Mummy version what link and zelda discover beneath hyrule castle when investigating the failing shiekah tech and discover a cave system that leads to several abandoned shiekah research/security sites and ultimately lead to a cave in which ganondorf is still sealed away by the ancient queen of hyrule; after the initial sealing (or capture rather) her descendant and the shiekah, who were rapidly advancing their tech at the time, build around it, both to keep the seal secret and safe (as the actual sealing was a short but intense battle between him and the queen that wasnt intended to happen like that, in the middle of the throne room that got broken and both ended up in the underground, the only survivor being the young princess of hyrule from that time- since all involved parties except for her died little was known as to how and why but the stories were spun regardless and ultimately the final narrative was in hyrules favor) and to use ganondorfs immense spiritual power and magical skill- eventually becoming one of the main power sources for all shiekah technology (ouch)
the chamber is all shiekah built (post sealing) and similarly secured like the monks in shrines (though visibly decaying and failing)- once disturbed the remainder of the ancient queen fused into zeldas hand (with seemingly no effect but temporary pain, perhaps she will hear voices from the past telling her not to explore any further .. still working on that) ganondorfs body falls to the ground but then springs back to life, somewhat clumsily but fiercly attacking zelda and link, the shock from being in this horrendous condition between life and death for thousands and thousands of years and suddendly being thrust back into his decayed and used up body still fresh
the mastersword is broken and links arm destroyed, both link and zelda start to flee from the crumbling cave, zelda dragging link behind her in panic (and as he is hurt)- after which link gets his shiekah tech arm (and the arm stays gone) and the world changes
mid game fight- this game is not as free in progression as botw, you can do alot when you want but some things will remain locked, the mid game fight can only happen once the 4 main regions problems have been dealt with (very different to canon totk, but that is for a different post) and the castle, which fell into the underground shortly after the intro, is made accessible (specific way how still in work) the interior is both broken castle, rooms previously blocked, and shiekah tech- since beneath the castle was a whole, giant array of tech made to secure the castle, including reserves of ancient energy specifically for the royal family and the entire mechanism behind the rising pillars filled with guardians-
at the start of the dungeon link is grabbed by malice/miasma hands and dragged into the castle, seperated from zelda and the mechanics she introduced (crafting/reparing weapons and more), theres no way out, teleports are blocked; after getting further in alone, zelda finds you again, and nothing seems out of the ordinary (unless you have a keen eye, she only uses her left arm and would walk past things she usually wouldnt) after a certain amount of progression, without warning, as soon as zelda is out of the cameras view she will attack you relentlessly, not speaking a word and with changed eye color- after fighting with her/beign chased into the main throne room, the real zelda breaks through a wall, her friends in tow (yunobo, teba+tulin, riju, sidon, which she went to to ask for help, explaining the time gap), and ganondorf drops the disguise, a fight with him (mummy version) ensues, though he is very much back to his senses
at the end of the fight he shows (or forces her to see) zelda his last memory from when he lived, the confrontation with the ancient queen to his sealing (since she doesnt know/is in denial of her families role in both all this and the sonaus (zonais) extinction (as well as the betrayal and persecution of the shiekah later on), and his beef is with her specifically, link is just her guard dog after all) (i wasnt sure to include a direct scene from the past, but this one scene is very self contained and gives alot of context while still letting most of the past be a mystery- as i want to keep it as feeling ... removed and unknown as much as possible from the world you know)
(after which he leaves the scene as zelda tries to understand what she just saw)
post revival Ganondorf (beginning of end fight cutscene and phase 1.) only appears at the end (excluding the possible cutscene in the mid game fight, which shows him in his time, alive, which is a different design than this that i will make for a cutscene/story post)
the end of the game is in/on the forgotten plateau (it ends were botw began :) ) perhaps it rose higher and revealed an entrance after more game progression (at least one more dungeon, master kogas, and the restorations of the master sword via deku tree dungeon and sword quest involving the dragons; how much of the past you cared to explore within caves, which ARE the underground- its in several bigger and smaller, harder to access caves, each being somewhat to very unique and reveal more context, is largely irrelevant, it mostly serves to give YOU more context and make you think)
the dungeon is within the plateau, once to the end there is a longer cutscene of zelda trying to talk with ganondorf, now in his, largely, restored form (largely as in, not exactly as he was in past, clothing difference etc), her having come to understand what her legacy is and wanting to take responsibility for it; he listens calmly and talks to her for a bit (but the tension is very high, he knows what threat he poses and his goals, zelda is visibly trying to keep it together) and for a bit it might look like she can avoid this conflict
but he makes it very clear then, that she cannot undo anything, there is no possible price she could pay, he has suffered at hyrules hands for generations, having seen the world that was his home grow into myth, see his own people forget him, and how the history was remembered, not as it was, but as they wanted it to; he is forever changed, ripped from his time and all he ever held dear (there are clues and a mention of him having had two daughters, a little boar figurine, carved from wood of trees now extinct, hangs from his belt even now)- he wasnt a perfect king, but well liked and kept his country to stay strong against hyrules schemes .. until he fell- he is not truly alive, he is in a strangers world and this world hates him, it is anger and hatred, rage against all that happend, guilt for having failed his own, feeling betrayed by them yet, even if not truly their fault as no one knew what really happened except him, but he was imprisoned, with no breath to speak nor air to scream
he does not care for this world and his only goals now are to disrupt as much as possible, be the unstoppable force that hyrules always been, be the monster they wanted him to be, do as he wants until someone stops him ...and kill zelda to end her rotten family- but even if she gave up her life willingly he wouldnt take it, she will have to fight and make her own hands dirty and she does not want to die.
