Part of creating a nice fansite, is looking at the best of what fellow fans have come up with, and finding quality sources of information. Starting out as a curious fan myself, I’ve tried to find as many unique sources of Dragon-goodies as possible.
I’d like to share with you some of the most useful and interesting websites I’ve discovered, on my own journey to find out more about HTTYD (come back soon!):
Wiki/Encyclopedia-Style Resources
- howtotrainyourdragon.fandom.com – The How to Train Your Dragon Wiki. An amazing fan-made resource; the
Bibleencyclopedia of everything HTTYD. (Fandom.com pages do have quite a number of ads/trackers.) - dreamworks.fandom.com/wiki/Category:How_to_Train_Your_Dragon – Much smaller, as it focuses on Dreamworks and some of their products rather than HTTYD exclusively. Still interesting, as some of the same subjects are written about by different contributors, and may contain different tidbits of information.
- dragons.fandom.com/wiki/Category:How_to_Train_Your_Dragon – Focuses on dragons in general, with a sizable section on HTTYD.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon – The Wikipedia page on HTTYD. Has links to related pages at the very top. (No ads or external trackers.)
Fan Websites and Forum/Online communities
- www.berksgrapevine.com – These guys have been around for a number of years, and continue to post HTTYD news and updates. They also have a reasonably active forum community. One of the top HTTYD places to visit. (No ads, some external trackers.)
- www.reddit.com/r/httyd/ – The HTTYD Reddit community. Quite big and active – one of the biggest online HTTYD communities. (Has internal/external ads and various trackers.)
- howtotrainyourdragon.proboards.com – Has not been active for years, but there’s a lot of old content dating back to 2010 with a few gems here and there. (Has internal/external ads and trackers.)
Official Websites and Forum/Online communities
- forum.schoolofdragons.com – Mostly centered around the “School of Dragons” online game, but has a lot of different sections and also different active topics. Overall, quite big. The forum doesn’t appear to allow browsing over SSL/HTTPS, which in this day and age is not only unusual, but also unacceptable – especially for such a popular forum! (Some internal ads and external trackers.)
- www.howtotrainyourdragon.com – The official HTTYD movie franchise website from DreamWorks Animation. Quite commercial as you’d expect, they also have downloadable screenshots, GIF animations and printables on their website. Worth a look. (Internal ads, internal/external trackers.)
- www.cressidacowell.co.uk – The official website of British author Cressida Cowell, who wrote the original “How to Train Your Dragon” books, that inspired the movie franchise. Has information about all of Cressida’s published books. (No external ads, minor external trackers.)
- www.hiccuptheviking.com – The official website of the original “How to Train Your Dragon” books. Has videos, interactive “Flash Media” games, various downloads and other related goodies. A little outdated now, the website doesn’t support browsing over SSL/HTTPS. (No external ads, minor external tracker.)
Online Galleries and Collections for Artists and Authors
- deviantart.com/popular-all-time/?q=how+to+train+your+dragon or deviantart.com/popular-all-time/?q=httyd – A significant portion of HTTYD art is put on DeviantArt. Quite a commercial website overall, but it’s easy to find nice art there. (Numerous internal/external ads and trackers.)
- artstation.com/search?q=httyd or artstation.com/search?q=how%20to%20train%20your%20dragon – Top-quality fanart, some of the best you’ll find anywhere, but less than you’ll find on DeviantArt. (Internal/external ads and trackers.)
- fanfiction.net/movie/How-to-Train-Your-Dragon – Hmm, I must say that there’s a lot of low quality fanfiction on there, but good heavens, is there a lot of HTTYD fanfiction in general! Wow! I suppose their incredibly apt domain name also helps.
I’ve come across some interesting stories here and there, but haven’t had the time to fully read them, so can’t “approve” of them in any way by linking to them in a blog post. If you can recommend some nice stories then please let me know, as I’d like to make a “best of” blog post of HTTYD fanfiction soon, and need all the help I can get with it.
Self-promotion is fine, if you disclose you’re the author.
Screenshots and Other Related Downloads
- animationscreencaps.com/how-to-train-your-dragon-2010 – These guys hoard screenshots from animated movies like a Sandbuster hoards treasure – good quality, and an excellent resource overall. Easier than going through each movie yourself, to look for that perfect moment to capture – they’ve already done it, or at least came very close. (Internal/external ads and trackers.)
If you’d like to suggest a great HTTYD resource, then I’d love to take a look – let me know! Thanks!
A note on website ads and trackers
Internal ads/trackers, are directly used and controlled by the website’s owner/administrator and don’t require the services of another company/website to function.
Internal ads/trackers are generally more privacy-conscious towards the website’s visitors.
External ads/trackers, are the use of other companies that serve ads or in some way track users across the Internet. Google Adsense, Fonts and Analytics are such services, but there are many more. These other companies have their own privacy policies, which makes things more complicated to understand overall.
A website visitor’s browser loads fonts, ads, JavaScript and other things from other websites, in order to fully display that website in the browser. This slows down browsing and reduces privacy. Most of such ads/trackers can be easily blocked with trusted browser plugins such as uBlock Origin and Decentraleyes.
See my “Basic Internet Browsing & Safety Tips” for more information.
(My fansite doesn’t have any internal/external ads or trackers – privacy policy.)
Leave a Reply:
Continue Discussion
