How To Train Your Dragon! My favorite movie of all time...why? Entry 5

After those last three slightly deeper, more heart felt reasons why I love the movie, I am going to shift gears for a moment and discuss the style of the movie and the story. This is much less of an issue, but if the movie did not have the beautiful style it would not have been able to convey the its amazing message or display its wonderful characters that I have grown to love so much (see last three entries)! So the way HTTYD was made and how the movie works and feels is important, and I am going to go into what things about it that I feel grabbed me the most.

One of the most amazing things about the HTTYD style is that it is filmed to be like a live action movie! There are not many animated features that have achieved this goal, and those that I can think of do not pull it off quite as well as HTTYD. I loved the excitement and action of the film. The filming and story style really does give the movie a realistic sense of peril. Lots of cgi animated movies don't have this. You feel the characters are practically indestructible. If a tree falls on the guys head he will just get knocked out for a moment. If the comic relief gets struck by lightning he will just looked charred and give a goofy cough. Nothing like this happens in HTTYD! When Meatlug pins Hiccup and prepares to shoot him, you fully believe that Hiccup could have died! When Toothless prepares to finish Stoick, your heart starts wrenching as you realize that Toothless might kill the one person Hiccup loves the most. It is a very serious feel, but it is a good thing! Hiccup's role in the movie was dangerous physically and emotionally. It gives the movie this deep lasting presence. I trust the second movie will continue to carry this feel because it really does make the movie amazing! The action and danger of the film is yet another reason that I am UNASHAMED to call it my favorite movie of all time.

Now...hold on a second. Why not just watch an actual action movie? Would that not be much cooler than an animated movie? Well...NO! I think animated movies hold many advantages, but I will deal with the beauty of the graphics in this film some time later. Another thing is that action movies are so often filthy. I have a pretty strict moral conscience, and I do not intend to go filling my mind with the filth that gets shoved into movies that are aimed at teens. Why as a teen or young adult am I expected to enjoy foul language and scenes between guys and girls that are highly inappropriate? NO, no, no, no! Even thinking about how sinful some of that stuff is sickens me. There are bright spots (Thank you SO MUCH J.R.R. Tolkien!!), but as a whole most action movies today are not clean enough for my taste. That was yet another thing great about HTTYD! It had the action, adventure, stress, emotion, and peril of a really amazing action film while keeping the beauty and innocence of an animated movie.

Finally, the foot. That was so unexpected! Everyone has to have a scene in the movie where you think the main character has died, but none of them do. This was different! This shocked me! I suddenly realized how mature this movie was. Can you go around, risk everything for what you believe is right, change the world, and then expect to come out unscathed? Hiccup was willing to sacrifice everything and he was so admirable in that way. The missing foot is a reminder of that. He put his life on the line and changed the world, but he did have to pay a price. People think you can do great things without any difficulties, but they are often proved wrong. Hiccup counted the cost, he was willing to try, and he did change the world. Now both he and Toothless have lost so much, but they have gained much, MUCH more! They have each other, and they have made their world into a much better place! That is yet another reason why I love this movie so deeply. It is so mature in what it shows about life, and both children and adults enjoy watching these truths be displayed in the lives of Hiccup and Toothless

Addy's drawings

Hello, it's me again

Sheep

For that blog is used to put our common stuff onto it, I want to share something, Toothless encouraged me to do. Actually I'm anything but a drawer. In fact, I hardly use pens at all. Most of what I do is typing. Pens? A note here, another there, that's it. But drawing? Never. Somehow, Toothless managed to get me drawing! At first I just loved his journal-drawings, which you can find on his Wiki-profile, if you're curious. (I bet, you'll see them here sooner or later too) I just drew a sheep and put it on his talk-page on the wiki.

Angry looking Night Fury

Wallpaper-copy

Somehow it was kind of fun drawing this sheep and after looking at those awesome drawings of my friend Toothless, I decided to draw some more. At first, it was an angry-looking Night Fury on a small piece of note-paper. After that, I drew Toothless from my wallpaper (forbidden friendship scene).

