How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming

Jellyfish Pictures collaborated with major Hollywood Studio and animation powerhouse, DreamWorks Animation (DWA) for their Holiday Special ‘How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming’ (HTTYD). The Holiday Special follows the characters a decade into the Dragons moving to the Hidden World in ‘How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World’.

Hiccup, Astrid and Gobber want to convey the beauty of the Dragon-Viking bond to a new generation of children who have grown up without dragons. It all culminates in a holiday pageant that doesn't quite go as planned but yet, in the end, it gets everything right. This is a story about using our traditions to hold our loved ones close to our hearts – especially when far away.

Delivering the 22 min’ holiday special led to a complete revamp of the whole Jellyfish Pictures’ pipeline and saw investment in new in-house tools to manage all the new pipeline requirements.

The project held the largest scale of CFX shots dealt with before at Jellyfish Pictures. The evolved pipeline saw the CFX and animation departments seamlessly integrated, to ensure once animation had been completed FX artist was able to receive the shots and start work efficiently and to the best of their ability.

To date, How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming has picked up the Annie Award for ‘Best Special Production’ as well as Annie nominations for ‘Best FX for TV/Media’ and ‘Best Character Animation'.