My top 30 Favorite Protagonists!

What does a colossal nerd do when he finally gets a free evening? He uses a spreadsheet and a scoring system to try and rank his all-time favorite heroes!

I've been wanting to do this ever since I ranked my favorite stories, but with characters, I knew I would have a much longer list (I mean, seriously, great stories often have at least two or three really, really great heroes!). Because the list was going to be so massive, I felt I needed a system to help me be somewhat objective in how I scored everyone. This seemed like it would be a lot of fun, but I was also kinda worried it wouldn't be accurate. I was rating blindly, not comparing between characters for my first time around, and I felt sure the math would show things that weren't necessarily true. However, I was surprised to see how well this system reflect how I feel! There was even a big surprise for my two HTTYD heroes.

So, if you're interested, please click the "read more"!

Sideshow Toothless Is Here!

Well, after months of waiting, it has finally arrived! The Sideshow Toothless statue now sits heroically on my desk! My wallet feels a little, ahem, light after purchasing it, but OH BOY is it GORGEOUS. Bellow I'm gonna post the photos I have taken of it, and I'll give a quick review as well.

Friendship & Loyalty (video gift from Inhonoredglory and Toothlesslove)

Ok, so I'm gonna gush about this video below the read more. Be warned. 

Describe Yourself using 3 images of 3 fictitious characters

Ok, so my roommate told me that instagram is seeing a trend of this fun idea to describe yourself using three fictional characters. I'm not on instagram myself, but I thought this would be fun! If you would like, you could also describe yourself using three images of three characters in the comments section. I think it would be neat to see how you guys would display your personalities! To see my three characters, click the read more.

Alpha Showdown

After a few days of intensive painting (it's been a LONG time since I've just sat for such longer stretches and done digital art) I have finally finished my art piece that started out as a sketch that I showed you guys a while back. I've done this style of painting before (in a painting called "There is no Love without Pain). It focuses a lot on detail but has fairly subdued, almost cold colors. That makes it a lot simpler for me. Anyway, click the read more to see the whole painting.

HTTYD2: Demons

Below is  HTTYD music video that Inhonoredglory (with help from Toothlesslove) made me for my birthday/Christmas. This thing is beautiful, so I really want to share it. I'll also just list a few thoughts beneath the video.

Sleepy Companions

I painted the line art I posted earlier. It posed a lot of fun and interesting challenges, so if you would like to see it as well as some close ups, click the "read more". I hope you'll like it... I admit it is a little different than most HTTYD fan arts. Man, I've got some other ideas up my sleeve, but I don't know if I'll get the time to do them.

One Week Later

This is my first HTTYD2 drabble... and my second ever pure HTTYD story! Funny enough, I write a lot of HTTYD fiction, but it is all Dsplash stuff, so a bunch of other characters find their way in. I'm happy with my Dsplash story (ugh, most of the time), but sometimes I just wish I was creative enough to write something good that stuck with the HTTYD universe.

Anyway, I decided to write this story soon after seeing the film. I wanted to explore Hiccup's emotions a week after the events of the second movie... especially towards Toothless. The cool thing about this story is that I wrote the first four paragraphs on J.R.R. Tolkien's DESK! This is the same desk that he wrote the entire Hobbit on and part of the Lord Of The Rings! At the end of the story, I'll post some pictures someone took of me while I was writing those first parts. I thought that was such a neat idea... to write a story of my own on the same desk that Tolkien crafted his masterpieces. Maybe some of his brilliance is stuck in the desk some how. Although... to be fair, I don't know if this story is any good. My little brother liked it, he actually said he loved it! That made me so happy...

Ok, so here is the story.

Favorites

I am creating a new "Favorites" tag for the blog. For the next couple of days, I'll be going through older posts and marking them with this new category. Sooooo... for some of you this post will probably be a little boring! Sorry about that. I do want to post a few more HTTYD2 related analyses, but I don't really have the time right now. Anyway, if you'll go to the right sidebar on the blog and click the favorites link, you should get to browse through the blog posts I've done that I am happiest with. Some of them will be art, some analysis, and some will just be plain random stuff! But, if you are bored and want to find one of my better pieces of work, this new tag should hopefully be helpful and fun :)

How They Train Their Dragons

I am going to try and write a post comparing the three major dragon "trainers" we have seen so far in the HTTYD universe. What I really plan to do is discuss how they do their training and how they might be in some ways similar, but in many ways they are different. Click the read more to see the full article.

