Disney Princesses in Real Life

Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

Re-imagining iconic Disney princesses as real life people is one thing art student Jirka Väätäinen does very well. Though on his blog you'll find posts about his life as a graphic design student, also featured are these beautiful renditions of popular princesses. The fantastic photo manipulations are a successful attempt at bringing these beautiful characters to life.

Of course, like many popular projects we post on, this series didn't quite start on purpose. It began with his fascination for the character Ursula from The Little Mermaid. "I had always liked her character so much that I decided to give myself a little challenge," he tells us. "I had so much fun with it that I could not stop... and here we are."

With an overwhelming response from Tumblr and blogs, Väätäinen received "a lot of lovely feedback" and quite a few requests to create even more characters. "I can't really stop now, can I?," he rhetorically asks. "It's not like I ever had a bigger plan with these, so I'm just going to continue having fun and make more characters that I'm personally inspired by."

So how, exactly, does Väätäinen go about creating these? "I find photos all over the Internet and then combine them in Photoshop," he says. "I don't base the characters on only one real person or picture - I pick, mix and blend features. I also do some digital painting, by hand, to make it all come together."


Mulan


Ariel (The Little Mermaid)


Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)


Esmeralda (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)


Jasmine (Aladdin)


Megara (Hercules)


Pocahontas

Jirka Väätäinen's website