News New Haunted Mansion Grounds Expansion, Retail Shop Coming to Disneyland Resort in 2024

[PiratesMansion]

It'll be interesting to see what the new bride looks like in person vs. on video. But Constance never looked great, especially at Disneyland.

 

[mickEblu]

Constance was introduced in 2006 I believe, at least at Disneyland. I think WDW got theirs roughly around that same time, maybe within the same year. I can see why you'd mention Aunt Hilda though lol. To her credit, the actual face actress for Constance is much more normal looking and attractive and nowhere near as unflattering as that effect conveys, the various portraits around the room are als more representative of what she looks like-

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The entire figure of Constance has always looked awful though. For a number of reasons, not just because it used a flat facial surface instead of the sculpted ones of Leota and the busts. The lighting itself was very unflattering too. As was the physical veil they used to surround the head, which resembled a barton bandage... The shape, lighting and everything really just didn't work. Like I said, I prefer the bride not have a visible face at all, but the other much face projected characters in the ride are evidence that the Constance effect could have been done so much better as well.


For lack of a better phrase, she's based off a somewhat stylized drawing of a woman with features that would be exceptionally rare if not unheard of in real life. I believe you and others asked what the deal is with her oddly proportioned neck, cheekbones etc, and this is the answer. It's the same reason why Maleficent has a super long face, pointed nose and chin and unnaturally high and sharp cheekbones. Features that they attempted to replicate in the live action form by using copious amounts of prosthetics and makeup.

Constance, Leota and the busts resemble real people because they are video recordings of real people. The rest of the characters in the ride including this new bride were fabricated based off of artistic drawings. There is a huge visual difference between the two styles. This bride is a departure from the projected real actor style and is instead much more similar to a Marc Davis character.

I feel like this is your opinion and it’s wrong. If that’s what the imagineers were going for they failed.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

I feel like this is your opinion and it’s wrong. If that’s what the imagineers were going for they failed.

Whether it looks good is an opinion. Most of the rest of what I said is not. You and a few others are commenting on why her neck is so long and slender, and why her cheeks are so narrow and sharp among other things. I gave you the reason. You are 100% free and valid in not liking the execution and design, but the intent was evident.

The bride resembles a mixture of a handful of different Marc Davis female designs, and i've pointed out a couple of them. More specifically, she sort of looks like a fusion of one of his "beautiful" female type designs but with hints of Maleficent's more lanky and sharp features. Which I think worked out fairly well since it made her look a bit otherworldly and stoic/statuesque in the process.

My remaining issue is that she isn't scary. But taken on her own, I think she looks visually good and blends well with the Marc Davis type designs of most of the other characters. They probably should have gone a step further and changed the character designs in the wedding portraits to fit her new look and style. She doesn't remotely resemble Constance and leaving them along clashes.

Overall, I just basically think she looks VASTLY superior to Constance. Like I cannot put it into words how terrible I thought that variant of the bride was.

 

[Phroobar]

Kind of looks like her.

 

[mickEblu]

Whether it looks good is an opinion. Most of the rest of what I said is not. You and a few others are commenting on why her neck is so long and slender, and why her cheeks are so narrow and sharp among other things. I gave you the reason. You are 100% free and valid in not liking the execution and design, but the intent was evident.

The bride resembles a mixture of a handful of different Marc Davis female designs, and i've pointed out a couple of them. More specifically, she sort of looks like a fusion of one of his "beautiful" female type designs but with hints of Maleficent's more lanky and sharp features. Which I think worked out fairly well since it made her look a bit otherworldly and stoic/statuesque in the process.

My remaining issue is that she isn't scary. But taken on her own, I think she looks visually good and blends well with the Marc Davis type designs of most of the other characters. They probably should have gone a step further and changed the character designs in the wedding portraits to fit her new look and style. She doesn't remotely resemble Constance and leaving them along clashes.

Overall, I just basically think she looks VASTLY superior to Constance. Like I cannot put it into words how terrible I thought that variant of the bride was.

I disagree strongly that the intent is evident.

