Have you ever tried to turn cartoon or comic characters into real-life people? What would they be like if they were made out of flesh and bones, just like us? Well, someone tried, and did so with exceptional results.
That person is twenty-nine-year-old Finnish designer, Jirka Vinse Jonatan Väätäinen, who attempted to bring Disney characters from those cartoons we all grew up watching to life!
Utilising his talent and Photoshop skills, the designer and illustrator from Helsinki tried to give human faces to Snow White, Cinderella, Pocahontas and also a number of villains.
Disney characters brought to “real life”: the story began in 2011
Jirka Vinse Jonatan Väätäinen claims to have started this project almost by accident while working with Photoshop. The spark that triggered the idea was when he asked himself how Ursula from Disney’s The Little Mermaid would have been if she had been a real person. And there you have it: this is how a project was born that then went viral on social media, where his works have been shared many times.
After Ursula, arrived Ariel – the designer then said that The Little Mermaid has always been his favourite Disney film. Then came the other Disney princesses and other cartoon characters. The common theme? Transforming these well-known characters into real life, while remaining faithful to the original features that we have all seen in the Disney films. The artist not only wanted to portray with human traits princesses and super villains, but his aim was also to capture the soul and convey some of the personality and style of these characters.
Judge for yourself if he succeded!
The first portrait of Ariel, from 2011. Below, the villain from The Little Mermaid, Ursula, who was the inspiration for the whole project
Over the years the designer has created new works, sometimes taking the same characters portrayed previously, further refining the style and level of realism achieved.
To give you an example, here is The Little Mermaid and Ursula from the next series of Artwork inspired by Disney characters.
Take a look at this:
Do you recognise them? Of course you do: they are Cinderella’s evil stepsisters! In the original fairy tale or animated feature film that we all saw they were certainly not dressed or had their hair styled like this. And yet, the portrait immediately gives you the essence of the characters: in short, isn’t this how you imagined the two wicked, spoilt sisters would look?
*All the works are the originals published online by the designer Jirka Vinse Jonatan Väätäinen.
Someone else has also decided to depict Disney characters: the team at Tribe! Our adaptations, however, are very faithful to the original, the illustrator who designed them has condensed all the history and iconicity of the character into our USB flash drives in 3D format, judge for yourselves!
Find the entire collection here!
