Artist brings classic Disney princesses to life in incredible drawings

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Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Elsa from "Frozen"
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Artist brings classic Disney princesses to life in incredible drawings Elsa from "Frozen"
Jirka Vaatainen/Disney

They may have been the works of animated fantasy, but now these Disney princesses look like they're almost reality.

Jirka Vaatainen is a Finnish graphic design student based out of Bournemouth, United Kingdom who has been getting a lot of attention over his "Real Life" Disney Girls portraits. Vaatainen takes a classic Disney princess and reanimates them to look strikingly realistic and beautiful, adding a fresh new twist on classic Disney characters.

"I just thought about exploring what the character of Ursula from the Little Mermaid could look like in real life. Having been 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, Vaatainen told ABC via email.

"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," Vaatainen said.

Vaatainen says the technique behind creating his characters is mixed, but that it is all digital work done only using Photoshop.

"I work towards my vision by finding appropriate inspiration from real life photos, and I basically pick a feature from here and there, manipulate, combine and blend different elements together digitally. All of this photo compositing and manipulation is further enhanced by doing digital painting by hand," Vaatainen said.

Check out the gallery above to see some of the iconic Disney princesses brought to life. You can learn more about Vaatainen's work at the link below.

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