Toothless

Archer asked for a drawing of himself with Toothless.  My rendering of both of them, unfortunately, was not particularly successful.

Fortunately, Archer is more easy going than his brother when it comes to mediocre portraits by mom.  Ansel has recoiled in horror and refused to take nearly every napkin drawing I've done of him to school.  Archer kindly reassured me this morning that he would take the napkin even though the drawing of him wasn't very good.

Robocop 2014, The Terminator and Hiccup

Macho robot guys with a lurking alternative character.

We finally watched the 2014 version of Robocop over the weekend.
Immediately afterwards, while the kids were bickering over who got to be which version of Robocop, suddenly the Arnold Schwarzenegger style Terminator seemed to be part of the game also.  The robot guys with big guns were saying things like "I'll be back," and "Hasta la vista, baby."

At this point, I feel compelled to mention that the boys have not seen any more than a few snippets of any of the Terminator movies.... Although, since they have now seen Robocop, this is clearly not a parenting accomplishment on my part.

At any rate, Robocop and the Terminator obviously scratch the same itch in the 7 or 11 year old male mind.  Our sons want to identify with them...Not for their troubled relationship to humanity of course,  but because they are remorselessly powerful guys in cool outfits with big guns. 

Interestingly enough, Robocop 2004 features Mr. Voice of Hiccup, Jay Baruchel, as a craven guy from marketing.  The boys found him pretty compelling despite the fact that he is the antithesis of the powerful robots- ie, entirely gun less.  I think he appealed mostly because he retains some of Hiccup's mannerisms and wimpy, snarky guy attitude despite being an amoral corporate man in a suit.  They found his line, "Hey don't shoot, I'm just a guy from marketing" to be worth repeating multiple times. 

While this does provide an alternative option to the macho robocarnage, I'm not sure it is entirely a good one.

Hiccup And Toothless With Snow Dragon

How to Make Your Snow Dragon: Hiccup works while Toothless models....or maybe just lurks.

Should we ever get a significant snowfall this winter, I may regret this drawing. Previous snowman attempts in years past (most notably, Captain Rex from the Clone Wars) have always ended badly, and I doubt we would be able to pull off a convincing snow dragon.

"Bone"s Red Dragon and Thorn with Hiccup and Toothless

We are working our way back through the entire excellent "Bone" series by Jeff Smith as Ansel is old enough to really appreciate them this time around:  There's slapstick cartoon characters, scary monsters, a cute girl, and of course, a dragon who smokes... What more could we possibly ask for?

I left the dangling cigarette out of this one for first grade lunch.

Simpsonized Hiccup, Astrid and Toothless

The boys have been very interested in The Simpsons lately, on the lookout for age-inappropriate jokes and references.

Not that they have lost interest in "Dragons: Defenders of Berk." Not at all...One is just much less likely to hear the word "penis" used on the dragons show.

Toothless and Hiccup Are Confused By Candy Corn

It's still "Post Halloween" at our house.

My kids requested an image of Hiccup being confused by candy corn.  They hypothesize that there is not probably not mass-produced candy in Berk.

Our older son has given some careful thought to the quality of Hiccup's life.  He told me that he thinks that Hiccup has it better:  He has a dragon, doesn't seem to go to school, and is pretty independent. I pointed out the likely lack of video games and refined sugar in Hiccup's environment. (I think the napkin request hails from this point in the conversation)  Archer offered that he would be willing to trade the iPad for a real dragon.  That seemed more or less reasonable, but I added that, at least in the Dreamworks version, Hiccup does not appear to have a mother.  Archer replied, "He seems to do well enough without one."  So there Mom.

Toothless With Werewolf Hiccup

Halloween & Dragons #6: WereHiccup:  No doubt, Toothless is hoping that is a mask.

I think I might have reached the end of this particular series.  Perhaps we will try something else Halloween themed for the last two days before the actual trick or treating.

Which is not to say that the kids have lost any enthusiasm for "How to Train Your Dragon" or for their Hiccup costumes....I have already stated that last minute costume switching will not be tolerated this year.  I set a horrible precedent a few years back when Archer changed his mind and I somehow managed to cobble together a homemade Captain Rex costume in 48 hours.  And Ansel has a history of boycotting his intended costume at the last moment and going as "A guy in dark clothing" or the like.

This year it is going to be Hiccup for both, with no last minute changes.  Really.... Only 48 hours to go....


Here's that Rex costume from 2009.  It's amazing what you can do with a sharpie, masking tape and a freshdirect box if you are insane....

Zombie Hiccup With Toothless

Halloween with Dragons #5:

No Halloween series could be complete without zombie representation.

I thought maybe a decomposing dragon might be a bit much for lunchtime, so I left Toothless among the living.  Perhaps I was just being lazy.  At any rate, given Toothless's unflagging devotion to Hiccup, no doubt he would remain loyal even if the boy were an ambulatory corpse.

Astrid, Toothless and Hiccup in Teen Titans Costumes

Halloween with Dragons #4:  Starfire and Robin with a Dragon wearing a Batman mask.

While the kids are much less fixated on Teen Titans Robin and Batman right now than they have been in the past (see all the Robin napkins, or the Batman napkins) I was pretty sure that Hiccup in a Robin costume was going to be an acceptable concept.

While Ansel chuckled when he looked at this, he did ask me what Toothless was wearing, so obviously I failed to sell the Batman mask.

Astrid, Toothless and Hiccup in Star Wars Costumes

Halloween with Dragons #3:  Today Leia and Luke pose with Yoda.

Our kids aren't all that interested in the original Star Wars movie lately, so I am pretty sure this one would not have gone to school today had Toothless not been wearing Yoda's ears.