Happy Birthday Toothlesslove!

So, this is my birthday gift for the amazing HTTYD fan and one of my best friends, Toothlesslove. She had asked for something with Love as the theme, and I felt that with both movies put together, HTTYD has really displayed some really beautiful truths concerning love. So, I tried to grasp that by doing a lot of images. I don't know how well I did... this art style is very new for me. I tried to make it look like water color, so there is a lot less emphasis on the details and more weight given to light and form.  It really is hard to do! I went with very simple font, and then I made each circular image grow as the set of images goes along. I was surprised to find out how difficult it was to paint this way. So, I hope she likes it, and I hope you enjoy it too.

Perfect... Just absolutely perfect.

Here's just a continuation of thoughts on why I personally could not have been more satisfied with HTTYD2. It will contain spoilers or at least hints at them, so I'll use a "read more".

Red Rage

Major spoilers will be in this post, but I intend to delve into how I believe the "Red Rage" works in HTTYD2, and how it can be broken. This was a hard post for me to write... for many reasons. It's a complex subject, and to be fair a very emotional one. Click the "read more".

There is No Love Without Pain

So, I decided to shoot for another digital painting. The above image is NOT the complete picture, so if you want to view the full painting (including up close shots of the details in certain parts, please click the read more. Also, I suppose considering this image is kinda dark and macabre, expect a slight explanation and my reasoning behind it.

Another post about, well... Toothless's drool.

My readers: "Is he seriously going to post about Toothless's saliva/tongue again?

Me: "You betcha! We've got new info!"

Funny enough, this post will mostly be based off of a conversation I had with a fellow dragon fan concerning Hiccup's use of Toothless's drool in the thirty second clip. It is kind of an expansion on my last post about his saliva. That one was mostly about the healing properties, this one will deal more with it's consistency.

In the clip, we see Hiccup get Toothless to lick a small piece of parchment that Hiccup then attaches to his ever growing map. The fact that me and the fellow fan discussed was, is Toothless's saliva actually sticky? Why does it work as an adhesive to hold a map together. I tried to put a little thought into it, and I came up with some interesting conclusions concerning the drool of that darling dragon.

First off, I don't think Toothless's drool is sticky. If you stuck your hand in his mouth or if he licked your face, I don't think it would feel anything like sap or glue or other strongly adhesive liquids. My reasons for thinking this come from the actual visuals we have gotten of the drool (from both HTTYD, GotNF and HTTYD2 clips) and simple reptile biology. In GotNF, we see a lot of it get dumped onto Hiccup's head, and it looks remotely watery. In the trailer for HTTYD2, when Toothless begins his merciless licky onslaught you can see drips of it breaking loose and shooting at the camera. All of this makes me think that the drool is not particularly sticky. More importantly, if Toothless's saliva was actually very glue like, it would be a physical disadvantage. The only reptiles with very thick, sticky saliva use that saliva to hunt with (like chameleons and other lizards that predate with their tongues). It is clear that Toothless does not do that. As far as we have seen, Toothless is happy eating fish. He doesn't chew them (though he may slice them up), so he is forced to swallow his food whole. Reptiles that do that have slick saliva. They have to! You need the prey item to go down your throat without much drag and certainly without getting stuck. So, as a predator who mostly eats fish and certainly does not use his tongue to hunt, I imagine that Toothless would have drool that is very slick and lubricant. If Toothless had sticky saliva, it would be annoying to have say scales or hair sticking to his tongue, or if he bit at something and missed, he could get leaves, twigs, and other unpleasant things kinda stuck in his mouth. In the end, I really don't think Toothless's saliva is sticky.

