Finnish arist Jirka Väätäinen has taken a real-life look at what he thinks Disney’s princes and princesses would look like if you met them on the street.
Ever wondered what Disney’s animated male and female human characters might look like in real life? A Finnish artist has done that for us by taking 13 male characters and 20 female characters and given them a person-next-door feel. Of course, Ursula and Ariel stretch the real-life” aspect a bit, but what the heck.
Actually, it was Ursula that caused artist Jirka Väätäinen to begin the project. “One day, I just got the idea to entertain and challenge myself by reimagining Ursula in a more realistic way,” he told The Escapist. “I found it a lot of fun and did the same with a few other characters and posted them on my academic blog that I kept to keep up with my Uni studies, so I wasn’t really expecting anyone to see them. But at one point, someone apparently stumbled upon these illustrations that I had done and shared them one way or another. Ever since, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and I kept receiving a ton of requests so it felt appropriate to expand on the series.”
Väätäinen is a graphic design graduate currently based in Australia, and has a strong interest in character design. “Having grown up with a lot of these characters, the sense of nostalgia made it such a fascinating and a fun personal project to explore and carry on with,” he said. “I was inspired by the idea of recreating these characters that we all know and love, in a way I would imagine them to look like if they were “more real,” while still staying somewhat true to the unrealistic quirks in their original character designs.”
The popularity of the images has gotten him some extra notice. “With the global exposure for my work, it has resulted in many people and companies reaching out with potential projects to work on together.”
Source: Jirka Väätäinen official site. Images used with permission.
