So as cute as the Nightlights are at the end of HtTYD3 and I adore them, those of you who have followed me on tumblr or dA long enough will probably guess that the black-and-white designs kind of set off those good ol' "genetics don't work that way" bells in my head.

Basically, they shouldn't have markings like that unless the parents have the genes to have markings. Otherwise it would essentially be the equivalent of Hiccup's kids having blond hair on the right side of their heads and brunette on the left. If the designs were fan-created, I would just shrug if off...but they're canon. Now, I'm sure the designers weren't overly concerned with genetics and were going more for "something that very quickly and obviously says 'look! the black dragon and the white dragon had babies!'", but nonetheless, intended or not, the canon existence of the Nightlights with clear markings implies that Night Furies and/or Light Furies have the genes to have markings like that, they just don't happen to show up in Toothless and his mate "Nubless" (fanon name but imma use it)'s phenotypes.

It's not necessarily too far-fetched for the world either, given that Toothless and Nubless are the only specimens of their kind that we actually see in the show (minus that one shot where you can see two other Light Furies in the crowd of dragons, but I doubt the team wouldn't gone through the extra effort of retexturing a pair of dragons that are only shown for a few seconds and from a distance so w/e), as well as that the other species can have such wide color variety.

Now, unlike the other dragons, the dark and light coloring is set up as a breed standard for Night and Light Furies right down to the name, and as such none of them would have markings with as high a contrast as the Nightlights, but there's still some wiggle room within that. So...here's some quick little variations I designed of what other Fury specimens might look like.

Might being willing to adopt out some of the designs if people are interested but idk.

Anyways, enjoy le dergs