The moment the Hero was made

Well, sadly all good things (and it seems especially all great things) must eventually come to an end... at least until eternity. So, spring break came and went for me. My friend Justoffravenpoint came and stayed with me for the entire week. I cannot even begin to tell you how much fun we had. She has returned home now, but I wanted to show you all one of the things that we did. Justoffravenpoint and myself, Usertoothless, worked together to make a collaboration art piece as a gift for the two HTTYD fans who are commonly referred to as Inhonoredglory and Toothlesslove. It was an awesome experience, Justoffravenpoint and I working both on the same project, and I think we were both really happy with how it turned out. I can also say that the two people who we sent the gift to have replied and told us that they both really do like it a lot, so that makes me, and I am sure Justoffravenpoint, extremely happy. To see the full art piece, click the "read more"

Hopefully if you open these images in a new tab, you'll be able to see them fully. What we did was I did a line art in pencil... which is something that I am very comfortable with, and then Justoffravenpoint watercolored over it. It took us quite a while to find something to do, and at first we tried to frame by frame through HTTYD2 in order to get ideas. Welp, THAT didn't work! We wound up just laughing at Toothless's facial expressions or getting sidetracked into HTTYD conversations. After we took a break from thinking, I wondered if we couldn't use some sort of book quote. The HTTYD books may be very different from the movies, but often times they share a similar thematic heart. Justoffravenpoint had a collection of quotes and I pulled out my books and started flipping through them. We came across a quote from Cressida's very last book. With a few alterations, it worked extremely well for both Hiccup and Toothless! Inhonoredglory and Toothlesslove both actually have separate favorites between Hiccup and Toothless, which meant doing an art piece that had both of them as the center would work very well.

We then decided to make the images parallels. I had done this kind of thing before with digital painting, so that I was pretty sure it would work out well in the end. The two images are meant to celebrate the echoed themes of both Hiccup and Toothless taking up their destinies after suffering great loss. It is also neat to note that both of them did what they did out of loyalty and love. Though Hiccup's change came in a somber determination and Toothless's came in a burning fury, both of them became the "Alpha's" of their respective worlds. They had both been broken, both been robbed. Hiccup had lost his own father who he clearly loved and respected... possibly more than anyone else in the world. Hiccup had also suffered a massive... almost unbelievably devastating blow to both his own worldview, and his own identity. Toothless had lost his own free will, lost his ability to protect Hiccup, and (to a degree) lost a lot of his innocence. When the Bewilderbeast nearly makes Toothless lose Hiccup to its ice, the final straw had finally come. Both Hiccup and Toothless made resolves and committed actions that can never be undone. Though possibly at their lowest points ever, they were finally made ready to both become even greater Heroes than they already were.

I don't know if you can read the quote, and I hope the paintings both show the theme I discussed early with at least some clarity. Since the text might be tricky to read on the web, I'll end this post with Cressida's quote... but before I do, I just do want to say from both me and Justoffravenpoint, that we are so thankful to be able to call Inhonoredglory and Toothlesslove some of our greatest and closest friends, and we hope that every time they see this painting they will remember that.

     "At last, for the first time in the boy's life he is finally ready. It may not look like it, as he stands there, broken on the beach, having lost Stoick, having lost Toothless (Hiccup in the Toothless version of the image), having lost everything, but this was the moment the Hero was made. He is ready to take on his destiny now."