Disney

Vanessa (from The Little Mermaid)

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The Little Mermaid

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Ludovic de Saint Sernin & Ariel

Ariel is wearing the Turquoise Swarovski Crystal Drops Swan Dress  

Ludovic de Saint Sernin SS20

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I painted Disney Princesses after being inspired by the Holy Relics found in the catacombs of the Martyrs

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#mulan #belle #ariel #elsanna #tiana

Ariel & Vanessa (from The Little Mermaid)

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Bobby Abley - Ariel (from The Little Mermaid)

Bobby Abley - Vanessa (from The Little Mermaid)

Ariel and Eric (from The Little Mermaid)

Bobby Abley - Eric (from The Little Mermaid)

bad idea (from The Little Mermaid)

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Eric (from The Little Mermaid)

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Ariel (from The Little Mermaid)

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Ariel and Eric (from The Little Mermaid)

The hyper realistic style is actually limiting the animators, rather than freeing them. The style makes it much harder to have memorable character designs and good expressions. Real lions don’t need to do things like emote in a way that humans can understand – but characters in a film do. The original movie was more cartoony not due to animation limitations of the time, but because that style genuinely serves the story better.

To show you what I mean, compare these two shots of Simba, from right after Scar says “run away and never return.”

Here is a clear reaction, with a strong beat for us to connect with before the character makes a decision. Even without any dialogue, even without any context, you can understand the emotion there just by the expression and the mannerisms. Is it realistic? No! He’s bright yellow and has eyebrows. But do we empathize with him? Yes!

Meanwhile, here is… a lion. Turning and running. No expression, no beats, no character moments, nothing. He actually can’t express himself because the animators are locked into the realistic style. If they tried to animate a strong expression as warranted for the scene, it would look terrible. Is it realistic? Hell yeah! Look at those textures! Look at that fur! But do we empathize with him? …nah. Not really.

To conclude: when you’re retelling Hamlet with a bunch of animated lions, cartoonish-ness is your friend, not your enemy.

Real lions can be SUPER expressive in their faces. Examples:

So them being locked in photorealism isn’t the problem, it’s their inability to be CREATIVE with that photorealism. Young Simba could ABSOLUTELY put his ears back, and shy away like a real lion.

The original movie made a big deal about analyzing real lions (and even brought real lions into the studio to study their movements) to make the movements as true to form as possible, even with the cartoony look. This one… kind of feels like they just went “we did this once, we got this.”