Well, today was Secret Odin! I was partnered with Team Astrid, and I'm happy to report that she liked it! I'll give you some details about how I did the art piece below the "read more", and I'll also upload a version that doesn't have the Secret Odin message attached to it.
Soooo... you guys will probably recognize this as my sketch from a few weeks ago. Truth be told, I was kinda playing around with positioning back when I made that, and I knew I needed to make a Secret Odin gift... but I also knew I would have almost NO FREE TIME in which to make it! So, I killed two birds with one stone by using that sketch as a blueprint for my gift. I'm really glad Team Astrid is a Toothless fan XD That sounds silly... but people come to HTTYD for all sorts of reasons, and I wasn't sure if a sorta dark, brooding image would go over all that well.
I really did enjoy painting this. In total, this painting took me about three hours to complete (if you include doing the original sketch). That is REALLY fast for me. Usually, digital paintings take me anywhere from 8-15 hours. I intentionally picked a style that I knew I could do quickly but that would still look as nice as possible when I finished. Toothless is really fun and really challenging to shade! On the one hand, you only have to use one color! On the other hand... he can easily just turn into the big black smudge on your canvas, and you can lose track of his limbs and features pretty easily in that dark silhouette! I've done this kind of fast-paced shading before, and in the end, I am pleased with the outcome!
I considered including Hiccup, and it BOTHERS me to have Toothless flying without him, but I chose not to because I really wanted to focus in on the mystery and epicness that surround Toothless. He has been called "The Ultimate Dragon", and I just wanted to try to capture that. I tried hard to give him a very dramatic pose, avoiding any position I've used in past paintings. Then the dark night sky was a must. I do like how the only bright spots on the image are Toothless's piercing eyes and burning mouth!
I also did try to keep in mind that if I managed to make Toothless's form tall and thin in the image, he might work as a phone background. I don't know how well he does... I didn't go out of my way to make it fit, but I'll post a cropped version just for fun!
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