The Pixar Magic of Princess Merida’s Red Hair
We’re all only too excited that Brave will be released later this month, but here is an intriguing insight into how the wonderful animators at Pixar created Princess Merida’s untamed red locks.
Any animator will tell you how important it is to understand the natural movements of the object (or person) you are creating; and if this is off the mark by just an inch, you run the risk of losing the viewer’s full focus and attention.
Claudia Chung, the simulation supervisor for the film, explains it well: “[Viewers] have this sense when it actually doesn’t move right. When it looks strange, a little bit floaty or weird, the audience can pop out of the story.”
So with hair like Princess Merida’s, it’s understandable that the chiefs at Pixar HQ were a little antsy, wanting to get her ginger mane spot on (too right).
In fact, the company felt her hair is so intrepid to the storyline, that they created a set of new software for it.
Merida’s red hair was designed to behave like a “telephone cord you wave around,” with 1,500 individual curves and a total of 111,700 hairs. This total number of strands is incredible in itself as redheads are known to generally have fewer strands than other hair colours. In fact, the average redhead has about 90,000 strands of hair. This is much fewer than blondes and brunettes, who average around 110,000 and 140,000 strands, respectively.
This level of detail was chosen to emphasise Merida’s unique character and to push the boundaries of what was possible in animation at the time. Steve May, Pixar’s chief technology officer, and a supervising technical director on Brave, said: “Merida has curly, long, and expressive hair. It’s important, and a reflection of her character.”
You don’t need to tell us gingers that our hair is important. We know only too well!
Brave is set to be released at the end of June 2012; you can watch the official trailer here.
By Emma
[Images: Disney/ Pixar]