night fury

Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon holds a top spot in our family's favorites movies. This fantastic movie, however, got the seriously short end of the stick when it came to merchandise. For reasons we will never know, the studio gave exclusive merchandising rights to (a toy store, right? nope!) Walmart.

While I do shop at Walmart (hey, it's cheap), I would never in a million years think to myself, "Man, what a cool movie. I bet they made some really awesome toys for it. I know! Let's go see if Walmart has them!" – rather, I spent like 20 minutes searching ToysRUs before finally, hesitantly, asking an employee, "Do you guys like...not have HtTYD toys?"

In my perusal of the intranets and, reluctantly, the shelves of Walmart, searching for something I could get for my son (or, I admit, myself), I found a dearth of the kind of toys you might expect from Walmart – cheaply produced, half-baked recreations from the screen. Please direct your attention to Exhibit A and Exhibit B. Those are supposed to be this dragon.

So I did what any more-domestic-than-average dad would do: I made my own.

I started this dragon back in February or so, ran into some hangups around the time my second son was born, but finally finished it this last week for my first son's 3rd birthday.

I spent many hours at home and in class designing the pattern for this dragon from scratch, referencing screenshots from the movie.

I tried to make the proportions of my Night Fury match those of the actual movie dragon (that's why the wings are so big).

I found the perfect scaly black pleather, ironically, at Walmart. The eyes are custom, made from glass "vase gems," with vinyl pupils lacquered on the front, and a piece of shiny silver paper superglued to the back.

It was a fun project, and now that I've made one, I think I could make another much faster / better.

If you would like to see the pattern, email me!