your friends arrive, and the battle begins.
(rough examples of his weapons are further below; he fights with one arm only in phase 1. then reforms his missing arm with malice, borrowed from the boar appearance, though it is not usable enough to truly replace it, it acts more like beasts claw and to copy some of links abilities, like the hookshot)
Beast Ganon(dorf), normal appearance (phase 3)
at the end of phase 2 he knocks out your friends, changes into beast form and attacks you, zelda using her magic to shield both her and link so he cannot bite through, instead smashes them both through stone and dirt all the way to the surface of the plateau on which the fight continues, this time only link and zelda
(his movement isnt a senseless rage, but a graceful being, he moves and jumps, floats and swims through the air as the ground in an almost dragon like way, he still wields magic, not all malice, but lightning and perhaps even more too, it is still him, just a different form)
Beast Ganon(dorf) while charging magic (phase 3)
Ganondorf phase 2 + Ganondorf phase 4 (slightly out of order but the boar wouldnt fit on one picture with other forms)
at the end of phase 3 (beast) it seems like you have beaten him, he is down and zelda takes charge, ready to do as she did to the dark beast she faced before (dark beast ganon in botw) but as she raises her hand a sword slash cuts off half her right hand- he is not done yet and refuses to be dealt with like that again, not by her hand again-
the final phase is a mix of all, including his appearance, this is the final struggle, to give every last drop of strength, the hole in his chest is open, malice eyes staring from within, it keeps him alive yet still-
zelda is disabled for this fight, she has been taken to safety by your friends, this fight is all on link to finish; while this is his most desperate and vengeful form, he is not senseless either, he summons his sword to attack you with as he did in phase 2, then throws it at you, quickly conducting lighting to it and while you are busy dodging lunges like in beast form (to paint the picture a little), this fight is supposed to be truly challenging.
(heres a rough example for his weapons)
(not fully sure of the ending scene, but there is supposed to be a short view into a timeskip in which zelda also has half a prosthetic hand made from shiekah tech)
Always be clear on the due date, kids. *facepalm*
The feel of toothless here is so unique. The shark like ridges to reduce drag is such a smart idea. Personally I think the live action redesign could have benefit from concepts like that. Real life elements and adaptations might have aided in grounding the dragons in realism and helped them fit in next to the actors.
All the dragons from the HTTYD stream. Detailed images below.
The designs from the original movie are basically perfect, which is why I didn't really dare to touch them... until a certain trailer dropped recently.
I'm a spiteful creature.
Anyway. Some ground rules. I tried to make these creatures overall a little bit more realistic and grounded without robbing them of the inherent whimsy that the originals had. All of them are tetrapods, so only 4 limbs max.
Nightfury
These guys have no more functional limbs to move on the ground. They are living stealth bombers. Silent fast fliers.
On the ground they flop around similar to seals, forming small colonies on top of tall cliffs.
Red Death
At a certain size it becomes unfeasible to fly for even a dragon. The Red Death stays on the ground using it's heavy armor and enormous size when raiding other dragon nesting colonies. it'as wings are more like spurs, to injure rivals in combat.
Gronkle
The original had a hummingbird style in flying , something that doesn't work for an animal of this size. My compromise is to make the wings rather stout and being able to be folded a lot.
Nadder
Easiest design, take a unfeathered theropod and combine it with a bearded dragon.
Shellfire
This was the last one I made on stream, it is one of the (in my eyes) worst designs from the shows, so a nice challenge to make it work a little better.
This guy is now a filter feeder, using its large horns to funnel water into its mouth.
Zippleback
Multi-headed dragons are really tricky. In my design I made one of the heads a parasitic male, similar to angler fish, that hitches a ride on the back of the larger female.
