#tnr webmaster

[zoomzooml]

Redesign concepts of Webmaster and Feathers

After a year

WEBMASTER

My biggest problem with the Webmaster design is how cluttered it seems; there's just a lot going on here. So I tried to calm it down a bit; I took away one pair of legs to make him less cluttered but keep (more or less) original body lenght. And I know that in his episode Jun says “if something has eight legs, she doesn't like it,” refering to spiders, but I think eight limbs works too.

I also played around a bit with his colors and markings. As well as body structure and proportions, noting this dragon's show-off skill - spinning webs.

When he puffs up his “cheeks” just before he spits, you can hear a sticky, mushy sound - you know that something is going on inside. The muscles are moving and pushing something with a sticky, gluey consistency. I would like it to be somewhat repulsive.

When he spits silk in attack it does not come out as big ball of burning web. It's more like net in "V" shape, in form of many separate threads of silk shooted at the same time. Similar to actual spiders, but on the bigger scale. His webs also don't burn; I feel like it's an overkill.

I changed the arrangement of his forelegs slightly. I know it's not quite in line with the style of HTTYD (see Speed Spingers' front limbs) but in his case I think arranging his hands in a similar way to therizinosaurus gives him a more menacing look.

Deadly Spinners are dragons that give a very unpleasant first impression. They are not the most beautiful dragons around (at least not by the standard) and their behavior can be repulsive to some. The type of dragon that people are willing to pin an unfriendly, sometimes unfair patch on more easily than on other dragons - as many people do with spiders or snakes and other similiar animals.

Deadly Spinners don't live in large groups - either small groups or solo. But when they are in a group they have very close bonds and spend a lot of time socializing among themselves.

FEATHERS

She is a challenge to me, not gonna lie. She definitely is the most changed among my redesigns so far. She just seems very basic to me.

The most bothering thing to me about her are those "feathers". Because, Alex in s1ep3 calls these "feathers", as well as Olivia in s5ep2, wiki calls these "feathers-like scales", but they can move and are thick what implies they are more like Furies'/Night Light's head numbs? I absolutely can pass the crowns as feathers, but Queen's horns and holes in her meaty tail were here the last straw to not to

And yes, I made a shitty video because I'm really confused and wanted that confusion express lmao. I hope Tumblr won't take it down.

So idk, I wanted to clarify what the frick those things are and go from there. I had two main ideas - either give her actual feathers or quills similiar to those of Bewilderbeast. When drawning I wasn't sure about either idea but finally decided for the latter one. Feels more HTTYD-like I think? And very flammable feathers don't seem like the best survival choice when almost every other animal around can spit fire.

I reimagine Featherhides as way more nervous and skittish dragons. Changewings were mysterious but usually seemed calm and strategical. Featherhides' nature is more in type of "flee" than "fight" (tho they can get so smoke when needed, they are not defensless or smth). They are very easy to spook and sometimes will flee in panic from something very trival just to return seconds later when they realise there was no danger at all, or are curious of whatever scared them. They often make rapid little movements, much like birds - especially if something catches their eye and they are not sure what it is.

Featherhides also live in large flocks without a complex hierarchy. If they can - they run, if any of them can't - at least some of them also stay behind.

Once Feathers bonds with Alex she would be very protective of her little human.

When Featherhides mimic sounds they do not do weird things with their faces like in the show. It looks much more like like some birds do that. But that's just a sidenote.

[nightskydragons]

Webmaster

His 3d model definitely needs some improvement cause its definitely fugly, but apart from that, I like the character and the species

(Background not made from me, it's slightly edited concept art for Tnr)

[demhen]

when it comes to the flaws of TNR's designs, I feel like these are the main flaws. Thunder's anatomy is just... weird and I feel like he should be more like a light fury. Feathers needs actual feathers. those are scale-sausages, not plumage. Wu and Wei need knees, less bulbous snouts, and for their yellow scales to be made purple, I feel like the gold works better as an accent color. Plowhorn needs an ocular transplant because why does the dragon have human eyes. and Webmaster... his. his everything. his legs look so clunky and just kinda squished together.

So this is gonna be a long rant...

Thunder is a mess. He is probarbly the worst dragon from this show. I wouldnt even say because he has too much black because we are shown that the Hidden World is big in Dragons the Nine realms, now if you want to belive them or not is your decision seen as their are so many realms but they also are all near that one place in scandanavia (or north america... thats where the meteor seems to land in the opening sence.) So I can belive that their are more nightfuries in their. But if we go down the route of their arnt anymore... either nightfuries live long lives or the gene is just that dominate, or its really an inbreeding thing (which is canon John tellegren confirmed it)

To go more into it his entire body is a mess.