I briefly considered dressing Hiccup as Han Solo because of the whole sibling thing... and there's the vest parallel...But despite all the online fan girl enthusiasm for him, Hiccup just didn't seem like he could pull off the dashing scoundrel look.

Let's just hope he isn't really Astrid's brother. 

Astrid And Hiccup Dress For Halloween

 

Continuing the "Dragons & Halloween" series:

My older son insisted that Hiccup should be regarding a set of fake fangs with dismay. I am not sure exactly why...perhaps because they don't have such things in Berk. 

He also argued that Astrid should be costumed as a chain-saw wielding serial killer. That seemed a bit harsh for the character...and for a first grade lunch at a Quaker School.

Hiccup and Toothless with Carved Halloween Pumpkins

Halloween anticipation is building around here.  I already dread the let down that will arrive on November 1st.

The kids' costumes for Hiccup before and after the foot amputation are almost done.  There are some unresolved issues about representing the metal prosthetic foot and the strings at the neckline of his tunic, but otherwise we have most of it pulled together.  And by "we" of course I mean me.  The kids have contributed a great deal of art direction by way of strategic nagging, but have yet to actually make anything.

Perhaps there will be some more Halloween themed napkins between now and the actual evening when the Hiccups go out to demand candy.  I'm not sure if I can come up with anything interesting... much less 8 days of Halloween imagery, but it seems the kids can barely think about anything else.

  

Jack Frost and Hiccup

 

Dreamworks boys with big eyes and tastefully tousled hair:

A classmate taught Archer how to draw "manga eyes" yesterday.  This seemed to mean enormous black eyes with two large white ovals on the iris.  Archer then taught Ansel, which led to my assignment for today's napkin to draw Dreamworks characters in manga style (as noseless bobbleheads) with enormous manga eyes.  

As you can tell, I pretty much ignored this assignment.  Unfortunately,  I did spend more than my allotted 5 minutes Googling while trying to determine whether there really is a defined stylistic convention for eyes in manga.

I narrowed the characters down to just the two boys that our boys find to be the coolest, and decided to draw them large enough to display their oversized eyes.

And speaking of Googling... When one searches for "Jack Frost and Hiccup," one encounters quite a bit of suggestive material.  This is an issue that is certainly not limited to these particular characters- apparently animated preteen characters provide fertile fodder for many peoples' erotic imaginations.  I have seen quite a few things while searching for napkin source material that I wish I could unsee.  My older son occasionally reads this blog, so I will just leave it at that and not provide any particularly memorable examples.

At any rate, I offer this observation to explain why I ended up drawing Hiccup and Jack not interacting in a blank space.  After scrolling through all the fan art images of them snuggling, I couldn't come up with anything that didn't seem peculiarly suggestive as well.  While I am certainly not against imagining of a romantic link between the two boys, I was pretty sure that was not what my son had in mind for lunch today

Of course, they would have to be touching to have their heads this close.

Rabbit Hiccup and Toothless

The heroes of the "How To Train Your Dragon" / "Dragons:  Riders of Berk" fall victim to the ridiculous rabbit treatment.

As Ansel would say: not one of my better efforts. 

Zak Saturday, Ben Tennyson and Hiccup Haddock

Adolescent boys with prominent eyebrows and cryptid/ monster/ alien sidekicks.

We had a lot of debate over just how old these three characters are supposed to be in their various television appearances. My sons generally argued for younger whenever there was a question, because it is perfectly plausible for them that a 10 year old boy should work as an equal with his parents in a dangerous situation... or save the universe. I voted for at least 12 years old... (Ben is supposed to be 16 in the latest show, isn't he?)

Pikachu/Toothless with Ash/Hiccup

The latest "How To Train Your Dragon" spin-off, the TV show on Cartoon Network now titled "Dragons: Defenders of Berk," reminded both of our sons that they are pretty excited about Hiccup and Toothless.

We had all our Halloween costume choices made until they watched the lastest Dreamworks Dragons episode.  Now they are squabbling over who will get to be Hiccup....because they can't both be Hiccup... can they?

They were both amused by this napkin's Pokemon/Dragons mash-up anyway.  Each boy made a point of telling me the picture was funny this morning.  Not "hi-larious" (the highest praise)... but funny at least. 

Hiccup from DreamWorks "Dragons" with Teen Titans' Robin

In his superhero context, Robin is all about brains over brawn.  Like Hiccup, he is the smart, skinny guy in the group.  But everything is relative, and Robin might be a hard guy to keep up with, particularly if one has a metal foot.  Then again, Hiccup does have his own personal dragon.  

But perhaps Hiccup looks less than pleased because he knows I did such a poor job drawing him?  Hiccup lives in a different anatomical universe than the Titans, and pairing him with Robin made him look more wimpy than usual by comparison.

Ansel accepted this napkin without comment this morning, so maybe it didn't look too bad to him

Astrid, Stormfly, Toothless and Hiccup

Too many characters from "Dragons: Riders of Berk" squeezed onto one napkin.  I am seriously considering reactivating my "one character per napkin" rule.  Ansel originally asked for the entire cast of the show at once, so he was unsatisfied anyway.

Dipper and Hiccup for Archer

Dipper from "Gravity Falls" chats with Hiccup from "Dragons: Riders of Berk" on Archer's napkin: Perhaps they are discussing whose body is the right proportion?... or the difficulties of preadolescent stardom?  I did distort both of them a bit to put them in the same universe.  Hiccup is taller and thinner when appearing on his own show and usually Dipper's legs are shorter.

Hiccup, Carrot and Toothless for Archer