Monstrous Nightmare
One of the most classic dragons from the original movie. Lots of crocodilian influence here. The osteoderms on its back have pores from which it produces flammable secretions.
Razorwhip
A fast an agile dragon, but the original doesn't really show that in the head shape and all these spines don't help. I put some tapejarid influence into it.
Rumblehorn
The massive neck of this dragon doesn't work well in terms of aerodynamics, unless it's an inflatable display structure ;)
Whispering Death
The giant maw of this dragon is an even greater challenge, but when you give it the gular pouch of a pelican eel and turn these eyes into eye-spots, it works quite well.
And of course the Terrible Terror!
As you can see it's in my case a close relative of the nadder.
I made some charactertured heads of my dog Harris. He has a very big nose. Me and my sister make all kinds of jokes about his head being very moose like in shape.
Solar Eclipse Shadows
These solar eclipse shadows form due to the distance between the sun and the leaves on the trees. The distance and the proximity of the leaves to one another cause for a "lensing" type effect, making the eclipse shadow clearer to the human eye.
They kept anthropomorphizing him more and more as the series went on. This tends to happen a lot with creatures in animation. It is honestly what happened with Sisu in Raya and the last Dragon I’m pretty sure. The initial concepts of the character /creature are created with a lot of distinct features that make the characters stand out. Then as the production continues, many more hands,(artists, modellers, riggers, texture artists, animators, etc.), all touch on and tweak the design and how the character moves. Some things get improved, some things get eroded away.
Not to mention the art direction and goals for what they wanted the dragons to look like changed from the first movie to the third. The first ones all feel more natural like you could see which dragons were related to each other and they blended in to where they lived. Most of the cast had dappled greens, yellows, and browns. They also had some display adaptations like the deadly nadder’s quill/spikes being a bright yellow against its blue scales, forming several ring display patterns to warn other animals that its tail is dangerous.
Those types of details were not as important to them as the series went on. I think they wanted to make each dragon distinct from the rest and instead favoured certain design trends or gave a dragon one really big distinct feature. Think the antlers on the Crimson Goregutter or how all the design features of the Deathgripper look like they are from either a scorpion or a whip spider. I don’t think they were spending as much time trying to blend these features together in a more natural sort of way. I don’t think that was there goal any more. Plus they probably didn’t have as much time to workshop the designs as they did the first movie.
speaking of how to train your dragon and creature design, the shift from the really naturalistic art direction and character animation for the first movie's toothless- the face getting flatter, the eyes bigger and closer together, getting rid of the little realistic details like the dust collecting between the scales, the pink splotching where the scales end at the nostrils, the muted markings, the animation making a shift from largely realistic animal behavior to much more anthropomorphic- is such a huge downgrade to me, made worse because it's subtle in such a way that you will sound insane if you mention it
(huge L for the "the audience's capacity to find a creature cute and empathetic and expressive is directly proportional to how much it looks like a human baby" principle of character design because the first one is so so much cuter)
Kiki’s Delivery Service is one of those movies that I feel any aspiring artist should see. The struggle of Kiki in this movie is one that ANYONE who wants to further themselves goes through, that transition from taking what you love to do to something that you make a living off of.
As artists we have all been in the place where Kiki is. That place where we can’t draw anything right, can’t paint anything right, can’t sculpt anything right, that place where everything comes out wrong over and over and we begin to question if we’re actually good enough for the talents and skills that used to come to us like second nature when we were just using them for fun. That place where we want to give up because we suddenly can’t ‘fly’ like we want to, because everything seems too difficult to do that.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, just because it isn’t working right then and there when you want it to be. If you can always fly, then it wouldn’t make those times when you did as special. It isn’t necessarily easy to grow up, nor is it necessarily easy to live with the artistic struggle of losing inspiration. But you can’t just throw up your hands and say ‘No, I can’t do it anymore’ because you’ll NEVER fly if you do that.
You gotta wobble before you stand.
All of these are so cool!
Did you hear? They've found the golden mole! It still exists! It just took a break from being perceived. What a mood. Here are some other animals that totally exist, too. Just your very normal collection of animal art, really. This is one of those where you'll want to click through on the attributions below the art. For context. For transformation. For taxonomy. It's all there. The level of detail for these friendly animals that definitely exist is quite unhinged in the best way.
@exobiotica:
@villiedoom:
@dokupine:
@extrajigs:
@remotus11:
@yellosnacc:
@steinntroll:
@cathchicken:
@insectghost:
@charseraph:
@tickfleato:
@kattheerat:
@juicyolpickle:
Fontainebleau State Park, Mandeville, Louisiana by Lana Gramlich