His head?! Weird, its a deformed nose. He always looks this smug even in the last shot that we see of him in the end credits of the last episode.

Why does this face move like that?! Its too much. And Thunder always looks like this. He is having too much facial expressions.

His neck? Its so... horse neck? Idk how else to descibe it. Seeing Thunder fly? It doesnt look good. Same thing with his wings. Why do they look like this. Also a cool thing on Toothless and the light fury was the aquatic thin after the wings, because it looked like toothless evolved from being a water dragon. But here? It too is weird. Thunders tail thin?... is that a trident? Thunder flying is also a nightmare.

One of the cool things about toothless was that it was really plausible that he could fly, at least he looked like he could. Thunder? He looks horrible and I am 100% sure that he couldnt fly if real.

Feather while she is the stead of the Queen has too few feathers I agree.

She also needs more colours! More feathers and more colours. With the rest of it I am actully fine.

Wu and Wei are a mess and when I am gonna redesign this I fear I will have to come up with an entire new dragon. I just dont like them.

The Colour scheme just isnt good. Also their mouths are too big and round. Also the wings look to be more of a water dragon and it doesnt look to be great at flying, but I can excuse that since other dragons that arnt nightfuries had this too. But why does this need to be a 2 headed dragon? I get that its to mirror barth and belch but why do that. One head that does fire and the other does water/ice?! I just dont like it very much.

Plowhorn also is a mess.

I like the bug wings and shell, what i cant get behind is the gems? That giant gem stucking out of her head... how does that grow? Httyd dragons were always great when they made sense in the real world (yes i know they are dragons) but that belivablity is what got me into the franchise. And a gem growing from her forhead? I just dont see how that can happen.

Webmaster.

He is also a mess. From the wings to the main body, the legs and the tail. I love the spider idea. I also have to assume that they used the silkspanners (a dragon form the comics) desigin. And put some wings on it and make the neck longer. (this graph is form the dragons rise of berk game.)

And while I get that the Dragon needs wings, because of all the exploration they do in the show. But why not just use another dragon all together?

What they tried to do i think is to base the dragons off the once form the HTTYD gang.

Thunder being Toothless

Feather being Stormfly

Wu and Wei being Barth and Belch

Plowhorn being Meatlug

And Webmaster... being...

I guess Hookfang doesnt have a counterpart.

TLDR: They are all horrible and I will redesign all of them for my TNR rewrite.

[dagursb1tch]

Uhm… hey. I don’t know if you take requests, so sorry if this is annoying. But in case, here goes. I see you’ve made a lot of nice gifs for the Nine Realms and was wondering if you have any in store for Webmaster? He doesn’t get enough love in my opinion. So, yeah, sorry for taking up your time. Have a good day/evening.

hi there!! first of all, thanks so much, im so happy you like my gifs!! to answer your question, ive kind of taken a bit of a break from my tnr characters in every episode series because things in life have just gotten extremely hectic as of the past like… year, with starting grad school n stuff, and it’s about to get even crazier since im about to start my second & final year of that. im not sure when i’ll return to it at this point tbh since ive been dedicating whatever free time i’ll have left for the foreseeable future to my other interests, but i hope i can find the time to get back to it at some point in the near future!!

[pyromaniacldrt]

Helloww

So, just got to episode 1 of season 6 in tnr.

That's why I will tell you my thoughts on seasons 4 and 5.

Firstly, while many said season 4 was terrible, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit! The dynamics were way more natural and the characters actually felt comfortable around eachother. This is also something I noticed in season 3, but now it seems like a nice development! Even the design of the Yeti seemed fairly okay, considering the designs of other dragons *cough* the unicorn and the pigdragon*cough*.

Also, gotta love Alex and Eugene's friendship, as well as Webmaster and Feathers'! My favourite chapter at the moment, given how little personality the dragons show most of the time.

Actually, I dont think this show explored any dual relationship that didn't envolve Tom, and the only one in the main grup that was the most developed was with D.

HuhhhAnyways-

I think that Buzzaws (how tf do you write that???) Use of a whistle was very smart, ngl, and it's good to know it's not a one-episode thing, even if it's at the expense of a dragon. Although, It does feel strange the sudden change of motivation of his character, going from a possibly complex dude who wants people to believe him and prove himself to a basic power-hungry man who sees dragons as a why of gaining money. I mean, It's a nice focus that follows the plot, but one thing does not erradicate the other.

