When Toothless first showed up in 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon, the injured Night Fury dragon instantly stole the heart of Viking teen Hiccup as well as audiences worldwide. Over a trio of animated films, multiple TV series, and now a live-action remake, Toothless has continued to charm (and incinerate) everything in his path. Now Toothless is ready to come home in a new form with LEGO Icons 10375 How to Train Your Dragon: Toothless. Branded for 18+ and designed more for display than play, this version of Toothless looks a little different from his on-screen counterpart, with chibi proportions and no rider. Does the dragon’s loveable personality come through and is it fun to build?
How to Train Your Dragon: Toothless contains 784 pieces and will be available July 1, 2025. You can pre-order now for US $69.99 | CAN $89.99 | UK £59.99. July 1, after which point it may also be available from third-party retailers like eBay or Amazon.
The box
As an 18+ set, Toothless comes in a box with the now-common black background and a greeble band along the bottom. The front features our favorite Night Fury without accessories, while the back shows the plasma blast and fish options, along with a picture of the dragon from the new film.
After opening via punch tabs on the bottom of the box, we’re treated to seven plastic bags and one instruction manual. There are no stickers. Six printed elements show up over the course of the build. While LEGO assures us that the transition to all paper bags is still happening, our review copies lately have featured a a lot of plastic bags.
Before the build, the instruction book has four pages with pictures and designer insights, although like most recent 18+ sets I’ve encountered, the information provided is fairly basic, unlike the frequently excellent Ideas sets or some earlier 18+ sets when these pages were more of a treat for a special set instead of a standard bit of “mature” branding.
The build
From the first bag, I was struck by the number of SNOT (studs not on top) bricks throughout the bags. 32 SNOT pieces in the first bag by my count, and 95 across the build, as well as numerous hings and ball joints used for angles rather than articulation. Right away I was reminded of building a Star Wars helmet set or a really big Brick Headz figure.
While bag one is just laying the groundwork for Toothless’ body, bag 2 adds the front feet and legs. Each leg includes one printed slope. Some of that character is starting to come through, especially in the little feet that have a lizard-like quality with the bent bull horns as claws. While the front legs are visually distinct from the body, there are no joints and once the leg snaps onto the body there is no articulation.
We also build a scaly back to cover up all of this SNOT.
Next we construct and snap on the back feet, which are similar in design to the front, minus the longer limbs. During a roundtable interview with set designer Jae Won Lee, he called out the shell pieces over the feet as a favorite design choice.
Bags 4 through 6 are dedicated to Toothless’ head. Once again we construct a SNOT-heavy block for the rest of the build to connect to.
Toothless’ eyes are large in a chibi style. Each pupil uses a printed tile with a white rectangular gleam.
Now we begin on the mouth, which is the most colorful and interactive part of the model. Contrary to what his name suggests, Toothless has a bunch of chompers, albeit not particularly scary ones as they’re mostly 1×1 round tiles. The tongue is detachable and waggles on a rotary plate.
Yet another SNOT block? This time it’s for the neck which provides two axes of rotation. The saddle design on the back of the neck features a lovely bit of detailing via brown tiles in two shades. Designer Jae emphasized the importance of the saddle in the build. In a sense, it connects us to hiccup as just as the Viking lad built a saddle for his Toothless, we do so for ours.
As final touches, we add Toothless’ ears and some head frills. Now the neck, head, and body are ready to be connected.
The final bag covers Toothless’ tail, wings, and accessories. For the prosthetic tail fin, designer Jae clarified that the emblem is taken from the second animated film.
The finished model
There’s no denying that Toothless’ face is adorable and those big green eyes are hard to resist. The wide mouth, lolling tongue, and alternate display options make this the centerpiece of the overall build.
As Jae said in our roundtable interview, he definitely had Stich in mind as a comparable model that would look great alongside Toothless. Since I don’t have a buildable Stitch to compare him too, I brought out another LEGO friend who is equal parts adorable and deadly for comparison. Chopper contains a couple hundred more parts and is a more complex build, but he still got away with a 9+ rating,
I think my favorite pose is actually with the mouth closed (which requires removing the tongue) and absent any accessories.
While the head is quite expressive, the body… not so much. Toothless has exactly one pose – squatting. The legs are not articulated in any way, and only the tip of the tail can swivel. The wings are a little more poseable, but there’s only so much you can do with angling those pre-molded pieces.
The primary points of articulation are the neck, which swivels horizontally and allows the head to rock back and forth. If you do this gently, one axis at a time, it works fine. But if you engage with it with like a toy and rotate a little too far or rotate both axes at once, the set reveals some serious structural issues with multiple chunks of the build being prone to breaking off. This happened to me enough times while posing the model that I had to create a video. Maybe I’m being a little too vigorous, but I’ve come to expect more durability with poseable figures.
Conclusion & recommendation
Taken on its own as a display piece, Toothless is a pretty charming buddy to put on your desk or bookshelf. While for my tastes, I would have preferred a more articulated model proportioned more like the film version (like this amazing version by Joss Ivanwood) I think designer Jae Won Lee did a excellent job at capturing Toothless’ character in this chibi style. The expressive face and customization options are definitely the highlight. At $70 for 784 parts, it’s not a bad value, even if most of those parts are pretty common.
It’s baffling that Toothless is rated for 18+ when contains the model contains the same number of pieces, comparable complexity, and similar range of articulation to last year’s Stitch, which was rated for 9+. I suppose it removes any ambiguity about this being a display piece and not a toy designed for more vigorous play. And speaking of play, the particular mix of parts – of which a good 15% of which are SNOT bricks! – isn’t exactly conducive to spontaneous playful building in the way that 9+ sets tend to be. Ultimately, while I admire this fellow and will keep him on my shelf, I’m sad that LEGO couldn’t find a solution for this all-ages classic that was as fun to play with as it is to look at.
How to Train Your Dragon: Toothless contains 784 pieces and will be available July 1, 2025. You can pre-order now for US $69.99 | CAN $89.99 | UK £59.99. July 1, after which point it may also be available from third-party retailers like eBay or Amazon.
The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
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