some features.

The Red Death seeeeems to have that same issue? We haven’t seen much of her yet, but from what was shown they got rid of her sort of red and greyish blue contrast and really squished her face a bit. As well removed some of her spikes? I hope maybe she’ll look better in the full scenes of the movie but we will have to see.

Both of these issues come down to the fact they are making the dragons look too “classic”? Like too similar to a baseline European dragon representation. Not to say it’s a bad thing, for example the Monstrous Nightmares original design does have those aspects! It leans more on a wyvern esque look but still has a unique design that takes its own risks, especially with the wings. Unfortunately those aspects are largely lost in the live action version.

I’ve realized this is becoming a really long post so NOW LETS REALLY GET INTO IT ACTUALLY BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE IT!

First of all Hookfang!! I really like talking about Hookfang…

Here’s the original design. Notice how the eyes are sitting ON TOP of the head rather than on the side, and facing FORWARDS. Insert smart thing about predators and their eyes vs prey eyes here. Also, the general fire motif through out the design. The spikes and wing tips look like the shape of flames. Also something I really like about the design is the wings having round spikes ??? idk how to say it but YEAH. The double horns and long claws are also important to point out, but contribute less to the silhouette as a whole.

Now here’s the live action design.

The very first difference that I saw of course was the eyes. They are on the side of the head, not on top. Now this can be counted up to it trying to be more realistic with its designs, buuuttt still they could have made the eyes forward facing more, like a wolf or something. The horns are the same, looks great. They gave him? her? Tbh I can never remember Hookfangs gender LOL more of a crocodile jaw, but I personally think an alligator jaw would have fit much better, more rounded on the bottom. And the spikes and wings are just boring!! They are 100% the “classic” or “basic” dragon problem we’re having. Also, in the original design lots of the spikes are HOOK esque! Altogether I think it could be better. :(

Now the Red Death!

Now, there are couple of KEY elements of her design that I think make her have a good silhouette. First of all, that HUGE jaw. It brings our focus to it because of its size and the long sharp teeth. Her mouth and jaw are where her most powerful attacks come from, including the bite that takes Hiccups leg. As well, she’s got the front horn that juts out of her face. Another aspect is her crest, the weird coral like silhouette to it. You can clearly see it in the side shot, as well as the jaw. And of course her stocky and powerful build, this lady is built like a semi truck. Also want to point out the clubbed tail, adding to her “brute force of nature” vibe. Cannot forget to also mention her colours, a deep red and dark grey blue and black that adds great contrast.

Now live action!

We unfortunately don’t have much to look at for her yet, buuuut what we have brings me some questions. First, it does seem like they’ve kept her jaw, although it is hard to tell in the scenes shown how big it is? or rather, where the jaw ends and neck starts. Her teeth seem to be much shorter. From the scenes in the trailer she does look to still have her stocky build, not sure about the tail club though. Also, seems like the wing size has been greatly increased, and imo this isn’t good. Her smaller wings in the original keep the focus on her larger body, AS WELL as the fact she sits and waits for other dragons to bring food to HER, rather than going out and hunting herself. Her crest seems to still be there, but is much less prominent, which again isn’t good as it messes with her silhouette and recognizability. Okay. What is going on with her eyes, especially when she is front facing? they look SO high up on her face but also they stick out on a large brow?? What?? Tbh, in every scene they showed her face it looks a bit different. Of course we don’t have a clear shot of her yet so we have to wait and see.

Can I hear Hideous Zippleback?

…. YEAHHHH

So the original Hideous Zippleback has some really interesting features that make its appearance. Firstly its body is very wide, as to accommodate for its two heads. It’s lower to the ground, with smaller wings. Its heads are its main vocal point that brings the design together. It has an aggressive underbite, a horn on the front of its face and those very thin cone like horns on the back of its head. Its eyes are off to the sides of the face but with oriented forwards. Also, it has two whip like tails to balance out the doubling of the heads. Another very important piece of the design are the colours and their saturation. The Zippleback has this bright green hue with that bright yellow underbelly, while also having splotchy patterning in dark green and almost red (like its spikes). This gives it an almost toxic look, that connects well with its gas and fire breath power.

Now here’s what we’ve seen in the live action:

So far, we haven’t actually had a good look at them. They are in the intro sequence with all the dragons flying but that’s it. I can see they’ve kept the wide flat body, which is good. Wings look a bit strange, like they’re connected on only one spot rather than having the wing membrane connect all along the side of the body. Heads seem to look okay? They aren’t very round, I believe the designers are afraid of round designs :( they also seem to be missing the underbite. The necks seem to be shorter and thicker, but I can’t really tell from the angles we’ve seen so far. Colours (as with the other dragons) are dulled, and can’t tell if there’s any patterning or not. Overall it doesn’t seem bad, but we will have to see.

Now the Gronkle (there isn't much for them yet)

We can break these bad boys down into the most simple of shapes, round wonderful and rotund. They're made of four circles, stumpy legs, and small wings. Gronkles have probably one of the most aggressive underbites, with two large teeth protruding from their jaws. They have a rough bumpy texture, basically they are just flying boulders (complimentary). Usually natural colours but some Gronkles we've seen have brighter more unnatural undertones. Key points of their design are the small and fast beating wings, like that of a bee, and the large faces.

Now we don't have much for the live action yet, but here's some I found in the same sequence as the Zippleback:

We can see that they keep round body shape (thankfully since they apparently hate round shapes) and it seeeems like the faces are okay? Maybe a little more proportional, it seems like they have more of a neck than the original design, and the underbite may be less pronounced. The wings seem about the same, maybe slightly bigger. Unfortunately because we haven't seen them fully I can't speak on the colours or anything else specifically.