I do like his haircut though. 10/10 with the psyco vibe.

Anyways, I did like Wu and Wei's episode, it's a nice highlight to Jun's character and her bond with her dragon! Sure, hated Tom during the 20 minutes it lasted, considering how he claimed the book knew everything and then blamed the book for him being wrong, even if Jun herself said in the end that maybe they should, i dunno, KNOW HOW TO READ IT BEFORE JUMPING IN CONCLUSSIONS???? Tom, buddy, there was no need to draw over the oldest book in history. No.

This brings me to another subject that bothers me: Why does every character-centered episode need to make Eugene stupider by the minute? Didn't we just have a chapter about him getting better? Maybe he does fall of Webs and hit his head a lot...

No, hold on, how come ALL the characters in general get dumbed down when a especific one gets more screen time? Alex acts meaner and snarkier for no aparent reason, Jun becomes the typical mystic character from every possible media that talks as if she was in an anime dub, Tom gets even more obnoxious, Eugene gets Eugene'd, and D loses his character development and suddenly is the same as season 1.

With that being said, I did like the background scenario a lot, even if I dont get why was the ice Realm blocked in the first place, or how come the hole gets more or less deeper depending on the episode. How did Buzzaw survive the fall, but was about to be fatal for Alex and Eugene??

So many questions. So many plotholes.

And don't get me started on the finale. How in the Hades does shadow fly??? His head is big enough to be considered a genetic disease.

Okay, that was a bit mean, but you get the idea.

I didn't really like how things were handled in the end. Tom behaved really clingingly for my taste, and almost seemed dependant of Thunder. Plus, the conflict between dragons and the Riders feels akward, to put it nicely. It felt like pointless tension, especially when you add the dragons that for some reason invaded and you're like ??? Tom what do you mean they are mad at you 'cause you led the predators to the Nightlights nest, there's no way they would've known, they hate you cause you suddenly entered their house with their lost baby and started shouting! Then Shadow had to be himself and play with the sword, to which you came at him and in his parents eyes, you pounded his baby and then attacked the Elder! Sure, the last bit was not your fault, but in general you behaved terribly! That's not how you act around wild dragons!

Also, I hate that sword. How tf does that thing even work? It only reflects the attacks that suit the plot best. I can't help but think how iffy its whole creation is. Tom is no blacksmith but somehow makes a perfectly polished sword??? Huh?????

Now, onto season 5. Oh boy.

How do I say it? What the heck happened.

Let's start with the good stuff.

First, I loved the fact Olivia found out, I think it was a great turning point in the story! I don't know if it was the writer's intention, but I wholeheartedly agreed with her point of view (at least during the first chapters), and it was a really nice way to highlight the differences of both her and Tom, a seemingly united family that never actually fought until now. Really nice! I also found interesting the Rider's opinion on the subject. "If Tom gets to tell his mom everything, why do we have to keep it to ourselves with OUR parents? We want them to know too!" It makes a lot of sense to all of them (minus Eugene,but no one respects his person in this show, so I'm not surprised) to think that way: DiAngelo, while getting better at defying the silent rule of absolute truth that he was raised in, is still dying to tell his parents, especially his dad, because he doesn't like to keep them away or to separate his interests from their knowledge. He also sees Plow as his family, so it's understandable that he wants the best aspects of his life together; then we have Jun, whose reason is to show her mother that, not only the beings she is passionate about exist, but to also prove her there IS something she is good at, longing for any sign of aprobation, and i find it such a beautiful trait. It makes her not only more relatable, but adds more to her character; Lastly, Alex's reason is really sweet, even if not read as profound as the rest, which is so that her moms can meet their buddy fireworm whose name I can't remember, and. God. That's so cute. I love that.

At the same time, I can understand Tom's perspective, because he did not in fact tell his mom, and actually tried to not expose his friends and say as little as possible, keeping out details. When he and Olivia fight, you can understand their perspectives fairly well: Olivia wants him safe, and believes her duty as a mother also determines how ready Tom is for these challenges, if even meant to be near them at all. Meanwhile, Tom knows this, but he has experience of the Dragon Realms, a very strong resiliance, and not even Olivia can deny that the Realms are a part of him alongside Thunder, so he views Olivia's decisions as an imprisonment and doesn't get her mom's worry. Both of them are correct on their statements, but fail to see the other's perspective until they get on eachothers shoes. It's a really beautiful construction that works wonderfully.