Well... I was not that pleased with those tiny drawings. I wouldn't consider them bad, but I have my standards. So I took the next step. I drew Toothless in that scene, where Hiccup flew on him for the first time. Therefor I used a larger piece of paper (A4) and adhered it on my big screen. I turned off the lights, took a fine pencil and started drawing the outlines of Toothless. When I had the basic shapes, I put it off my screen and started to draw the rest of it. This way I drew three more pictures.

There is only one more picture I drew. It's drawn in A3-format and actually decorates the wall of Toothless's bedroom :)
Okay then... Dragonific greetings from Dresden!

PS.: One more drawing, that I just completed: The Terrible Terror. (When I put my drawings here, I suddenly felt like drawing again :D )

Sepia HTTYD 2 Hiccup Drawing

This is my first real drawing of older Hiccup. I must confess that I am very uncomfortable drawing humans because I am usually really bad at it! This came out MUCH better than I expected, but I can still see tons of flaws in it! Still, it was a pleasant surprise when it was finished. If you open this image in its own window, you will see that it is actually pretty big. Hope you like it. I am pretty happy with it. Man, it took nearly three hours to do! I find Toothless and the other dragons to be a whole lot easier for me to draw! This was a fun experience though, and now I am considering doing several more pictures with both Hiccup and Toothless in them. Those will probably have some pictures with younger and some pictures with older Hiccup. Until I see HTTYD 2 I am pretty undecided on what age I like Hiccup better at. 'Till then I'm just going to have to draw lots of him in both ages!

How To Train Your Dragon! My favorite movie of all time...why? Entry 4

Now, you may have noticed (or may have just thought it was carelessness) that I left out a pretty big chunk of what makes Hiccup and Toothless so wonderful and unique. Really this is just an extension of both entry 2 and 3, but it is such a great topic that I decided to separate it into a new entry. This one thing might really wind up being the main reason I love HTTYD so much. The topic I am going to discuss is the relationship in the film between Hiccup and Toothless.

The relationship between these two characters is beautiful! This is the kind of thing you only get in really great films! It is kind of like the LotR with Sam and Frodo, except I personally think that Hiccup and Toothless are even better! Loyalty is an amazing and admirable trait in both Hiccup and Toothless. I love watching how unquestionably loyal they are to one another. Friendship is a wonderful thing, and these two display a bond that is rivaled in strength by none! Hiccup cares so deeply for Toothless. He wants to run away with him rather than expose him to the village in the first film. What could be harder for Hiccup? He would leave everything and everyone he knows to live the rest of his life with a dragon companion who cannot even speak. That loyalty and display of selfless love and protection is such a wonderful view into Hiccup's personality! Really these two bring out the best in each other! Watching Hiccup throughout the franchise be unfailingly willing to throw himself into the line of fire for the sake of his dragon is inspiring! I hope that I would do exactly the same! Toothless is no different! That dragon is willing to face an army of Vikings in order to protect Hiccup. He dives into the exploding body of the Red Death and frantically reaches out for his falling rider. It was beautiful to see him holding Hiccup close to his chest and wrapping him in his wings. The idea of a companion that will do anything for you with unquestioned loyalty is embodied beautifully by Toothless. Hiccup is in a crazy and dangerous medieval world, often everything seems to be caving in on him, he has changed the world and is often attacked for it, but thanks to Toothless, he does not ever have to stand alone! That dragon would die without question to save his master, and Hiccup would do nothing less for Toothless. It is probably the most beautiful friendship that I have ever seen captured in a film, and it is the kind of friendship that I deeply long to cultivate!

