By Brigette Barrager
2014-2018
Medium: Photoshop
Tangled Cassandra Character Concepts
In 2014, Disney Television Animation contacted me to do some freelance character designs for Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. I had the pleasure of working with master character designers (and producers) Shane Prigmore and Ben Balestreri on these projects. What a tremendous compliment to be asked to assist!
When I created these concepts for Tangled, there were no finalized designs for any of the characters yet. I remember being shown beautiful, simplified, shape-driven versions of Rapunzel. They had the story for a whole three-season arc mapped out but were still developing character designs, and one, in particular, was proving difficult.
Cassandra is a multifaceted and complex female character – tough, guarded, sassy, and has secrets – but is also brave, loyal, and COOL. Very COOL. Initially, they asked me to explore different haircuts and styles for Cassandra, and as someone who has had innumerable hairstyles myself, I was up to the task. Playing with her hairstyle spiraled outward into exploring how she might wear her hair while in Joan of Arc-esque warrior mode versus her demure lady-in-waiting costume. Because the duality of those sides of her was so essential to the story, it just felt organic to explore. Plus, I LOVE designing costumes. It is one of my favorite character-based design assignments. (Please hire me to do costume designs; I love it!)
Cassandra’s character needed two costumes that were distinct and in opposition to each other while still feeling authentic to her. What a fantastic challenge! Eventually, I arrived at versions that are very close to Cassandra’s final designs in the series.
I also did some very early concepts of what Moonstone possessed Cassandra might look like. Early concept work is so fun because its energy is unharnessed—the prompts are loose, and you can just play, play, play. I was privy to the story beats, and I knew that this spooky, magical, rock-encrusted version was her destiny. The final version of Moonstone Cassandra is different but not dissimilar to these.
I was gratefully asked to return to help fine-tune the final version of Moonstone Cass! It’s such a compliment to be asked to return to any production as a freelancer, especially on this project. I know this character is beloved by fans of the Tangled series, and for good reason. She’s a profoundly compelling contrast to Rapunzel, and it’s interesting to play those kinds of characters against each other.
Some time passed, and I was contacted again by DTVA to further explore Cassandra’s Moonstone look now that they had finalized the character designs and overall look of the show. I’m always happy to follow up, especially since this project was so fun the first time around. If I remember, the art direction was that this magic opal is absorbed into Cassandra’s body and makes her evil, and a manifestation of that evil is that it creates a thick, rocky armor all over her body. It should feel pokey, unfriendly, and all-consuming! The moonstone is over her heart, having infiltrated her to the core.
The designers didn’t want to change her silhouette (we tried it – she just looked TOO different), so instead, I played with her hair and eye color combinations. There was a request to see if blue hair would look good, so I went to work trying out every and any combination of blue hair I could think of. Changing her from dark hair/dark eyes to bright blue hair/eyes is a striking contrast, but it still looks like Cassandra – she hasn’t been irredeemably destroyed. A fun assignment. Also, the final version of evil Cassandra does look very cool, if I do say so myself.
An unexpected outcome of working on Tangled is that they made Cassandra dolls! I have one.
All visual work on this page is property of Disney.