Yeah Constance sucked and this is a small improvement visually - as in it doesn’t look like her face is being projected onto a pillow. Haven’t got a good feel for the effect on the videos I’ve seen. Agree she isn’t scary and just overall her design leaves a lot to be desired. I was expecting the new bride to be a home run. This is more like a base hit. Something like the 70s to 95 figure would have been a million times better.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

When I heard some vague descriptions of what they were doing with the bride, I thought they were just going to keep Constance and her face, but maybe improve the facial surface and make her float. I didn't realize they were outright creating a whole new design. So it caught me by surprise, in a positive way.

Unfortunately I think the chances of ever getting a "scary" bride again are zero. It's funny too because going back to the faceless glowing eyed bride that existed there for decades would have also accomplished their obsession with purging violence from the ride since she wasn't actually threatening anyone with violence (just with her disturbing "face", or lack thereof). But it's also something that they probably think would traumatize children or something like that.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

To the comments about the bride's face and neck having "unnaturally" long and thin proportions. This is the intended design, she is no longer a replication of a true to life human anymore. Constance was already one of the very small handful of characters that used a video recording of a real live actor's face, same as Leota and the singing busts. However, the remainder and vast majority of the characters in the ride were designed by Marc Davis and had his traditionally stylized and hyper exaggerated facial features that were not supposed to look like real people.

This new bride is definitely no longer trying to look "real", it has very similar features to many of Marc Davis' female characters. I can think of several of his designs off the top of my head that have similarly thin lanky features to this bride in fact. In particular, a bit of Anita from 101 Dalmations and even Maleficent's extremely thin face and neck and her high cheek bones.

If you're not into this style, that's fine. But I do get the sense that some of you outright just didn't even catch the fact that the bride was deliberately redesigned not to look like a real human anymore. I don't usually call people out like this. But I do think some of yall are getting a bit ridiculous with at least some of your criticisms (not all of course as it isn't my personal favorite bride either). And i'm sorry but you may actually be a bit crazy if you think this looks better by comparison, because woof-

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This comes across as unnecessarily condescending. Most of us are well-acquainted with Davis' work—some of us, myself included, to an almost obsessive degree. This does not resemble a Davis character, particularly not an animatronic one. The new bride feels jarring to me largely because it looks so different from Davis' style, especially when compared to his creations encountered just feet away from this effect.

Davis was an absolutely genius artist in comical exaggeration and drawing figures and scenes that were instantly readable, and this is not that. I’d guess the face merely looks the way it does due to the challenge of aligning a Pepper's Ghost projection with a physical figure, all while accommodating multiple viewing angles from a moving ride vehicle.

You’re also ignoring the fact that we have art for this scene, and the bride doesn’t have an unnaturally elongated neck or head in the artwork, nor does the art really resemble anything even remotely close to Davis’ work for the parks.

I’ll agree that it’s a significant improvement over 2006 Constance, but let’s be honest... the Constance bar was embarrassingly low, especially at Disneyland.

 

[Parteecia]

I liked the bride. Her proportions did not stand out to me. The portraits with the other bride face and the disappearing husbands did not make sense.

I had more of a problem with the poor horse pitching forward.

And I wondered about the tiny crop circles in the lawn.

 

[mickEblu]

I liked the bride. Her proportions did not stand out to me. The portraits with the other bride face and the disappearing husbands did not make sense.

I had more of a problem with the poor horse pitching forward.
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And I wondered about the tiny crop circles in the lawn.
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Easy. The horse got free and ran around all over the lawn. Mystery solved.

 

[Parteecia]

Easy. The horse got free and ran around all over the lawn. Mystery solved.

No wonder his poor knees are buckling.

 

[Parteecia]

Oh, and I agree that the hitchhiking ghosts would be better if they faded at the bottom.

 

[VicariousCorpse]

This is the intended design, she is no longer a replication of a true to life human anymore. Constance was already one of the very small handful of characters that used a video recording of a real live actor's face, same as Leota and the singing busts. However, the remainder and vast majority of the characters in the ride were designed by Marc Davis and had his traditionally stylized and hyper exaggerated facial features that were not supposed to look like real people.

