🆂🆃🅰🆁🆅🅰🆃🅸🅾🅽 ⚰

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)

You're a lesbian /j

omg how did you know

what if it GETS her though 😥

Dark misty forest that is actualy pretty.

by: 大地の風景

A scavenger toll that is part of my little Rain World set.

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.

A look into the environment layout of Rahlo, along with nine close up species profiles of the native plants!

Feel free to ask questions!

Much of Exoton's plant life is characterized by highly specialized root structures, predominantly growing in a vertical, cone-like shape. Most species are derivatives of a key ancestor, the Giant's Needle, sharing a dense, layered root system with a distinctive spiraling growth pattern. This structure provides exceptional stability and resilience, making root trees some of the planet's densest organic formations. Their durability makes them extremely difficult to fracture, even under significant force.

Hey guys it's seasons greasons

(Featuring the Prectikar, Obin, and WaraWara, an Arasit.)

Obin is a big fan (pun intended) of the cold but not of other people screaming and jumping on his back. WaraWara is a thrill seeker and would never pass up the chance to go out in freezing temperatures dressed in only a tanktop and jump on a guy 12x her size.

Channelling one of my favorite artists, Egon Schiele!