Finnish artist Jirka Väätäinen, who works under the name Jirka Vinse, is known for turning Disney's animated characters into faces that look like real photographs. In this series he turns to the fathers: Tarzan's father, Aladdin's father Cassim, Ariel's father King Triton, Pocahontas's father Chief Powhatan and Hercules's father Zeus. Each realistic portrait appears below between stills from the original film, so you can compare the drawing with the "real" man.
Info: jirkavinse.com | Instagram | Facebook
Image credits: jirkavinse.com (portraits), Disney (film stills)
Who is Jirka Väätäinen?
Väätäinen describes himself as a Finnish artist, image maker and creative director, working across photography, digital art, illustration, art direction and design. When this series appeared in 2019 he was based in Helsinki and had more than 209,000 followers on Instagram, many of whom found him through his earlier realistic versions of Disney princesses and villains.
Turning a cartoon into a believable face is harder than it looks. Animated characters have huge eyes, tiny noses and simplified jaws that would look strange on a real person. The artist has to decide which features carry the character's identity, such as Triton's beard, Cassim's grin or Powhatan's face paint, and keep those, while bringing everything else back to human proportions. Skin texture, hair and light then do the rest.
Fathers are an interesting choice because they are often background figures in Disney stories, and several of the films' heroines and heroes are defined by an absent or overprotective parent. Seeing these men as real people makes it easier to imagine the families behind the fairy tales.
Tarzan's father
In Disney's Tarzan (1999), directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck, Tarzan's father appears only in the opening minutes, as part of a British couple shipwrecked with their baby on the coast of Africa. The film never names him; fans and this series call him John, after John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, Tarzan's father in Edgar Rice Burroughs's original novels.
Väätäinen keeps the character's thick moustache, swept-back hair and open-collared shirt, but adds weathered skin and a faraway look. The result could pass for a portrait of a nineteenth-century explorer.
The original still shows the father holding baby Tarzan beside his wife. In the film the parents build a treehouse from the wreck before being killed by the leopard Sabor, and the gorilla Kala adopts the orphaned boy, which is why this brief family moment matters so much to the story.
Aladdin's father Cassim
Cassim appears in Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996), the direct-to-video sequel that ends the original trilogy. He is the leader of the Forty Thieves, voiced by John Rhys-Davies, and he left his family years earlier to search for a treasure he hoped would lift them out of poverty.
In the realistic version, the confident smile and greying temples survive the transformation, and a soft grey scarf replaces the blue cloak.
The film still shows Cassim beside Aladdin. The sequel is built around their reconciliation, which is why so many viewers who only know the first film were surprised to learn that Aladdin has a father at all.
Ariel's father King Triton
King Triton rules the undersea kingdom of Atlantica in The Little Mermaid (1989), where he was voiced by Kenneth Mars. He is a stern, protective father who forbids any contact with humans.
Väätäinen gives Triton a long silver beard, a golden crown and the build of a classical statue. His name and trident come from Greek myth, where Triton is a sea god and the son of Poseidon. The frown suggests he has just heard about another trip to the surface.
In this still Triton holds Ariel's face tenderly. In the film he also destroys her secret grotto of human objects in a fit of anger, one of the most painful father and daughter scenes in Disney animation.
Pocahontas's father Chief Powhatan
Chief Powhatan appears in Pocahontas (1995), voiced by the American Indian activist and actor Russell Means. The real Powhatan led a large alliance of Algonquian-speaking peoples in what is now Virginia when English colonists arrived in 1607.
The realistic portrait keeps the dark hair, red face paint and serious expression, and replaces the cartoon's strong jaw with a lined, older face. It is a calm, dignified image of a leader rather than a costume.
The film still shows Powhatan with his daughter in the forest. Historians point out that the real Pocahontas was only about ten or eleven when John Smith arrived and that there is no evidence of a romance, so the film's story is very loosely based on history.
Hercules's father Zeus
Zeus, king of the gods, is voiced by Rip Torn in Disney's Hercules (1997). The animated version is a glowing, jolly giant with a cloud-like beard, a long way from the stern thunder god of Greek myth.
Väätäinen draws Zeus as a silver-haired, smiling older man in a purple robe, closer to a Greek marble bust than to the cartoon. The mischievous half-smile keeps a touch of the film's warmth.
The still shows Zeus with his son. In Greek myth Heracles was the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene, and the goddess Hera persecuted him for it; Disney's filmmakers made Hera his loving mother instead and moved the role of villain to Hades.
How readers reacted
When the series was shared on Facebook, readers' comments focused on two things: how attractive the fathers turned out to be, and how little some people remembered about them.
One reader insisted that Aladdin's father had always been handsome, cartoon or not.
Another was surprised that Aladdin had a father at all. That is understandable, because Cassim appears only in the third film, which went straight to video.
A third reader found most of the portraits handsome but said Triton looked too much like her own father. It is a sign of how real the portrait feels.
Another comment simply noted that Aladdin's dad looks better than Aladdin himself, which says a lot about how well the portrait works.
The last reader picked Triton as the best of the set and admitted to feeling slightly odd about it, which sums up the mix of admiration and amusement the series inspired.
If you like the work, follow the artist on his own pages above and share his portraits with his name attached.
Sources: Jirka Vinse official website; Wikipedia: Tarzan (1999 film); Wikipedia: Aladdin and the King of Thieves; Wikipedia: The Little Mermaid (1989 film); Wikipedia: Pocahontas (1995 film); Wikipedia: Hercules (1997 film).
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