Untoons are hyperrealistic Photoshop portraits of cartoon and video game characters that keep the subjects' exaggerated proportions while swapping their flat animation surface for real human skin, pores, and photographed facial features.

Where did Untoons come from?

Graphic designer and blogger Jax Pixeloo coined the term and posted the first example, 'Super Real Mario World', on his Blogspot on March 15, 2008.

What does Untoons mean?

The term describes the 'un-tooning' of a cartoon, stripping away flat animation style to render a character as if they were a real human being while keeping their signature exaggerations.

How do you use Untoons?

Artists composite photographed facial features onto a 3D render or warped base matching the cartoon's silhouette, keeping cues like Mario's mustache intact so the subject stays identifiable.

Is Untoons still popular?

The style peaked between 2008 and 2009 on Pixeloo's blog, Worth1000 contests, and deviantART groups, and it influenced later hyperrealistic character art, though the specific 'Untoon' label faded after 2009.

Untoons

2008digital art / image seriesclassic

Published October 4, 2026

Untoons are hyperrealistic Photoshop portraits that keep a cartoon character's exaggerated proportions while swapping their flat animation surface for real human skin, pores, and photographed facial features. Graphic designer Jax Pixeloo coined the term in March 2008 with a disturbingly realistic Super Mario, kicking off a wave of copycat portraits across blogs, Flickr, and deviantART that defined late-2000s Photoshop art.

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Overview

Untoons work by compositing live-action facial features, such as skin, pores, and eyes photographed from real people, onto a 3D render of a cartoon subject while keeping the character's exaggerated geometry intact1. The result keeps Mario's giant mustache or Homer's lemon-shaped head but renders them with human flesh and realistic lighting, producing an uncanny effect that sits closer to hyperrealism painting than to standard fan art9.

Pixeloo's time lapse for the untooned Jessica Rabbit shows him pulling source skin and features from a photo of actress Angelina Jolie before warping them onto the base silhouette10. The images read as photographs of people cosplaying as cartoons rather than cartoons simply made realistic, which gave Untoons their lasting shock-value appeal2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Blogspot (Pixeloo's blog) / Flickr and deviantART (spread)

Creator

Jax Pixeloo

Date

2008

Graphic designer and blogger Jax Pixeloo coined the term 'Untoon' in early 2008 and published the first example on March 15, 2008, a Photoshopped Super Mario titled 'Super Real Mario World'1. The portrait preserved Mario's oversized mustache and round nose while giving him weathered skin and realistic eyes, framing the Nintendo mascot as a middle-aged Italian plumber in a way the games never did4.

How It Spread

Pixeloo kept releasing new Untoons through spring and summer 2008, including Homer Simpson in late March2, Jessica Rabbit in April3, Stewie Griffin in May11, and GTA IV protagonist Nico Bellic in June12. Brazilian blogger Mataleone followed in April 2008 with his own set, starting with a parallel take on Jessica Rabbit5. Design blogs picked up the trend quickly, with Masey running a roundup in May 20088 and gaming humor site Halolz posting an untooned Kirby that September6.

In June 2008, the Photoshop contest site Worth1000 ran its own 'Reality Cartoons 2' contest soliciting entries in the same hyperreal style without using Pixeloo's term7. Flickr and deviantART groups formed around the Untoon tag through 2008 and 2009, and TrendHunter featured a slideshow of the strongest examples13. The time lapse Pixeloo posted for his Jessica Rabbit piece, showing him sourcing skin textures from an Angelina Jolie photograph, became the explanatory video the technique needed to travel beyond his personal blog10.

Timeline

2008-03-15

Pixeloo posts 'Super Real Mario World', the first Untoon and the piece that names the format.

2008-03

Pixeloo adds a Homer Simpson Untoon with reworked eyes and realistic skin tone.

2008-04

Pixeloo posts an untooned Jessica Rabbit built from Angelina Jolie reference photos, along with a time lapse of the Photoshop process.

2008-04

Brazilian blogger Mataleone releases his own untooned Jessica Rabbit, becoming the first notable imitator.

2008-05

Pixeloo adds Stewie Griffin to the series; Australian design blog Masey publishes a roundup of Untoons.

2008-06

Pixeloo posts an untooned Nico Bellic from GTA IV; Worth1000 runs its 'Reality Cartoons 2' Photoshop contest in the same style.

2008-09-07

Gaming humor site Halolz features an untooned Kirby, carrying the format into the gaming blogosphere.

How to Use This Meme

Typical Untoons start with a 3D model or heavily warped base shape matching the cartoon's silhouette, then composite in photographed facial features (lips, eyes, skin texture, hair) from real people, with lighting and skin tone matched to the imagined scene1. A common convention is to keep one or two signature exaggerations, such as Mario's mustache, Homer's eyes, or Jessica Rabbit's hair volume, so the subject stays recognizable despite the humanization9.