May 3 - Merida Cutie

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

~ Leonardo da Vinci

When we saw the movie Brave in the theater and I really was looking forward to it. The ads painted a picture of a spunky Scottish girl fighting for her land and respect, a master with a bow and images of giant menacing bears ending with the message "If you had a chance to change yer fate, would ye?"

Boy was I wrong, and this movie made me angry for what I wished it was. "Spoilers" - if you haven't seen it, you might want to skip ahead, or perhaps you might want to read it and consider it a warning:
[Spoiler]
It did have some of those elements, with a somewhat overbearing mother insisting that Merida play her role as a respectable lady. But when Merida follows some magical wisps to a witch's cottage to help change her fate, the witch gives her a pie which turns her mother and her triplet brothers into bears.  Makes perfect sense, right?

Merida's quest to break the spell involves repairing an old family tapestry while protecting her mother from huntsmen, meanwhile her mother fends off a legendary bear and almost dies. She drapes the fixed tapestry over her wounded mother, but when morning arrives and she realizes it didn't work, Merida finally breaks down to a weepy apology, thus breaking the spell ... What did we learn? Give Merida whatever she wants or she will ruin you.
[/Spoiler]

This Merida design uses the Shana Brenion cutie dolls form, I made two Merida trying to get the hair color to match a little better in mocha stuffed orange. I also made her poor mother who suffered so much because of this wretched (but adorable) daughter.

I have to be more careful when building these cuties to make the face much smaller to avoid a chubby cartoonish look.  The orange/mocha hair is way too wide.

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