6th anniversary of HTTYD (for me) + How to Draw Your Dragon! *UPDATE*

Hi everyone!

It's the 31th of July again, which is a huge red-letter day for me (well, for 6 years now) because on this day in 2014, I saw HTTYD for the first time, which opened a whole new chapter in my life. Unfortunately, I can't brag about some progression in my projects, because I couldn't find any solutions to my problems whatsoever, but I have something that I wanted to post for a pretty long time now. I think it's a perfect opportunity to show this and maybe it will inspire you to make some similar "things". 

If you want to know what I'm talking about, click read more.

So... A little backstory. In the far past I liked drawing stuff (weapons, bases etc.) but these were static objects and always in a perfect side view. Sadly. I couldn't really progress from there, so I was stuck at this point. What was always a huge problem for me and to this day is characters (also overlapping surfaces, and 3D perspectives). I had some very bizarre experiences in these topics, but I couldn't wrap my head around it, so I gave up. As time moved on it got worse and I hardly can draw nowadays anything like I did before.

A lot of that changed when I really got obsessed with Toothless. I wanted to draw him so badly, but I knew about my limits, so I was afraid to even start. I didn't want to end up for some bizarre looking nightmare fuel experiment, so I went into drawing basics. Fortunately, I found some videos that showed me how to draw Toothless step by step. I was instantly hooked up and I started to recreate and follow the basic rules. They were very helpful for a starter like me and this was my first attempt with that technique:

Yeah, I know it's a bit rough, but still waaaaaay better what I could make naturally. 

So... time moved on and I somewhat progressed just a little bit and this is what I came up with.

Awesome right? Well... to be honest I cheated. Umm... I mean it's not someone else's art or something, because I drew it myself but HOW I drew him is pretty much cheating. Let me explain.

So, after the step-by-step version. I wanted to make more, especially some of which I really, really loved. However, with this technique that would require a lot of practice and also some very, very deep anatomy stuff, so I lost hope. 

AND THEN!!!

I realized something. My fears were always the proportions and the overlapping surfaces. But what if I somehow make these "baked in", so I don't have to worry about them. And then a pretty ingenious idea came to my mind. I had some high-resolution pictures about him (most of them are my wallpapers) and if I resize the image which is exactly the same size of an A4 sized paper sheet I can somewhat draw the outlines and from then I won't mess up anything really. And that is what I did.

I choose one of my favorite pictures of him and boost up the image's brightness and contrast by a lot (and I mean stupid amount) and also on my monitor to make it transparent as much as possible on the paper which I taped on the screen. After that. I drew the outlines (very softly) and then some of the more prominent features (like the eyes, spikes etc.). When I was done with the most obvious and critical parts. I could get into the more detailed stuff like the saddle, the mechanics. the bones in his wings. and then the very fine" details like some scars and some very minor details on the saddle. Needless to say. I couldn't remove the paper for a peek for more details, because that would ruin the whole thing. (If the paper moves even a slight bit, it wouldn't be accurate anymore). So. I kinda had to use my memory in some places. After that. I removed the sheet from the screen, and redrew the lines firmly. It turned out pretty good as a first attempt.

 

That took around 2 hours to finish. Now, the very scary part followed, which was the shading. Yikes! I didn't have any experience on this, never really experimented on them, so it was purely trial and error. I was really afraid messing it up, so this is why I scanned him in this state. How I managed it, is pretty straight forward. I went back to the original normal colored image and tried to put on the right amount of shading like on the picture. At first. I was very cautious and I made the deep blacks and the very bright grays. I didn't want to risk anything. After a while I really got a sense to it and I went into the more complex parts, like the shading on his limbs. They turned out surprisingly good, so I moved on his body then to his wings and lastly his head. I made some very fine tuning in the end (like blending shades together to make them more even, also add the very small details). This took me more than 5 hours in one sit, but it was a LOT of fun! 

I really enjoyed every minute of it, and when I took a good look overall. I was very, very pleased! I know it's not like if I drew him from memory (that would be sooooo awesome tho', and I know quite a few people can do that and I envy them as hell!) but hey for a noob like me. I think it turned out pretty good. :)

After that, I didn't stop and I wanted to continue to draw most of my favorite images of him. 

And there they are. In chronological order. (The papers developed a slight yellowish tint in the past 4 years, and when I scanned them, they looked like it was drawn on parchment, which I think is pretty cool! Oh, and click for full size!)

Yeah, from this bunch the last one is which I'm the most proud of, because they were very few outlines I could start with and most of the time went into pure shading (like 80%). It took me around 10 hours to complete, but I was stunned how awesome it turned out!

Original art by: Vonholdt
 https://www.deviantart.com/vonholdt/art/Toothless-the-Dragon-160179901

This was made when I was bored as hell and the only usable things in the room was my phone, some papers and a pencil. Three normally wasted hours went into some gorgeous artwork! :) The technique was the same. I boosted the image's brightness and it worked pretty well, even on a smartphone. Still cheated, but oh well...

BUT there is hope! I drew this one completely from memory a year ago. No references, no images. nothing! Still "2D", but for now, this is the best I can do. (Oh, and in reality it's a really small picture. I only can do this in very small scales apparently).

I plan to continue this fairly new activity, so somewhere in the near future there will be more, and I'11 make a post when that happens.

So yeah. If you can't really draw, (like me) but want to make similar artworks, this is how you can make some, without any drawing skills. I would point out, that with this technique you won't be a better artist, and won't really progress (maybe in shading a little bit), but I definitely wouldn't upload this to Deviant Art and say "Hey look everyone, I drew this myself!" because it's not true, just very, very slightly.

I hope you enjoyed the post (and the drawings), and maybe got some motive to make some HTTYD art like this, and if you make some, you can share it in the comments section or in the discord server (well, if you're willing). :)

See you next time!