On theory, that is.

Now, back to being evil.

The idea was excelent, but the course of action was trashy at best. With the passing of the episodes, the entire setting begins to fail miserably, reapiting the same conflict over and over until it no longer has sense/ you can't root for it, making either Tom super childish or Olivia irrational, as well as the Riders that become annoyingly whinny at best, to the point that you wonder where did their braincells go. And lets not even disclose Eugene in this season. They masacred my boy. What have they done to you, my idiot baby with too much raw potential.

This season literally consisted on repeating the same fight, with the same dialogs over and over and over- It was nightmerish, and the arguments just got dumber. Like, Olviva keeps acting inflexible even if the chapter before she agreeded with Tom, then goes and say that she'll tell the Riders' parents because she can't dwell for their safety (pretty valid tbh) only for then to leave the subject aside and the next chapter going again with the same final word. Literally. She said she'd tell the kid's parents three consecutive times, and never did it. We actually have scenes of her struggling to not tell the secret, as if it made her phisically ill. What??? Girl, at any case she should stuggle to TELL IT. Only for then to go with Tom and be all like "Srry I can't keep the secret, I'll tell the secret" SHE SAID SHE'D DO IT SINCE EPISODE THREE WDYM "SHE'LL TELL THEM" WE'RE ALMOST ENDING THE SEASON!!!

And then we have the Riders, who actually lost a lot of protagonism and just. Did stuff. There were a few good scenes (like the Stinger episode, actually really cool) and I liked the designs of the dragons of this season, but the name "Nature Realm" didn't really sell the new setting to me. It's just, we had crystal realm, fire realm, ice realm, why not tree realm? Idk, I'm just being whinny with this one, but calling it nature just doesn't roll nice in my tongue.

Then, we have Eugene, who I said I didn't wish to talk about, but I'll do it out of spite. First, he became a downright meanie, and all his good traits were dumbed down for the sake of a comedic relief whose jokes don't land and is even more obsessed with taking over Tom's leader role, and I just HATE it. Where did my boy go?

Alex was a bit meaner, but barely, so I'll let it pass. Jun had some obnoxious tendencies again, but there's not much to do about that. DiAngelo was a biiiit bitchy, but nothing really big. It's just- They didn't feel very important during this season, being either overshadowed by Olivia or by Buzzaw, which is fair, given the priorities on the season, but I personally believe the situation could've been handled better. I did like their stuggles with their family, specially the girls', yet I feel they didn't have enough screentime to go further.

The ones who did not had it well? The dragons.

We never see Thunders family ever again and it wasn't mentioned at all, the writers kept forgeting Feathers can turn invisible for the 100th time, Wu and Wei's...anything was not there, and Thunder was a bit weird during the season. But hey, at least they remembered Plowhorn's powerful nose and Webs is still the dragon with most personality!

This reminds me that I don't understand why did Buzzaw kidnap his exworkers. Like, he could've just got out and gotten inversors or more workers, but he just grabs them and has three miserable-looking men acting as his minions. Idk, it always struck me wrong.

And, to end this, let's talk about the finale. I didn't really like it. The only consistent thing of this show was the fact that all the seasons built their finale as it progressed, hinting what would happen and always lending clues, yet keeping us with a sudden plottwist. For example, even if stupid, at some point I thought the finale of season 4 would have to do with Thunder's past, given the hints throughout the other seasons and chapters, and Hiccup's existence proven, and we get the plottwist of Thunder and Tom temporarily separating, or the Snow dragons showing up. In the first season we are mentioned time to time about the earthquackes, so while you end up surprised at the fact that is a dragon making the quackes (I personally thought it was a Whispering/Screaming Death), we actually understand that the problem was going to be related to it, or at least we can recognise it's presence looking back.

But season five does something that leaves me both thinking that the plottwist lacked impulse, and that the entire problematic wasn't constructed on a decent basis at all. We know Olivia will tell the parents or that by this season they'll find out, we know that Miss HalfyBald will find out because no one in this show knows the meaning of being subtle and Olivia has the same guiltyness over lying than a five year old, and all of this could've been more than enough to make a decent plottwist or at least get us inmersed on the finale, but that doesn't happen. The entirety of it bored me to death, specially when children did completely new stuff as if they'd done that for weeks only for the show to end with the worst reveal ever. The entire point of the first conlict was to try to not be seen by the workes whilst they try to prepare the facility for an intense storm, but then the chapter bounces from one way to another and instead of using their dragon's fire as a heat source as a last meassurement that'd warm up the parent's relationship with the dragons (get it? Warm-up! ...I'll shut that) they save an helicopter, which would be cool if not for the atrocious behaviour of the bunch of 14-15 year olds, so the effect of the reveal doesn't hit as hard as it could. And they didn't even restore the electricity or do anything about the storm at all!

