Odd fact I've noticed about long hair in cartoons.

A

Akasma

New member
I've noticed in most cartoons that if a character has long hair, it's either tied back or put in some unique style so it doesn't appear long. There's almost no cartoon characters on television that simply have long flowing hair. Once in awhile, there's an exception (like the characters from Total Drama Island) but very rarely. Why is that? Is it due to animation reasons, like is it really difficult to animate characters with long hair?
 
Are you applying this for ALL animation?

Well, atleast hair in Western Fiction is a bit normal compared to Eastern Fiction.

"ATTENTION, DUELISTS! My Hair is long enough to touch the ground. And it's wild hair, too."
 
Y'known something that annoys me? In a lot of anime I've seen, a characters hair extravagantly spikes over their eyes. Instead of actually covering up the eye (or, you know, making the hairstyle look less stupid) they just make that particular triangle of hair slightly see-through. It's distracting.:shrug:

On a more on-topic note, Tangled is going to be an interesting subversion of this rule...
 
Yeah I don't like seeing that too. Although the worst one I've seen was not Anime it was Rogue from Wolverine and The X-Men. Every time I see her in it the hair over the eye thing just looks really badly done.
 
That's one of the worst offenders of it I've ever seen.

Yea I had to deal with hair one time and it wasn't even long and it was a pain to deal with. It was my first time though so maybe it'll get easier.
 
Glen Keane does some of the best "long hair" animation in the business...Ariel in The Little Mermaid and the title character of Pocahontas both come to mind. Long, lovely, constantly floating/blowing hair. :D
 
Yes, long hair is difficult to animate, especially in the international production model. Things like flowing hair, crashing waves and similar things are generally handed off to effects animators, and for TV cartoons there isn't any extra money for such specialists, nor the directorial supervision that's necessary to apply their skills appropriately.
 
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