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This fall we revisit the beloved group of characters from Frozen—Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Olaf. But as the story takes us away from Arendelle and into an enchanted forest, we are introduced to a few new (and technologically-challenging) characters that sweep us into a new adventure of mythical proportions.

After the success of Frozen, the filmmakers were confronted with a lingering question — where did Elsa get her powers? For inspiration, the development team began exploring folktales from Norway and Iceland: “We started seeing this deep mythology and these deep roots in magic of nature,” says director and writer Jennifer Lee. “We started to see a story that felt like it was always there.”

This journey of discovery leads the characters out of Arendelle and into an enchanted forest where they meet Gale—a fluid and beautiful wind spirit. “The wind was the most important of the anthropomorphic spirits that came about in a lot of the folklore,” says Lee.

There was only one catch: How do you imbue an invisible character with personality? How do you visualize something that you can’t see?

FACING THE WIND

“How do I draw wind?” wondered Bill Schwab, Art Director Characters, when he first tackled the concept of Gale. Inspired by the setting of the enchanted forest, he set about using sticks, leaves and debris to describe Gale and to envision how the wind spirit would interact with other characters.

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