The second thing about Hiccup and Toothless's relationship is that they do very much need one another! They have always got each other's back, and that is really splendid to watch. I love the scene in GotNF when Hiccup slips on the ice and Toothless catches him. Hiccup's missing foot subtly displays that he cannot stand alone against the many trials that life will bring, but he has Toothless! Toothless needs Hiccup just as much. The whole concept of them needing to fly together was a brilliant way to develop them! The directors really deserve some credit for that! Alone they are almost helpless, but together they become unstoppable! I especially like the fact that they really want to need each other, especially Toothless. He desires Hiccup's company more than his own freedom. The symbiotic relationship displayed in Hiccup and Toothless is unparalleled! It remains, in my own opinion, the most beautiful kind of friendship imaginable. Toothless is just so amazing, and Hiccup is just so admirable. Their bond brings them both together into a friendship between boy and dragon that I can only wish to possess!

Lastly, Hiccup and Toothless are not flawless! Now I do want to live my life in the best and most God honoring way, but I am not cocky enough to believe that I will never fail. Seeing that my hero is also fallible is, in its own way, an encouragement. Hiccup and Toothless do occasionally have minor fall outs. This is seen as being Hiccup's fault in the Torch incident and as being Toothless's fault during the vendetta with the Whispering Death. Both of them deeply harm the others feelings. Hiccup's heart is crushed by Toothless's angry plasma blast, and Toothless is left with his feelings deeply wounded in the cove. This is the type of thing that really tests the mettle of a friendship, and both Hiccup and Toothless triumph in the end! It is wonderful to see how forgiving and caring they are towards each other! They love each other far too much to become bitter, and that is one of the most beautiful traits I can see in both of them.

So the whole story of HTTYD revolves around the beautiful, beautiful friendship between the ultimate dragon who discovers that he wants to devote his life to someone else and a scrawny Viking teen who discovers that he is a hero in that he is willing to selflessly sacrifice everything for his closest friend! That is one of the most central themes in the whole franchise. These two together have captured me and many others. I love them and I love to watch them care for each other! As I have said before, the friendship displayed by Hiccup and Toothless provokes a deep aching wishing in me. What I would not give to have that friendship myself! It is one of the most beautiful things I have seen, and I am so thankful that we will see more of this wonderful tale of friendship as the series and sequels unfold!

Endeavor Digital Painting

So... I honestly am not all that good at using my digital painting program (photoshop), but this was one of my first attempts. I bought the program after seeing some of the AMAZING digital paintings in The Art of How To Train Your DRAGON book. Yeah...my drawing is okay I guess. I do like the Night Fury hilt design. This is kind of a mix between the book and film. Endeavor is Hiccup's sword in the book, and it is actually a very plain, though still very good, sword. I tried to imagine what the film Hiccup (who is much cooler) might design if he made himself a sword, and this is what a came up with. I guess now I should draw it on fire considering those leaked images :D

How To Train Your Dragon! My favorite movie of all time...why? Entry 3

Okay, now to write about the one and only thing in the film that could even hope to compare with Hiccup and that is, of course, Toothless! Every sensible person loves this dragon, and HTTYD fans can't get enough of him! He is just so, well, amazing! There are many, many aspects about Toothless that are extremely appealing, so I will just list a couple of reasons why I, and so many others, have had our hearts captivated by this wonderful character!

First off, Toothless is a dragon. Now he is not just some ordinary dragon; his physical appearance and anatomy differ greatly from any other dragon in any other film. In many ways, he is the most unique creature to jump out of the screen in many a year, and I am quoting a movie critic on that point! Besides being a very unique looking dragon, Toothless is a ridiculously COOL dragon! He is not some lumbering reptile who puffs himself up and blasts boring old normal fire; he is a stealth bomber! His species were the bane of the Viking’s existence for three hundred years, and no Viking had ever even seen one! He has that wonderful sense of terror and mystery built around him. I love the book of dragons' description of him! Whoohoohoo... still gives me chills! That moment where he tackles Hiccup and looks him straight in the eye, accompanied by that eerie and epic soundtrack (thanks John Powell!) really emphasized how sinister and intimidating he could be. He is a Night Fury. He is called the ultimate dragon by the directors. He is the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself! This dragon is so stinkingly epic and intimidating that he makes all the other dragons I have seen look a bit silly, slow, tactless, and, well, boring! As Stoick so brilliantly put it, "I haven't seen anything that can hold a candle to a Night Fury." So Toothless grabbed all the best classical dragonish traits, added some really cool ones of his own, and left all others dragons looking inferior.