But then the question comes, how does a slick liquid work so well as an adhesive? It's a great question! I had to think a while on it, but in the end I think it makes sense. Though Toothless's drool is slick and not sticky, I would say it has a certain amount of clinginess to it. It likes to cling to objects, especially dry ones, that it comes in contact with. This is again useful for a predator who doesn't chew. It would allow him to sort of easily slather his food as he bites onto it, and because it would cling to the prey item, it would make it easier for him to swallow. So, the stuff clings, but it doesn't have strong adhesive properties. Here's where I think the rub is on having paper stuck together by it: When it dries, any solids or enzymes in the saliva would harden and actually function as a natural, crystal-like adhesive. Kinda like when a soap bar hardens to the edge of your tub. Though soap isn't sticky, when it hardens, it can actually take a good tug to get loose. So, I think that property would help Toothless's saliva hold the sheets of paper together. But, that's not all. This is where I really start liking the idea of using Toothless's spit to hold paper together. Saliva has digestive properties. It is slightly acidic. Not a lot, not enough to sting or even tickle when he's licking Hiccup, but enough to slightly break down the natural fibers in the parchment. If both pieces of parchment were ever so slightly melting (and I mean ever so slightly) while pressed together, once Toothless's drool dried and the acidic reaction stopped completely, the fibers in the paper would indeed have practically intertwined and the two faces of the sheets would have melted ever so minutely into one another.

Final conclusion: Toothless's drool is normally slick and clingy, not glue-like. The acidity and drying solids allow it to work great as an adhesive once dry nonetheless. 

So, it works as glue and it's still super adorable to be licked by :)

Nothing Touches My Boy

So, it has been a little while since I drew a Toothless image which emphasized his fierce, as opposed to his charming, side. I really love the mysterious, beautiful, terrifying, powerful aspects of him as a character. Anyway, the context of the image is that Toothless and Hiccup are sleeping somewhere out in the wilderness, and while Hiccup sleeps soundly, Toothless keeps a careful eye out. In a land like Berk, who knows what kind of dangers could slink in the shadows (Skrill...), but any hungry creature or opportunistic thief would be highly unwise to try and touch Toothless's dearest treasure. Anything that is brave or foolish enough to disturb Hiccup's sleep will face a the full rage and power of the most feared and legendary of all dragons.

So, this was also me wanting to make another painting that was actually a full scene. That's tricky for me... because I usually get really impatient once I finish my characters, and I let the background slip and just do something quick. After I finished this earlier painting, I really started to want to make more pictures that were a complete scene. The problem is that it takes much more time, and even this image shows that I struggle to get lighting, detail, and perspective when it comes to drawing landscapes. Still, the moonlight on Toothless and the overall lighting is kinda nice... I'm at least pleased enough with it to have it as my iPhone background image.

Haha, now that I've gotten my snarly Toothless fix, I'm feeling much better! I love when he is cute, but the fact that he is also so mysterious and dangerous is really what makes the cuteness stand out amidst millions of cutsie animals. The fact that Toothless has such dynamic and dual personality is one of my favorite things about him. I hope you enjoy the image. As usual it will be bigger if you open it in a new window. As usual I welcome constructive criticism, advice, or opinions in the comments section.

Me, Book!Hiccup and Movie!Hiccup

During a long and somewhat scattered conversation with Inhonoredglory, we were trying to pin down why I liked Hiccup so much and how we both related to fictional characters differently. It was a fascinating topic, and in the end she asked me a question that I had never considered. "I know you don't quite relate as much to book!Hiccup, so why do you think that is?" 

So... I'd never even really thought of it! I like both or them, I think book!Hiccup is an amazing character and I am happy that the movie kept some of his similarities with his counterpart, but why do I relate SO MUCH to Movie!Hiccup and so little to book? It was neat to try and figure out. Now, please don't take this as me saying I don't like the books. I do. I love them. I'm very sad that they are almost over. I don't have to strongly relate to a character to appreciate them, but when I do strongly empathize with one (ahem, Movie!Hiccup), I usually stick with them for years and years.

Alright, onto the interesting question!!! Book!Hiccup and me? Wow… never thought this through, but I can see tons of reasons. I might just try and list them, but there are probably more.

