Toothless the Dragon - Finished (Pic Heavy!)

Ukfreddybear · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:08 pm

Anyone seen Dreamworks How to train your Dragon? I have been commissioned to do Toothless the Night Fury by a private collector. Thought it would be fun to post WIP here.

First up, the rocky outcrop on a standard dragon base. This not only raises the whole model but gives a lot of weight to the bottom to help prevent toppling once the whole thing is done. I filled the gaps with putty.

Then a general posing of the wire armature to start things off.

I've added sand to the base prior to priming:

Next step is to bulk out the armature a bit with milliput.

garmenhord · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:10 pm

Nice! i will certainly follow this up. It's a brilliant movie!

TheBucklandBrewer · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:15 pm

I still have to watch it, but will certainly do so as soon as possible!
Looking forward to see your progress here!! Dragons are always a little more excitingly special imo!

I hope some day to sculpt one myself... but I hope for so much...

Ukfreddybear · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:13 pm

So today I primed the base black and bulked out the armature a little using milliput, which is a lot cheaper than the ProCreate and Greenstuff that I will be using to skin over the top of it . . .

garmenhord · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:24 pm

Nice start! I am looking forward for more of toothie

Don't forget he is tough and cute!

theavenger001 · **Posted:** Fri Mar 25, 2011 4:55 pm

So, do you know how you're going to do the scales? (Individually like Natarn?

Or some other way...?)

I really like the base so far, keep up the good work.

Ukfreddybear · **Posted:** Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:02 pm

Well I won't be doing individual scales on this mini thats for sure. It needs to be finished by April 15th. I've been granted quite a bit of flexibility, so a hint of scales will be fine. I'll paint a lot of the texture on.
I started on the head today. This is just a general layout of the features. Tomorrow I will fully detail over what I started today. Mouth, eyes, ridges etc. The lower jaw armature isn't attached yet, as i need to detail inside the mouth first.

You'll notice I also painted the base whilst waiting for the putty to cure. I'll add some greenery nearer the finish date.

garmenhord · **Posted:** Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:14 pm

nice work! - i know someone that will be happy to see this :-D

kidterminal · **Posted:** Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:08 pm

I see you've been using some lizard reference photos for this project. It looks very interesting.

Rob

Ukfreddybear · **Posted:** Sat Apr 02, 2011 7:36 pm

Actually Rob I haven't used any lizard reference pics although my daughter also remarked how it looked like a lizard. The only reference material I am using are screenshots from the animated movie. This is both a blessing and a curse because although there are many images to choose from, his appearance changes throughout the film, presumably because there were many animators involved. I have just had to find a happy medium and go with it. I skinned over the head and started the forelegs although they will need fattening up a bit near the bottom.

I still wasn't convinced this was going well though and decided I needed to be sure the head was ok before moving on. I did something I would not normally do and painted in some color. I haven't done any highlighting. This was just to see if i had the right feel to the character. I think it works ok.

I can now plough on with covering the rest of the body.

kidterminal · **Posted:** Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:05 pm

That's a shame about the changing character. I haven seen the movie so I wasn't aware of that difficulty. It looks really good Dave.

Rob

Ukfreddybear · **Posted:** Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:24 pm

It is only after studying it that I noticed. Sometimes the head is round, sometimes more triangular. The length of the head tendrils change slightly too in comparison to the length of the head. The eyes vary greatly from being a quarter of the head size upto almost half! So as I say I just decided on one way or another and stuck with it. It does make a change trying to recreate a cartoon in 3D. I welcome the challenge although I wish I had a bit more time to get it done. Feels like I'm cutting corners a bit. Only 13 days left to get this sculpted and painted. :shock:

kidterminal · **Posted:** Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:54 pm

You're doing fine as far as I can see. :yay:

garmenhord · **Posted:** Sun Apr 03, 2011 11:34 am

Yeah very good work! I like it to see a part painted (gives me a bit of preview :-D

)
He looks like toothless for me

I wonder why it's all different - computers make it easy to copy paste the toothless model - so they all work with the same figure
I think it's partly because of his expressions - and the cute dragon vs the tough dragon.
I have no experience with computer animation myself. I kinda prefer the traditional ways... But if it's like puppet animation , there might be more puppets for one figure, in function of what it has to do.

Keep it up.

Dorthonion · **Posted:** Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:52 pm

The sculpting is marvellous. I would imagine that this would be a challenge as cartoons are deceptively simple - you either get it pretty well perfect or they are utter pants as the differences with the original really stand out. I have not seen the film but after watching the trailer and a few clips, I reckong this is a very faithful rendition.

I will be watching with interest. Well, eyes actually.... :lol:

Oldman Willow · **Posted:** Mon Apr 04, 2011 12:52 am

Looks Cool!

BizzareWarstar · **Posted:** Fri Apr 08, 2011 10:44 pm

he's turned out great looking, i wasent sure what Toothless was suppose to look like but seeing some pictures of him makes it a most impressive sculpt. is this the first time youve sculpted a dragon or lizard type creature ?

Drumstick · **Joined:** Sat Sep 19, 2009 8:57 am **Posts:** 1223

This is a fantastic model. I really enjoyed the movie as well and thought toothless was very cute. He looks very good, even with that first coat of paint. I would say the position he's in isn't great, it looks to lizard like - but then again thats only my opinion. Keep up the good work and I do look forward to seeing him completed. :yay:

Drum

BlackReaper · **Posted:** Sat Apr 09, 2011 1:45 pm

That rocks man,keep it up!

RangerofTheNorth · **Joined:** Tue Feb 15, 2011 6:54 pm **Posts:** 483

WOW! thats awesome I might have to go to Walmart at some point and pic up one one of the figures to sculpt up

Toothless the Dragon - Finished (Pic Heavy!)

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