This Finn brought Disney heroes to life. They’re even more gorgeous than on film.
When graphic designer Jirka Väätäinen from Kuopio first started his project on what Disney characters might look like in real life, he did not expect anyone to see them.
Väätäinen says he got the idea in 2011 to challenge himself by reimagining Ursula in a more realistic way. He found it entertaining so he did the same with a few other characters and posted them on his university blog.
The rest is history. Someone stumbled upon his real life Disney characters and shared them. This created an online phenomenon. This year Väätäinen published a collection of Disney hunks after being inundated with requests. It has been viewed by millions of people.
Childhood nostalgia meets adult ambition
Väätäinen has been a fan since he was a child. He grew up with classics from The Little Mermaid to Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.
He says the sense of nostalgia has made this an inspiring project. He still tries to see every Disney film that comes out but he has not seen them all. He has not seen Atlantis for example. This is why he has not created any of its characters.
As an adult Väätäinen has always been interested in character design and the things that make people unique. He found it fascinating to take characters everyone knows and combine real life looks with the unrealistic quirks in their original designs.
Separated at birth?
Speculation exists about whether Väätäinen bases his illustrations on actual people. He believes there is a certain magic in subtle resemblance to someone people might recognize but he denies ever intentionally attempting this.
He explains that he gets inspired by likenesses and borrows features that remind him of the characters. In the end his personal vision is born from hundreds of image sources involving manipulation and digital painting.
Elsa looks totally Finnish, no guessing why that is.
Ursula is more Finnish.
I’d say yes to every single one of them….even Ursula :)
One thing that strikes me is that how Anglo saxon every character is….even Alladin has been anglofied but I suppose that’s a Disney tradition
Are you kidding? Excepting Aladdin (who still looks VERY much like his movie character, no blaming this artist), these ARE white characters. They’re from European fairy tales. What on earth did you expect them to look like?!
That’s EXACTLY what they look like in the movies, though… what did you expect??? Disney is inherently a WHITE company. Did you expect Elsa to be a freaking African???
These really are beautiful, but is there a copyright issue in making them or is it okay because it’s an artist take on a subject? If he is not selling them does that make it alright? I’ve always been unsure about using images from companies. If you visit his website his work is fantastic and if the image on top is a picture of him. WOW
I did notice he did do some work for Disney maybe it was after they saw his work with the images above because they mention it in the blog post.
There are copyright issues involved. Disney and many other large media companies often don’t pursue claims against makers of “fan fiction” and/or “fan art. sometimes they write to them and get permissions in writing. And sometimes they write a series of books/videos/comics etc and it starts getting popular and then the copyright owner revokes their permission. Bottom line, don’t count on this kinda stuff for money, but don’t be afraid to do it for arts sake.