1. His age. Book!Hiccup is eleven when we first meet him. I was fifteen when I read the book after seeing the film. Movie!Hiccup's life was at the same stage as mine, so I felt a lot more empathy for him. It was super easy to put myself into the shoes of a guy my age as opposed to a child.

2. I know Cressida in the first books ALWAYS pointed out how normal Hiccup looks, but in truth he is an absolutely extraordinary person. One thing would be his ability to speak to the dragons. I do LOVE that as a story element, but it quickly isolated me from Hiccup. It actually made Book!Hiccup feel almost superhuman… like he had this magical ability no one else had. Movie Hiccup was much less phenomenal. Sure, he was clever and had a knack for art and building things (two things I relate to. I just love it when I make something that works), but in the end he actually WAS just a normal guy who wound up changing the world through POWERFUL normal things that even I feel like I have (love, conviction), so it made movie Hiccup more relatable. Not that book Hiccup was not convicted, but at least when I met him in the first book, he didn't really compare with Movie!Hiccup. Now he does, now he shows conviction, but in book 1? He doesn't yell at Toothless and he tries to save his village. Honorable, yes. Convicted, yes… but just not to the "Kill Ring" degree.

3. Also, TOOTHLESS! Yeah, one reason I am so happy to relate to Movie!Hiccup is because I'd LOVE to have what he has. He's got movie!Toothless, and you already know how massively wonderful I think that dragon is. Book!Toothless… he's cute, but he's just NOT what Movie!Toothless is at all. So, the loyalty, power, love, fierceness, and friendship displayed by the Night Fury made me really want to be Movie!Hiccup. The common/garden dragon didn't really make me envy Book!Hiccup all that much.

4. Another thing would be that I met movie Hiccup first, fell in love with him, and then it was just weird to see him being so different in the books.

5. Though I love the story element of fate (and believe fully in God's providence XD), the fact that little Book!Hiccup is sort of destined for greatness makes him harder to relate to. He's more of a messianic figure in that way, especially with his whole stepping into the kingdom. Movie!Hiccup will eventually have to chose whether or not to take hold of the reigns and be chief, but his feels like so much more of a normal decision. Book!Hiccup hardly has a choice, he will follow in the footsteps of his ancestors. He's amazing, but he's a little too amazing. I can't think of a single time where Book!Hiccup was wrong, and because of that he's actually too ideal to be me.

6. I can actually see movie!Hiccup, as well as hear him, so that just makes him easier to want to be like! Book!Hiccup… well all we get to see are Cresseda's illustrations. 

7. Though there IS tension between father and son in the books, the way it was handled in the movie felt far more relatable because it was far more subtle. You didn't have people jeering at Hiccup that he would never be chief, you just had movie!Hiccup quietly feeling like he truly was a disappointment to everyone. The way movie Hiccup so badly wished to get his dad's approval really grabbed me. I know book!Hiccup wanted it as well, but I don't recall it being as big of an element in the first book at the very least.

8. Also, this goes with the age, but I've never really been bullied to the extent of book!Hiccup. I've never been picked on physically. The book Berk felt a lot more cruel when it came to people, while the movie Berk did not need to do that because there was a massive WAR going on. Now, I've TOTALLY felt the vibes that were given to Movie!Hiccup coming from other people, but I've never been around guys who would actually just flat out shove me over or anything like that. Just another reason I found movie!Hiccup more relatable.

9. The fact that movie!Hiccup was the first to see dragons as not evil was also more relatable. I've always loved reptiles, so I loved seeing a movie where the hero stepped up and said that the creatures were not the monsters that everyone assumed. Book!Hiccup just trained his in a better way, won its heart and its loyalty against all odds, but Movie!Hiccup was being different.

10.  And then again… I'd give almost anything for the kind of friendship Hiccup has with Toothless in the film. Just the uniqueness of it all, the way he found a friend he could truly trust after all that time of everyone else being distant and disappointed. That feeling of acceptance he got first from Toothless was magical in the movie, one of the strongest pulls I think (The Night Fury to scrawny, ordinary boy relationship is probably my favorite thing of all in the entire film), so since that wasn't really there at all in the book, it sort of left me hanging. Sure, book!Toothless would eventually "accept" Hiccup and prove his loyalty, but he's kind of a shrimp and a sissy of a dragon, so being accepted by him doesn't really compare to being accepted and loved by the Unholy Offspring of Lighting and Death Itself.