The final versions are exaggerated but were definitely supposed to look like real people. Marv Davis may have done his concept art in hyper exaggeration, but the modeler, Blaine Gibson, who translated his work into 3d based his work on real life people. Here's a quote from him:

"I’m not faulting Marc at all, he’s one of the greatest. But he did have this ability to draw a cartoon that would be funny and maybe have a mouth which, when fully analyzed, would be six inches across. And it can’t work in three dimensions and be compatible. So I had to base my character from the inside out. They were based on real people and so that is what I insisted on."

That said, in my opinion, the new bride doesn't look stylistically at all like the work of Marc Davis nor Blaine Gibson. I believe the long neck is just a byproduct of the way she was made and the style of projection, I don't think it was intentional to make her have a giraffe neck.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

The final versions are exaggerated but were definitely supposed to look like real people. Marv Davis may have done his concept art in hyper exaggeration, but the modeler, Blaine Gibson, who translated his work into 3d absolutely based his work on real life people.

I said nothing about them not being "based" off of real people. It's the exaggerations that are what i'm referring to. You're exceptionally unlikely to find anyone IRL who has features as cartoonish and exaggerated as the ones in most of HM's characters-

There are exceptions to this. Other than the face projected characters, the ballroom dancers are fairly generic and look more like real humans, they probably used more generic designs for these because of how fast they move. Making it more difficult to spot the facial details than the slower moving ones. But by far, most of the figures that you can somewhat clearly make out the faces of are designed in a manner much like the above examples.

I stand by what I said. The new bride looks like a physical adaptation of a character that IMHO could conceivably have been drawn by Marc Davis. Complete with the not-quite-real-human proportions and features. That to me is clearly what they attempted to do, and I believe that they actually succeeded pretty well in doing so for a change (which is not something I would say lightly as I am very often unimpressed with their talents these days). It's fine if you don't agree that they did a good job with that attempt, but that was indeed the clear attempt.

I don't know what else I can say without going in circles with you guys. Agree to disagree if you don't like it. But don't gaslight me by claiming that the majority of HM's characters aren't ultra exaggerated caricatures of humans with features you'd be extremely unlikely to ever come across in real life.

 

[VicariousCorpse]

I don't know what else I can say without going in circles with you guys. Agree to disagree if you don't like it. But don't gaslight me by claiming that the majority of HM's characters aren't ultra exaggerated caricatures of humans with features you'd be extremely unlikely to ever come across in real life.

There's no attack from me here. I was just pointing out that Blaine intentionally tried to ground the cartoony Marc Davis art into more realistic, though still hyper exaggerated, proportions when translating his work in 3D. I value your opinion, effort, and thought put into your posts. Sorry if my post came across the wrong way. I do like the new bride. I have my complaints, but overall she is an improvement.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

There's no attack from me here. I was just pointing out that Blaine intentionally tried to ground the cartoony Marc Davis art into more realistic, though still hyper exaggerated, proportions when translating his work in 3D. I value your opinion, effort, and thought put into your posts. Sorry if my post came across the wrong way. I do like the new bride. I have my complaints, but overall she is an improvement.

I fully understand what you and others are saying about the physical adaptations that were made to translate the art into physical figures. I never denied this. But my point is based on the fact that they weren't transformed completely into fully realistic looking people, they still had very exaggerated features even with the changes made. It's apparent to me that the new bride has intentional exaggerations to her features as well.

While I do genuinely think she resembles some of Davis' designs in this regard, I did not bring his work up to offend people who don't think the design is as good as his work. I brought it up moreso as a means of explaining that her features are a "caricature" of a real person's, and not intended to be hyper realistic. I am quite certain that this was in fact intentional, and that it IS clear and obvious. Again opinions on whether the figure looks good or bad notwithstanding.

