Elsa 's appearance had to be redesigned following her transition from antagonist to protagonist. She was originally drawn in a style similar to other Disney villains, with blue skin and spiky black hair. A few months after the film 's release, visual development artist Claire Keane (the daughter of Disney Legend Glen Keane) published early concept art of Elsa that was modeled after the singer Amy Winehouse. At the time, she was imagined as having blue "bouffant '' hair as well as "a deep, soulful voice and dramatic mood swings ''. Lasseter reportedly influenced the creation of the character 's much softer final appearance, particularly in regards to her very thick platinum blonde hair, which animators found difficult to design. Art director Michael Giaimo said that while a number of strategies were proposed for Elsa 's hair, Lasseter would push the animation team to continue making improvements, saying, "It 's not aspirational enough. We want people to feel like this hair is a beautiful statement. '' During a research trip, producers found that "there are lots of braids '' worn by women in Norway; they then hired a stylist from New York named "Danilo '' who helped to create a style that would reflect that while still being "a little different ''. A new animation program called Tonic was invented to assist with the task, and the character 's hair ultimately required 420,000 CGI threads. By contrast, Anna was given roughly 140,000 hairs while Rapunzel from Tangled had only required 27,000 CGI threads for her hair.
what color was elsa's hair supposed to be
black