Overall, season 5 pisses me off because it had a lot of potential, everything was right there to make a nice series of interesting turns, but nothing was approached at its full potential, as if the writers chickened out mid-chapter only to repeat the same argument and do nothing with it.

The seasons are not necessarily bad, but are definetely mediocre and poorly writen, which is a sad way to remember a series for.

Pyro Out.

[ashleybenlove]

Eugene's having a scene with him and Webmaster and like, he's imitating Tom and he's like "yellow hair"

Buddy, it's called blond.

Also "my grandpa's grandpa was a dragon nerd too" omg.

(If you feel the need to be negative about TNR to me/on my posts, don’t. Leave me alone.)

[chameshida]

Nine realms Take 2

Take 1

[kingofthewilderwest]

I'm seeing a lot of complaints about the dragon designs in TNR, but I actually liked them. (With the exception of Wu and Weiʼs wings, which look awkward). What do you think about the dragon designs?

I have more fun talking in an upbeat way about the latest media myself! I’ll be honest about my opinions of the dragon designs below, including the good, the bad, and the ugly, but I hope you won’t think I descend into complaints, because I have no intention of complaining for a second. And there’s lots I enjoy and will highlight. TNR honestly does give us some great dragon design material.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Feathers and Plowhorn's designs are fantastic, a perfect reflection of the DreamWorks Dragons universe: taking unique inspirations from unexpected creatures and combining them with lovable, whimsical designs. The limitations to their appearance is the animation budget, not the design itself. Imagine how stupendous they’d look with the budget of a movie theatrical release: they’re just that good they’d deserve to be on the big screen!

Feathers is beautiful, long, and lithe, the forms I’ve gravitated to since I was a kid drawing my own serpentine creatures. With Plowhorn, the combination of the gem horn and the beetle wings was a stroke of ingenuity. Give the artists my applause for creating such uniqueness!

Now we’re getting into the polite constructive criticism territory. I don’t think Webmaster is a good design for a rider dragon. For a single episode enemy, that’d be fine. But I don’t think the shape is conceptually graspable enough to imprint on viewers in the way a main character’s dragon should.

I think Wu and Wei looks clunky and unappealing. In theory the colors should work together, but they don’t. And the dragon’s shape does not work. I hope you’re not upset at my personal opinion, but for those interested into what I really think, I admit I find the design ugly. Which is a shame, because I love the notion of expanding HTTYD dragons beyond Vikingdom into other cultures’ understandings, like Chinese dragons.

I’m not a fan of Thunder’s look. It could be worse but it could be improved. The blaze on the face, for whatever reason, doesn’t come off looking appealing. Mostly, though, it’s the proportions with Thunder that feel “off.” I get that they gave him a lanky, young cat sort of look, but the result is his whole body feels “off.” The flatness of his head combined with the skinniness of his neck is the start of the awkwardness.

Granted, I'd prefer he weren’t a Night Light at all, and I have my bias in that I didn’t like the original trio of Night Lights introduced in Homecoming (in that case, it’s because of how they were babyified). So that needs to be taken into account when I say I don’t care for Thunder’s appearance: the whole premise isn’t catering to someone like me. Chances are you’d be hard pressed to make any Fury-adjacent creature appeal to me in a modern show.

As far as the rest of the dragon designs in the show, I want to make a post where I glibly rate everyone! Go through every dragon, old and new, that TNR shows. I appreciate that we see some but not all of the old species and that the high majority of the screen time is on new dragons. Off the top of my head, the vomiting pus bag is the best thing I have seen in my thirty years on earth. I. Love. It. I would buy merchandise of that dude! The Sky Torcher is a cool concept, though needs more budget and a few tweaks, but it certainly stuck with me among the many new dragons we’ve seen. I hate how the Bubblehorn looks with an utter passion. But overall, I have fun seeing how the new dragons look! And I think there are way more positives than negatives when it comes to the designs of background, non-rider dragons! Definitely can’t complain to MORE DRAGONS!

[dagursb1tch]

WEBMASTER S4E3 flying animation appreciation post