So, there you have it! Ten reasons I relate to movie!Hiccup more. I do LOVE book Hiccup, he's an amazing and well developed character who deserves a lot of thought, analysis, and love for himself, but he's just not quite as relatable!

Some of my favorite character moments

Just a quick post about some moments in the story of HTTYD where characters really, really shined. These moments have got to be some of my all time favorites, and they grab me every time.

Ok, I'm not gonna go in depth on any of these because I suppose each one would deserve a massive post all to itself (especially this one and the last one!). This moment, this moment for Hiccup was absolutely incredible. The fact that he walked into that ring knowing that he would shock his tribe, possibly lose his life, and disappoint his father who he so desperately wants to please. He's pretty much giving up everything. He's already told Astrid to take care of Toothless if he dies. He's going to lose the massive amount of people who are impressed by him. He may very well lose his life to the jaws and fire of one of the most aggressive dragons in the archipelago, and he is going to throw away the chance to gain the respect of his father. I honestly wonder if the latter thing is not by far this most painful for him. And why does he do all of this? "To protect your pet dragon?" Yes, but there is more than that. He learned to love Toothless, found true friendship for the first time in that dragon, and he learned very clearly that his society was wrong, his whole world was wrong. If he wanted to just keep Toothless safe, though that was a part if it, because if he only wanted to protect his friend he could have run away. Instead he stays, he stays because he must do what is right. He has to try. And he will lose everything for the sake of trying to change his world for the better. I just can't say how much I admire him for this scene alone.

Alright, this next little analysis will be shorter, but I don't EVER give Astrid as much credit as she deserves. Hiccup is completely crushed in this scene, and he truly wonders if it would not have been better if he would have shut his conscience up and killed Toothless the first time he met the dragon. "It would have been better for everyone--" and he is right. Now ALL of them are sailing to their deaths, even Toothless, so what good were his actions? What was the point of his heroism if it only gives him heartbreak and destroys everyone he cares about? That is when Astrid steps in, and it is amazing that SHE still sees him as a hero. She doesn't believe it was all in vain, and she thinks there might just yet be a hero on the inside of this small freckly boy, who, though defeated, could rise again and save them all. She wants to remember what he says right now, she believes these events are incredibly important, and she is able to remind Hiccup what he was fighting for, remind him that Toothless is out there, that dragons are different, that maybe he has done something wonderful, and that now he needs to press back into the fight. Thank you Astrid Hofferson!

Ok, so I lied about the last one being shorter XD Maybe this one will be. It is utterly amazing to see Stoick, Hiccup, and Toothless together here. Amazing to see these two ancient foes brought together by the love of a single boy. Stoick and Toothless probably have the blood of hundreds on their hands, but the reconcile an age old fight because Hiccup has shown BOTH of them that their is more to their enemy than meets the eye. Toothless trusts Stoick enough to give Hiccup back even though the man captured him, tied him up, and dragged him away from the boy. And then Stoick thanks Toothless, thanks the dragon that at the beginning of the film had struck an angry and hot terror into him and the rest of the village. Stoick is a chief, he is not quick to change, not quick to reconcile, but after all that has happened he pretty much welcomes Toothless into his family, and it is beautiful.  

Last one. I was torn between Forbidden Friendship and the GotNF scene shown above. I just picked this one because I though I might could plow into it more easily. Toothless here makes the ultimate sacrifice, he really does. He destroys his means of freedom, and he destroys it because he wants to. Yes, he dove into the burning body of the Red Death so as to save Hiccup, but he did that so as to save the boys life. He gives up his freedom completely here to save Hiccup's friendship with him, to let the boy know that he will never leave him again. It may have seemed such a small thing, such a trivial worry that drove Toothless to do this when you compare it to the other sacrifices that he has made, but that is the beauty of it. I can't imagine that anything would matter more to him as a dragon than his ability to fly. One only has to watch him to see that he enjoys it tremendously. Plus, Toothless was probably a very independent creature before meeting Hiccup, and he still very much thinks and fends for himself. In the end he gives all of that, gives it up forever, and it is a promise signed in the snow that he will never leave Hiccup. The temptation of freedom would not draw him away from the boy, and he wanted Hiccup to be sure of his undying loyalty. Now he will live a much more restricted, confined, almost pathetic life for such a majestic creature, but he doesn't see it that way. He's sees Hiccup as being worth more than life and as being worth more than liberty. Beautiful...

