As a big fan of your work for many years I must say I'm glad to see you back! I'd like to ask what your opinion of the Light Fury is? I personally don't like her at all, her design is kind of boring and generic to me and the whole idea of a "white night fury" is just... so lame and cliche. I'm holding out until the trailer is released but as of now she's just a huge eye sore compared to how DW treats their other female dragons..
First of all, thanks for liking my work! I totally understand your concerns. When I first saw the poster, I was put off by the design too (to be fair, posters have never been that good w/ HTTYD sequels). However, I’m warming to the new look, for once because my marketing side is kicking in and for that reason alone, any new important Night Furies are gonna have to be very different. She’s a new main character, and her character design has to stand out from our Toothless in a big way for people to recognize her as both an instantly-recognizable Night Fury and yet an instantly-recognizable new character. They could have gone subtle, like the female Nightmare (and be more realistic), but that would be too easy for most mainstream viewers to get confused on posters and ads. Going for white might have been a little too easy, sure, but it sure as hell makes her easy to recognize and market.
In rationalizing the change for myself too, I theorize that her whiteness is a result of having adapted to a cave environment, perhaps indicating the fate of dragons and what dragon species are facing in the new world. I'm hoping she’s actually a subspecies of Night Fury, which would allow for such vast a difference.
On a personal note for me, I did realize how nice it was to have Toothless remain unique––his black, scaly figure is still going to be the only one of that kind on screen, and any artistic representation that approximates that silhouette/color will still be his alone. In the past, I have been torn about Toothless finding other Night Furies––because then he’d lose that romantic “last of his kind” designation. Light Fury enables me to tread that barrier rather nicely.
I do have issues with her being a female necessitating her design to slide towards “smooth” and “soft.” But I have faith in this fierce gaze to make up for those stereotypical markers:
Finally, in the books, there is a Sea-Dragon that fits Light Fury’s description almost to a tee (book cap courtesy honeymodok)
If anything, I’m a sucker for book canonicity, so that alone helped convince me. Luminous and light, mysterious and beautiful... I can see why Cressida would create a character like that, mimicking the splendor of the moon, especially the moon against a sea. She could look really stunning in high-grade animation, against Toothless’ midnight black.
Ultimately, I was at first put off by her design and how different it was from Toothless’. But I’m warming to it and I’m hoping the trailer will show more of her personality. At the moment, my main concern with her is how much the romantic plot will overshadow Hiccup and Toothless’ friendship and how they will handle Toothless’ (likely) leaving Hiccup for her (which already sounds awful in my mouth but we basically know Hiccup and Toothy won’t be together by the end of the film... and this movie is gonna show why that’s needed in each of their character arcs).
tl;dr. I get and understand your POV. I’m accepting it for now and holding off for the trailer and film.
And hey maybe it’ll be like the peacocks.