DEADLY NADDER BABYYYY!!!!!!

We LOVE the Deadly Nadder. Stormfly <3 <3

SO. Nadders have many similarities to the Red Death, mostly in the head area. Large protruding nose horn, a spiky crest, large jaw. Nadders are much more based off of wyverns in a bird sense, unlike the Monstrous Nightmare which is more reptilian. Nadders have eyes on the side of their head rather than the front. Their wings are connected in one place along the shoulders rather than having the membrane connect all the way down. They have very tall legs, that are more stumpy at the bottom where the claws are. Of course they also have the very long tail, covered in spikes that can be shot out at will. Most Nadders we've seen have more bright colours, with splotchy patterning. The crest and the noise spike define the head of the Nadders, with the large legs protruding down from behind the wings and the long tail being the other vocal points.

LETS SEE THE LIVE ACTION!!!

ahhhHHHH She is BEAUTIFUL!

I really thing they nailed the Nadder design for the live action imo. The signature crest is just as large as the original, the nose horn is much bigger though. I don't mind it, I don't think it was necessary to increase the size but it still stays consistent with the original ig. The legs are perfect, tail is long and thin as it should be, and the colours are PERFECT. I believe the fact that Stormfly's design is so well done is because she is Astrid's dragon, and of course Astrid is a main character. BUT we will get back to that later.

Now it's time for our main boy,

Toothless!!! (aka Nightfury)

The titular bitchular, fellas! Lets get into it.

As most already know, Toothless's mannerisms and body style is based off of a cat (and some other animals too, but mostly a cat) He has a flat oval shaped face, with little ear things like an axolotle protruding from the back of his head. His eyes are front facing, but still set in on his head. He has a long sleek body, that tapers out thinning all the way down the tail. His entire body is leathery black, with sections of more prominent scales mostly his legs and face/ears. The bat like wings, and smaller dorsal wings along the tail, into that big tail fan and the end. His legs are cylinders with larger ovals at the bottom, with super small claws. As well, along the back of the legs, he has small little spikes that match his larger spine spikes. Now I would LOVE to look deeper into his design rn, but i'm losing steam so WE'RE MOVING ON! (Maybe i'll make another post abt just Toothless idk)

Now the live action! (if you can even tell LMAO)

As shown, the nailed it. I wasn't expecting them not to of course, Toothless is the face of the franchise, but still. On the contrary, there are some minor changes! He is generally more angular, especially noticeable on his face. His eyes seem a little closer to his nose from the side, making the width between his nose gap a bit smaller. His colour has of course stayed the same. He is far more scaly in this version, moving away from the leathery skin on his body and leaving it just for the wings. The taper of his body to his tail is way less prominent, making him more boxy. Overall, these are really just minor changes that make him more in the live action movies style. I think he looks great, would've wished they kept him more round and agile looking, but he still looks like our boy.

Now that's it for now! But, I do have some things I want to point out before ending this post off. First of all, I think (unfortunately) that much more care was taken for Astrid, Hiccup, Stormfly, and Toothless because of their MAIN main character status. I really don't want to think of it that way, but it this wild world of entertainment we live in they care much more about preserving a leading couple than what they consider as "side characters" ;-;.

Next, I can see throughout this analysis, that they were afraid of round shapes in these character designs. Now, this is definitely an aspect of translation from fully stylized animation to a live action, but I still think they went too far with it. They are afraid of the stylization of the dragons! It just an unfortunate aspect of the live action, it loses the exaggeration in exchange for "mass appeal" or something.

Anyways I'm full of opinions on httyd rn so I WILL be posting more. Also, ALL OF THIS IS JUST MY OPINION! I'm no expert character designer, I'm just a dragon girlie that wants them to be more funky.

[f-nodragonart]

i saw a post talking about the light fury and going "but give her a wide mouth u cowards" in the tags and i was so confused for a moment because to me her face looks like it has catlike cheeks, you know, easily pulled back to expose The Void

perhaps, but that’s not rly how Fury mouths have been shown to function. they’re more comparable stiff-flesh alligator jaws, but with a few areas of flesh that are somewhat less stiff

I’ll admit that Furies are one of the more expressive dragons breeds in HTTYD, but they still don’t have the same looseness of skin that most mammals have. felines in particular have VERY loose skin compared even to other mammals

lotsss of stretchy wrinkles there to account for their jaw range. not to mention the fluffy fur present on most cats, which can obscure a lot of internal anatomy

the Light Fury’s mouth, on the other hand, is actively smaller than Toothless’-- not JUST in outward appearance

from what I’ve seen of her yelling, this isn’t just a stylistic choice where she can actually open her mouth wide but her flesh rests into a ‘small’ mouth (tho it has admittedly been difficult to finds references of her full jaw range). like I’m not expecting sphinx-level wrinkles from cartoony dragons, I get it. but it honestly, rly looks like she can’t open her mouth nearly as wide as Toothless can

and even if it IS a stylistic thing for when her mouth is at rest, why? goddamn WHY except for that tired, stupid insistence on main female characters being daintier, smoother, and smaller than their male counterparts? there’s no goddamn reason why her design should be so airbrushed and reserved compared to EVERY other goddamn dragon breed in the ENTIRE series, it genuinely maddens me

sorry anon, I’m not mad at u abt this, I just get heated over this movie. I can tell this is a genuine question, but I just think ur giving the Light Fury’s design far more credit than it deserves, I rly don’t think the designers (or perhaps the execs then directing the designers..) were thinking abt anything beyond her being the *~Girl Fury*~

-Mod Spiral