Insta-Famous Digital Artist Continues To Use Technology To Bring Animated Pop Culture Characters To Reality

Hidreley Leli Dião has gone viral on more than one occasion for his incredible artistic renditions making animated characters look as real as any other human on the planet.

Elana

• Published in Disney
• April 24, 2022

When animated movies from our childhoods began being re-created as live-action adaptations, responses were often totally mixed. Some fans were overflowing with excitement while other fans were scornful and full of disdain at the mere thought.

Some live-action re-makes of movies did well and others did not, and no one can deny that people have not stopped talking ever since the regular flow of re-made films has been going steady. Still, maybe we just need to admit we like seeing realistic and real-life versions of cartoon characters?

Hidreley Leli Dião is in his 30's and a master of his craft. His digital illustrations have been featured on just about every corner of the Internet and it's unlikely you've never seen his work before!

Often times turning an animated character into something realistic and comparable to a human can be frightening more than magical but Dião is far from ordinary with his artwork... his digital pieces are incredibly realistic! Even though he doesn't limit his work to Disney characters and Disney characters are totally our favorites, we can't help but feel stars in our eyes at every pop culture character that Dião brings to life before our eyes.

In early 2022, Dião told Newsweek a little bit about his process of bringing characters (real and fake) to life:

"When choosing the character, the most time-consuming thing is to find an image that resembles the historical figure. I spend hours in image banks until I get it. I always say that finding the perfect image to be the basis of art takes much longer than making the art."

These days, Dião has nearly 250k followers on Instagram alone and is a regular contributor to the website Bored Panda. Check out some of the latest examples of his hyper-realistic pop culture characters dragged into reality below:

1. Aladdin

2. Rapunzel - Tangled

3. Snow White

4. Prince Hans - Frozen

5. Kristoff - Frozen

6. Lady Tremaine - Disney's Cinderella

7. Isabela Madrigal - Encanto

8. Peter Pan

9. Carl Fredricksen - Pixar's Up

10. Tinker Bell - Peter Pan

11. Princess Anna - Frozen

12. Princess Tiana - The Princess and the Frog

13. Joe Gardner - Pixar's Soul

Dião has also tried his hand at bringing historical figures and national monuments to life with technology. He gained a metric ton of global attention when he brought The Statue of Liberty to real-life at the end of 2021.

In an interview with Newsweek, he explained that he had to take inspiration from his own social circle to bring her to life:

"The first thing to do is to find a real image similar to the statue. As I couldn't find it in any image bank, I used my girlfriend's face to bring the statue to life. Not that it looks like the picture, but the position of the face I managed to get it to perfection."

Here is the Statue of Liberty as Dião depicted her:

14. Princess Jasmine - Aladdin

15. Dash Parr - Pixar's The Incredibles

16. Prince Eric - The Little Mermaid

17. Elsa The Snow Queen - Frozen

18. Moana

19. John Smith - Disney's Pocahontas

20. Princess Ariel - The Little Mermaid

21. Olive Oyl (Popeye)

22. Pocahontas - Disney's Pocahontas

23. Bruno - Encanto

24. Mirabel - Encanto

25. Pepa - Encanto

26. Bart Simpson

27. Ned Flanders

28. Moe - The Simpsons

29. Millhouse - The Simpsons

Is anyone else feeling like this right now?

Hidreley Dião is truly a creative mind with a lot to show the world about what one can do with time, patience, practice, and inspiration. Many artists take their time to make fanart and clearly by now we know it can look any sort of way depending on the source and materials used, but Dião really does a phenomenal job standing out in a crowd.

If you'd like to see even more of Dião's work, including more Encanto characters, be sure to check out his Instagram and show some support. You can also check out previous times we've featured this awesome artist here.

Elana