#tangled comic

Firstly, let’s talk about what most fans know about Varian’s blue hair streak. The blue streak does exist. He’s had it since he was a baby as seen in a photo from the show, and the color eyedropper tool in my art app tells me that is blue (NOT green, you colorblind fools). Then there’s the whole theory that Varian’s dad Quirin absorbed some of the moonstone while working with the brotherhood after it exploded a little bit (as one does). Then he passed that on to Varian. All of which is well and good.

But let’s talk about the SCIENCE!

Ironically, this is not the first time I’ve dealt with blue hair [insert artist backstory]. Before TTS even came out, I created an OC I named Blueberry (my user-name-sake) who also has blue hair:

(Don’t judge the anatomy, I was a baby artist)

Blue, as it turns out, is actually very rare in nature, and this sci-show youtube video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9cdoPD51bng provides a pretty good summary of why that is (and how pigments work in general).

So while I had long since determined Blueberry had a plant based pigment that made his hair blue (anthocyanin), Varian clearly had some sort of mineral based pigment from the moonstone. I’m guessing he only ever had enough passed on from his dad to turn his hair slightly blue (until he snatched the moon shard in my comic, that is).

But I’m going to take this one step further. Varian’s hair is black, and if you’ve ever tried to dye dark hair, you’ll know that it is hard for any color to stand out without bleaching it first. And that’s where Poliosis comes in.

If Varian has a single strand of hair that produces no melanin, then the blue pigment can show more clearly. I find this to be a really cool option because I actually have poliosis (or something similar.)

(Kinda like reverse Rapunzel, amiright? My blonde streak is somewhere on the back of my head though, so not as cool.) This is also called a Mallen streak, but because that term is more modern coming from a book series set in the 19th century, using it in the comic is a bit anachronistic. The condition has been associated with witchcraft for a long time though, which seems fitting for someone dealing with the magic of the moonstone (whether he ‘works with magic’ or no.)

So yeah! That’s it! Seriously, go watch that sci-show episode, blue is SO COOL! I do wanna add a disclaimer though—if I am wrong on any of this science stuff let’s just all pretend it’s due to the limits of scientific knowledge at the time the comic is set rather than my own fallibility.😅 Maybe people already know all this stuff, but I just never see it talked about!

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Bonus, this Wikipedia link for Al-Jazari: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_al-Jazari Guys, this fellow is credited with making all sorts of automata (!?!), as well as the first flushing toilet—he deserves your respect!