Poor effect and flat surface aside, Constance was intended to look like a real person. The result was awful, but that was clearly the intent and I would imagine that most people would understand that intent. For a fully physical example, Melanie from Phantom Manor was also an attempt to make a character with much more realistic proportions and features than many of the others. Not to say she looks perfectly human, but the intent was to give her relatively non-exaggerated features and try to make her look more real than the more exaggerated ones. To bring in an example of another ride with similarly mixed character designs from the same artists, the Redhead (the original but really in all of her physical iterations) from POTC also had more of a "realistic" look to her with less exaggerated facial features than the other characters in the ride.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

I said nothing about them not being "based" off of real people. It's the exaggerations that are what i'm referring to. You're exceptionally unlikely to find anyone IRL who has features as cartoonish and exaggerated as the ones in most of HM's characters-

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There are exceptions to this. Other than the face projected characters, the ballroom dancers are fairly generic and look more like real humans, they probably used more generic designs for these because of how fast they move. Making it more difficult to spot the facial details than the slower moving ones. But by far, most of the figures that you can somewhat clearly make out the faces of are designed in a manner much like the above examples.

I stand by what I said. The new bride looks like a physical adaptation of a character that IMHO could conceivably have been drawn by Marc Davis. Complete with the not-quite-real-human proportions and features. That to me is clearly what they attempted to do, and I believe that they actually succeeded pretty well in doing so for a change (which is not something I would say lightly as I am very often unimpressed with their talents these days). It's fine if you don't agree that they did a good job with that attempt, but that was indeed the clear attempt.

I don't know what else I can say without going in circles with you guys. Agree to disagree if you don't like it. But don't gaslight me by claiming that the majority of HM's characters aren't ultra exaggerated caricatures of humans with features you'd be extremely unlikely to ever come across in real life.

I find it hard to believe you can look at the photos you’ve posted and sincerely claim that the new bride was meant to capture the same style.

 

[Tha Realest]

This comes across as unnecessarily condescending. Most of us are well-acquainted with Davis' work—some of us, myself included, to an almost obsessive degree. This does not resemble a Davis character, particularly not an animatronic one. The new bride feels jarring to me largely because it looks so different from Davis' style, especially when compared to his creations encountered just feet away from this effect.

Davis was an absolutely genius artist in comical exaggeration and drawing figures and scenes that were instantly readable, and this is not that. I’d guess the face merely looks the way it does due to the challenge of aligning a Pepper's Ghost projection with a physical figure, all while accommodating multiple viewing angles from a moving ride vehicle.

You’re also ignoring the fact that we have art for this scene, and the bride doesn’t have an unnaturally elongated neck or head in the artwork, nor does the art really resemble anything even remotely close to Davis’ work for the parks.

I’ll agree that it’s a significant improvement over 2006 Constance, but let’s be honest... the Constance bar was embarrassingly low, especially at Disneyland.

Honestly I don’t hate the character here, but it does feel less like a Marc Davis creation and more like a minor character in the video game Hades.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

I find it hard to believe you can look at the photos you’ve posted and sincerely claim that the new bride was meant to capture the same style.

Honestly I don’t hate the character here, but it does feel less like a Marc Davis creation and more like a minor character in the video game Hades.

My honest assessment is that the new bride resembles a cross between one of Marc Davis' princess designs (specifically say Aurora or Anita who have fairly narrow features), but mixing in a bit of Maleficent's more exaggerated sharp lanky slender proportions (also a Marc Davis design). But obviously with the usual adaptations needed to convert it to a physical figure.

I do genuinely believe it fits alongside the other characters. She's neither overly stylized nor hyper realistic. And IMO, it's also the best of any of the brides who had at least partially visible faces, including even the one at Tokyo and also preceding Constance with more doll/mannequin like faces. But like I said, the only one i've ever been truly satisfied with was the one where the face was a fully obscured dark void.

 

[mickEblu]

My honest assessment is that the new bride resembles a cross between one of Marc Davis' princess designs (specifically say Aurora or Anita who have fairly narrow features), but mixing in a bit of Maleficent's more exaggerated sharp lanky slender proportions (also a Marc Davis design). But obviously with the usual adaptations needed to convert it to a physical figure. I do believe it fits fine. At least, the best of any of the brides who had visible or semi visible faces (not just Constance, but the other ones they made before her with visible doll-like faces).

Well we have come a long way from your original post haven’t we? Where you stated everything as fact and couldn’t believe some of the critiques or the fact that some of us didn’t agree with your head canon and that the bride isn’t supposed to look human.

 

[Too Many Hats]

Some are saying the homicidal bride storyline was removed because it’s problematic/too violent. Has an inside source actually confirmed that this is true? Or is it just speculation?