Simon Cowell's haircut as seen on American Idol

So what is Simon Cowell’s most recognisable feature? It’s that random looking, short-centre-split-on-top and number-2-side-and-back thingy you call hair. By saying that, we have already identified two highlights (or lowlights) of the haircut: a shorter than usual centre parting, and number 2 all around the side and back of the head.

Let’s fire up Blender and get modelling. Here is a character mesh that I already prepared, and I start from the centre of the head, and create a flat piece of hair flowing outwards, ending with a triangle, so the hair has a cartoony look, for comedic effect for the parody.

The beginning of Simon Cowell's haircut

Then add a bit of volume by subdividing the hair along the flow of the hair and move the vertices away from the head.

Add some volume to the parting hair on Simon's head

Then line the hair in pairs flowing in opposite directions on top of the head to create the shorter than usual centre parting of hair.

Simon's parting hair completed

Now it’s time to make the number 2 haircut on the side and rear of the head. Line parallel pieces of hair flowing down the hair and place them just beneath the centre parting we have just created. This time, the volume of the hair should be thinner, as we want to make sure it resembles the top heavy look.

The start of Simon's number 2 haircut

Continue to add the thinner hair pieces around the head, all parallel to each other. It’s likely one layer of the hair will not cover the whole head, so just continue to make another layer underneath the previous one until the head is covered. Take special care of the sideburns to keep the hairstyle looking natural.

Simon Cowell's completed haircut

This is the final textured haircut as rendered in our inhouse rendering engine.

Simon Cowell looking puzzled in 3D

Check out one of the American Idol parodies we made about Simon Cowell on voovees.com. It was written and directed by Overman at Zarathustra Studios.

Well, you can download the fixed pirate pants here.

With the help of our resident kung-fu expert, Indy, here’s what I call the “all purpose flying kick”.

Using the same animation philosophy we have, the flying kick is only a lower-body animation, “lower body: air: RL kick”, so you can mix it up with any upperbody animations you like.

Common usage include:

• answer the phone mid-flight
• scratch head mid-flight
• cover your face while you cry during a fight with your partner

You get the idea. Not to mention it’s a cooler way to travel. (select the static waypoint animation that’s not walk, run, or zombie walk, and add the flying kick animation separately)

(The karate guy on the left is doing somersault by the way, “lower body: air: somersault”)

Well, it’s nearly the end of the season, time to rebuild, football goes on. The team will pick themselves up and bring home more glory in the future.