Fan Art Fools Twitter Users Into Thinking Dora The Explorer Is Getting Drastic Redesign

Twitter users were aghast at a supposed redesign of children's cartoon character Dora the Explorer that went viral yesterday. Luckily for them, the "redesign" was just a piece of fan art.

what the fuck did they do to my gal Dora and why pic.twitter.com/tXwWAKHzBy

— mollie (@mollie_tv) May 24, 2021

dora looks like shes just done about 10 lines with boots and the map shes on another plane of existence pic.twitter.com/ktfcogYOx4

— zahrah🌿🍓 (@zahrah_m19) May 24, 2021

The Dora figure, which admittedly looks like a cross between a Dreamworks character and Troll doll, was created by Indonesian artist Dimas Vian, a 3D artist from Indonesia. The hoax was caught by The Cartoon Crave.

"Dora" is currently trending on twitter due to people mistaking fan artwork for a new version of the series.

Art:https://t.co/EeVfQMaj55 pic.twitter.com/g5RVjt9EVH

— Cartoon Crave (@thecartooncrave) May 24, 2021

The whole ordeal turned out to be quite the shock for Vian as well: the Daily Dot reached out to him for an interview, and he had no idea he was trending. "OMG, why now? Why not three years ago? LOL."

Vian admitted his skills have come a long way since his Dora rendering in 2018. "Every artist knows that feeling," he wrote. "When you see your old work, you’ll say, 'What on Earth is it?'"

So, while there has certainly been a bevy of unpopular redesigns of popular characters in the past few years, the only 3D Dora is the human one seen in Dora and the Lost City of Gold.