Looking back on 2013

So, it's finally come... the very last day of 2013. Man, in some ways the year feels so, so short, but in other ways it seems incredibly long! The things I've done this year, the changes that have happened, the friends I've met and made, it's been a BIG year.

Haha, so considering this is an HTTYD blog, I'll just hit some of the high points that happened to me this year concerning all things Dragon related! I'm sure I'll not be able to cover them all, but it has been a pretty fun year. Click the "read more" to see the full story, but be warned that it might have some slightly frightening images.

Valka Observation

Going off of some interview info and the amazing footage of this trailer, I've got this weird opinion of Valka that (though still very positive) doesn't paint her as being quite the perfect character. I am just intrigued to see how she and Hiccup will differ. As dragon trainers (and very good ones at that), it is interesting to see their different techniques and the different kinds of relationships that result. This also slightly covers Toothless's slight increase in anthropomorphism.

Ok. so here's my theory on Valka. It is coming from the one interview we got about her and what I see in the trailer. It will also sort of cover Toothless's increased anthropomorphism. I think that Hiccup and Toothless actually have a strangely different, strangely stronger relationship than Valka and Cloudjumper (or any of her other dragons). Call it favoritism, but I've got a theory. Valka is an AMAZING character! Utterly unique, really incredible! It is fascinating to see her interact with the dragons and Dean has even said that Hiccup will be "wowed" by her relationship with Cloudjumper. Now, I know it isn't a competition on who's closer to their dragon, but seeing Valka, and seeing how even Toothless was really easily "trained" by her, was very interesting. It makes me think... there is a defining difference between Hiccup and Valka, and it is a difference that Hiccup sees himself (according to Dean). Hiccup sees Valka as what he could become if pushed to the extreme, and as far as I can tell, it kind of worries him. We don't see it in the trailer, but it has been stated several times that she doesn't trust humans, and she clearly lives alone with the dragons her entire life. What happened in the past with this? Why is she no longer with Stoick? She has become very animilian, and she is described as almost being a little off-her-rocker (again, all of this from interviews). SO, where am I going with this? Here it is, I think Valka, in her own way, clearly understands dragons more than Hiccup, and that is very weird. In her own way, she would be closer to her hoard of dragons than Hiccup is to the dragons of Berk, but what it the difference? Why can she just suddenly calm Toothless? She has conformed, she has conformed 100% to the ways of the dragons. They hardly have to step out of their comfort zones at all to interact with her! She is practically one of them! So, what about Hiccup and Toothless? In their own way, I am still MORE impressed with them because Toothless actually steps out of his comfort zone and so does Hiccup. They both conform. Hiccup is becoming more dragonish (just look at his armor), and Toothless is also clearly picking up on human mannerisms. We don't see any of Valka's dragons acting human (nor do I think we will), and there is a reason. According to the interview Valka does not really think human and dragons can ever coexist. Hiccup does. Hiccup thinks they can both conform, both become a little more like each other, both step out of their comfort zones and live together in peace, and I admire him for that! I LOVE that Hiccup is becoming more familiar with Hiccup, and I actually think it is realistic that Toothless is picking up on Hiccup's mannerisms and becoming even more familiar with him. While Valka sacrificed her humanness for the sake of living with and understanding dragons, Hiccup and Toothless both make sacrifices so as to live together, and, in the end, I still think that that is something very special, and I hope Hiccup will see it as that. Anyway, that's a total guess, and don't think I dislike Valka! I am just interested in the differences, and like Hiccup, I really am wowed by both her and her dragon!