House of the Dragon: Between the Scales of Rodeo FX’s Animation Masterclass

In worlds of high fantasy, it’s no surprise that dragons have become utterly iconic. A fearsome flap of their wing, or a forceful burst of flame from their snout, invariably makes for a dangerous spectacle. But when it came to animating the wyverns from the second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon, the task was as ambitious as it was intricate.

On one hand, the show’s dragons needed to convey a sense of intimidation and scale befitting of their legend. But on the other hand, these creatures were fundamentally characters in their own right, and as such had personalities which needed to be conveyed almost entirely through movement. For three of these dragons, HBO reached out to the team at Rodeo FX. 

Rodeo’s animators had responsibility for that trio of wyverns - the young Vermax, but chiefly Baela Targaryen’s aggressive Moondancer and the grand Silverwing. Supervising the team’s animation efforts was Oscar Carambano, who tells LBB that their work on House of the Dragon amounted to a real labour of love for Rodeo. 

“We all have such respect and excitement around the source material, and we wanted to bring our best efforts and expertise to the table”, he says. And it shows - the dragons roar through the skies of Westeros and imbue House of the Dragon with the same level of cinematic spectacle which made its predecessor Game of Thrones one of the all-time TV greats. 

Getting that right was an arduous and detail-intensive task. It all began, continues Oscar, with inspiration from the natural world. 

“We scoured footage from nature documentaries to find anything we could use as a reference point, to ensure that the dragons’ movements felt realistic. After a lot of searching, what we settled on was a bit of a surprise”, he says. “It was a giant golden-crowned flying fox, also known as a giant fruit bat. Its wing-shape and size in comparison to its body was proportionally similar to our dragons, and so we studied it to make sure our creatures were moving in a similar way”. 

Getting into more details, however - in a way which showcased some personality from the wyverns - required a greater mastery of technical details. 

“We were really happy to have been involved during the early stages of production”, says Oscar, “because that gave us the opportunity to iterate and work across rigging, modelling, CFX and of course animation to really have control over the end product that we see on-screen”. 

Fire In The Skies 

That symphony of visual effects is on display throughout season two of the series, and never more so than in a selection of scenes across episodes three and seven. The first of which sees Moondancer, ridden by Baela Targaryen, pursue several knights on horseback before ultimately pulling up just before the entrance to a forest. This, as Oscar recalls, was a scene that pushed Rodeo’s animation team to produce some of their best work. 

“It was demanding in terms of capturing a feeling of speed and intensity”, he says. “The scene starts with Moondancer moving at 150 miles per hour, which is around an average speed for a dragon in the context of that world. But we see him suddenly break into a sharp dive, at which point his movement increases to 200 miles per hour. For us to create a way of visualising that movement speed, especially with the footage of an amazing real-life actor alongside it, took an enormous amount of detail”.

Above: The scene with Moondancer from episode three is the first clip in this behind-the-scenes breakdown. 

Another pivotal moment arrives in episode seven, when Ulf White discovers the majestic Silverwing and steps on a mound of her eggs. The scene is imposing, with Silverwing stepping out of the scenery in a moment of intimidating scale. There’s a fleeting second where the dragon’s eye opens and before what appears to be a wall starts moving to reveal the wyvern - and it’s there that Rodeo’s work can really be felt. 

“Our animators paid a lot of attention to Silverwing’s mouth, in the moment just after she nudges Ulf”, he says. “There’s a flash of danger and fear, where we don’t know if she’s going to accept him as her rider. Dragon’s mouths are strange because they’re not very fleshy - they’re between scales and contain a lot of teeth! At the same time, the most important word we had from the client to describe Silverwing was ‘royalty’, so she had to be regal and elegant. That’s a lot of ideas to balance in animation, and I think the team did a great job”. 

Finally, a scene directly following that interaction between Ulf and Silverwing sees the dragonseed getting his first taste of flying across King’s Landing. “This is a moment where we can clearly see the influence of the fruit bat!”, notes Oscar. “When Silverwing moves its wings, that’s in the same motion as we originally designed based on our influences from the natural world”. 

Animating Passion

Having a strong level of familiarity with the dragons meant that the Rodeo team had a deep understanding of them throughout the animation process. “We had a grasp of the anatomical limitations that we had to work with. For instance, a dragon can’t move its wings by 100 degrees simply because it no longer looks right”, notes Oscar. “Every moment the creatures were on screen was an instance where the immersion could break - and in a show like House of the Dragon, that can be potentially devastating”. 

Another important part of capturing the sense of realism was in ensuring that the dragons’ whole bodies responded to movement. “When Silverwing takes a giant step, for example, you have to ask yourself how that ripples through her muscles up to the neck and the head”, he says. “But you can’t over-do it. You need to find the balance between subtlety and immersion”. 

Oscar continues to explain that roughly 70% of the work Rodeo carried out on Silverwing and Moondancer took place whilst flying. “That was really useful to know in terms of us creating a pipeline for the work early-on”, says Oscar, whose team produced an entire set of nomenclature for the dragons’ anatomy to ensure that the animators and HBO team stayed aligned throughout every communication. 

Ultimately, all of Rodeo’s hard graft - and the importance of technical details - added up to a feeling that comes through on screen. The dragons in House of the Dragon simply feel high-craft, which is entirely fitting given the show’s blockbuster standards. Like a gust from Silverwing’s wingbeat, House of the Dragon is grandiose and epic - another reason why the Rodeo team were so passionate about being involved. 

“I can tell you that one of my biggest jobs as a supervisor was making sure the animation team clocked off on time every day”, laughs Oscar. “Their passion and attention to detail was amazing. Every animator wanted to ensure that each frame was perfect for House of the Dragon; but one of the hardest things to learn is to stop when you’ve already achieved the right result and before you over-complicate it”. 

Fortunately for HBO, that’s a habit that the Rodeo FX team have perfected.