10 Incredible Pieces Of How To Train Your Dragon Concept Art

The How To Train Your Dragon trilogy is one of the most well-received animated series in recent memory. Not a single film in the series has been gotten less than glowing reviews, with critics and fans alike falling in love with this fantasy story.

In developing the film, artists and character designers worked tirelessly to imagine the world of Hiccup and Toothless, creating designs and pieces of art to inspire the animators and storytellers. Looking over their work, here are ten fascinating examples of their concept art.

10 An Early Concept Of Berk

Setting is incredibly important, especially for fantasy stories. So much of the thematic notes and mood relies on a strong sense of place. How To Train Your Dragon is no different, with its home location of Berk remaining a constant through all three films.

This place had to embody a lot of things: a feeling of home for the characters and a fantastical otherworldy place, but one that aligns with the tradition of Viking seafaring history. This concept nails that to a tee, combining whimsical design with emotional characterization.

9 Red Death

The dragon design in these films is one of the best parts. Each dragon has a specific look to them, but all feel like they belong in the same world. While a majority are not larger than, say, a big car, others dwarf most buildings.

The final foe that Hiccup and his friends had to face in the first film was the Red Death, a gargantuan dragon that stood as Alpha. This early concept really embraced the monstrous look of the beast as well as the sheer scale in comparison to the Viking ships.

8 Citizens Of Berk

Character design is such a fun aspect of animation. How a character looks and acts vary in every animated feature, but all need to have some sort of unique design aspect. The movies are no different, with a majority of the styles sharing certain elements.

You can see this directly in the design of many of the Viking townsfolk. This piece of character sketch work shows a shared aesthetic but utilized through a few different designs. Each Viking above has similar facial notes and helmet design, but their body types offer fun variance.

7 First Meeting

At the heart of all three of these films is the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless. This “boy and his dog” story is exactly what keeps fans and families returning to the series time and time again.

This beautiful piece of concept art details the first meeting between the boy Viking and the rare dragon. The use of light in the work is amazing, especially with the hiding eyes of other dragons lurking behind Toothless.

6 Early Hiccup Designs

Hiccup’s look was one of the most important ones when designing the film. As the lead hero of the story, he had to be both unique and identifiable for audiences. We all know how Hiccup turned out in the end, with his brown mop top, but it wasn’t always the look Dreamworks planned.

Early on, as seen in the sketches above, Hiccup was imagined not only as a red-head with freckles but possibly far younger than he appears in the first film. When fans first met him, Hiccup was a young teenager, perhaps 13 or so. The ideas above had him much younger.

5 Gobber Versus A Mini Dragon

These 2D renderings of lead character designs are a lot of fun, letting fans glimpse into a world where the films might have been animated differently. This piece, in particular, is a cool look at a scene that never appeared in any of the films.

Here fans can see Gobber, the eccentric blacksmith of Berk, facing off against what appears to be a baby dragon. Gobber’s rough assembled look is so cool and just different enough from his final design to feel unique.

4 Possible Early Stoick

Stoick was the father of Hiccup and Viking Chief of Berk. His strong leadership and feared fighting style made him a perfect chief for the village. After Dragons become accepted in the island village, Stoick himself got a pet dragon to ride into battle with.

This early concept of a bearded Viking on top of a winged dragon feels reminiscent of Stoick. The body type and beard color paired with the Dragon species feels like a direct link to the final character.

3 Dragon’s Den

The communal nature of Dragons is one that is explored further in the sequels, but this early piece really explores a whole different look to a dragon den. In the later films, the dragons have individual nesting places in caves and such.

Here though, the dragon den is made up of dogpiles of resting lizards. This is a fun interpretation that makes the dragons not only look massive in size but come across as more than just beasts to be feared. They look far more lovable than they ever have before in this piece.

2 Dragons As Pets

This is a great example of the variance in character design. The early images had shown some great ideas in terms of the male members of the Viking village, but this lineup shows a multitude of genders and body types.

Berk is home to a ton of people, none of which look the same. So the concept artists thought up some fantastic ideas in terms of differentiating what each Viking could look like. Plus, it shows the fun idea of keeping dragons as pets similar to dogs, with leashes and all.

1 Village Elder

Most of the ideas in terms of the story seemed to have been well thought out and planned. But this piece of concept art shows a whole new aspect of the story rarely explored. It shows what appears to be a young Hiccup visiting some sort of elder.

The home assembled out of sacred stones is a fun touch, not to mention the pet dragon (with wrinkles and all). There is an elder character in the films, but this vision showed that character holding a far bigger presence.

About The Author

Matt Berger
(214 Articles Published)

Matt Berger is a writer, comedian, actor, Paddington enthusiast, and Corgi dad. He currently writes for Screen Rant, has written for Bloody Disgusting, hosts the Film School Sucked podcast, and co-hosts the Macabre podcast. Matt is an alumni of Portland State University with a degree in English and Film Studies.

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