Now that is only the first half of the picture shown in the heading of this post! There is a lot more to Toothless than his epic Night Fury outside. He is a really beautiful character with a great personality! Oh man, I wish I could go in depth here! As soon as Toothless displayed his first adorable face, I melted. Good grief...how could anything be so unprecedentedly cool and so heartwarmingly adorable AT THE SAME TIME?? Toothless has such a cute, curious, and humorous personality. I have spent so many hours drawing this dragon. He has grabbed me and I can't shake him, nor do I want to! If I want to see something heartwarming, I can watch him, and if I want to see some action and explosions, he fits the bill! I love the design and work the animators and concept artists put into him! His role in the film is really beautiful, and I will talk more about him and Hiccup's relationship in a later entry. For now, I will end with saying that Toothless's cuteness mixing with his awesomeness, yet without either trait ruining the other, has made him my favorite creature of all time! You may have read my Hiccup explanation and how I affiliate with him. With all that, I really do feel that one of the greatest tragedies of my life is that I do not have a Toothless! And I am sure many of you are the same way! He is a companion and friend that we can only wish for, but who’s to say we will ever stop wishing?!

How To Train Your Dragon! My favorite movie of all time...why? Entry 2

Hiccup is almost certainly one of the main reasons I love HTTYD so much. There is really only one other thing about the movie that could compete with Hiccup, but I will save that for next entry. For now, let's say that Hiccup is the main reason HTTYD means so much to me. He was really inspiring. He instantly became my hero because he was so easy for me to relate to! I had never seen a movie character like him before! He was admirable, not perfect, but certainly a hero in his own way! Now that I have watched him and affiliated myself with him so much, I almost feel like I am Hiccup! Now that is what the directors intended, but man, they did an amazing job! When Hiccup is sad, I get sad. When Hiccup is stressful, my heart rate picks up and my stomach starts flipping. If I hear people talking about him in a derogatory way, I actually get offended! He was my age when I watched the first film, and I have never loved or tried to act like any character as much as Hiccup. He has become almost a role model in many ways. Man, it is a weird experience to have your heart bound up with a a movie character! My days go great when an episode comes out and Hiccup comes out happy, but when the cliff hanger endings hit me, I get so ridiculously stressed out! I guess in some ways it is comical, but I really do love the way the directors made him so much that I do want to be as much like him as possible. He means so much to me now. Sometimes I feel like I am looking at myself. His struggles have become mine, and I almost feel like I share in his triumphs. Man, that scrawny little Viking is, without debate, my hero!

I don't think there is only one thing that makes me feel so Hiccupish. I do really admire his sense of compassion! I know quite a lot of people who don't seem to even think twice about killing reptiles. I have always loved dragons and dinosaurs, so when a movie came out whose hero discovered that dragons were not evil, that was completely in sync with me! I do like to draw, and I do build some things, I am not particularly interested in sports or other tough guy activities, I can be a little sarcastic, my dad is a little intimidating (but a really great person who I really wish to make proud), and at times I really have felt a bit alone. So when I saw Hiccup having so much in common with me, it was a wonderful moment. I still remember the feelings I had after leaving that theater. What an amazing, practically life changing, day!

Hiccup's role in the film was also brilliant! I love how he is willing to stand against the whole world, risk losing everything, and be misunderstood and practically hated all for the sake of doing what he has discovered is right. That is very much in line with my beliefs as a Christian, and I am proud of what Hiccup did! I love his undying loyalty to Toothless. The courage he shows when Toothless is in trouble, and so many other things about him. If ever there was a character worth admiring, imitating and loving, it is Hiccup!