The Lion King Fan-Art Archive

09:14 Sun 9/13/2009

Adult Simba is perhaps one of the hardest lion characters to draw on Disney-model. Thus I have often referred back to the Holy Grail for a fanartist - design notes by the lead animators. Adult Simba has both a head construction and turnaround online - incredibly valuable. A couple of partials exist for Adult Kovu and Cub Kiara, but nothing like this.

The originals are sketchy and hard to read, so I've decided to enhance them so that others can more easily use them for reference. This is the head construction sheet; I plan on doing the turnaround as well. The specific notes point out so many common mistakes--many of which I have committed!--when drawing Simba. Hope it's helpful!

Original Sheet:
SimbaHeadModel

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06:53 Tue 8/11/2009

Two more characters from the "Simba's Pride Active Play" game. These appeared as mother lionesses in the cub-matching levels.

Now my take on them. The one on the right I called Paka, meaning "cat", because the designs for these two remind me of the kitten Marie from Disney's Aristocats: upturned fluffy cheeks, no color around eyes, pink noses, etc. The one on the left I named Pacha, meaning "twin". In my version of canon, they are twins, a little younger than Simba's age.

Virtual brownie points for anyone who guesses the semi-canon character I am going to use for their father. ^^

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09:47 Fri 7/10/2009

A brief introduction to all the new OCs I added into my family tree. I'll probably upload separate sheets for them eventually.

Most of them were made in conjunction with a couple of my WIP projects. Dhalimu, for example, has been designed for over a year. I work very slowly XD but many of the parts are starting to come together, which makes me happy. ^^

Side note: Afua is not actually an OC, but rather semi-canon as he appeared in TLK6NA. I just made this design for him and guessed at who his parents could be, that's all. Not sure if I'll be keeping it yet.

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07:41 Wed 5/27/2009

So I was reading this German comic called "The Talking Tree" when I noticed this small, strangely colored lion cub in one of the panels. I drew him in Sketcher and gave him a name, Panya, which means "mouse" in Swahili.

His tail tuft is not shown in the pic so I'm trying to decide what color his mane should be...not an easy task with the combination he already has. The one on the far right is the one I started with, but I like the others too. Which one do you guys like the best?

Tigre also noted in Sketcher that Panya seems to have a little rodent buddy and a medium-sized hooved friend in the picture. Much like another lion cub we know...

Comic:
The%20Talking%20Tree/

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03:34 Tue 3/24/2009

Color sheet #2! Cub Simba.

Because Simba has like twice as much screen time as Nala, I had more scenes to choose from. It was easiest to just split the sheets up into cub and adult. The adult Simba one is coming next.

Feel free to use these colors if you want. :) Screenshots still courtesy of MyLK.

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06:37 Sun 3/22/2009

Playing with my Ahadi design a bit. There's this one really great concept piece of Scar that I like, and this is sort of a blend of it and my previous Ahadi design. I don't know if I'll be using it or not yet.

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05:38 Thu 3/12/2009

On my TLK family tree, Akril pointed me to characters in a German comic I hadn't seen before: "An Unusual Choir." So I dug it up and it's filled with the most clones I have ever seen, even a Mufasa clone!

There are efforts in the comic to alter them so that none look quite like the canon chars. The Mufasa/Sarabi clone couple (Simba's uncle and aunt, according to the comic) are quite fuzzy. The cubs differ in gender (whiskers), ears, paw or belly color.

I ended up with 6 cubs plus the rest. Haven't sorted out relations yet, but I did give names for fun. For the sake of simplicity I think these are the same once-small cubs from the "Royal Duties" comic, and that this is a separate pride that Mufasa's pride visits now and then.

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23:23 Tue 3/10/2009

I've been working on this on and off, and Lil Cheetah's recent upload of a bunch of Simbas reminded me that I should probably upload this sometime. XD

If there has been one TLK character whose colors have annoyed me the most (don't get me started on the SP crowd), it has been Nala. So finally I just decided to gather samples of all her colors. I took 20 different screenshots, from every scene she appears in, and collected colors. Black gaps mean I wasn't able to get a good sample. (Screenshots courtesy of MyLK.)

Of these, the palettes I use most for Nala's daytime colors are the ones at either ends. I've noticed many people use jungle colors for adult Nala, which are more saturated and darker than the final daylight scene.

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04:20 Thu 2/19/2009

Quick little Sketcher portrait of Tama (a character from a comic) because I'm procrastinating. :P

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08:26 Wed 2/4/2009

These two appear in a German TLK comic called "Dirty Cub" (where Simba finds a giraffe stuck in the ground). I searched the site, and only found one pic of them, by Vekke in 2006. Does anyone know of other pics?

Anyway, they'll be sisters in my subcanon, related to Sarabi in a way I haven't figured out yet. I loved the names that Vekke had created for them, so I'd like to use those (give all credit to her, though!). I am altering "Chafua" to "Chafu", simply because I don't want that to get confused with "Afua" who is entirely different. So this is Tibuka and Chafu!

Vekke's pic: piccomments.cgi?Vekke+TibukaChafua.jpg

Comic page: Dirtycub2.jpg

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12:33 Fri 12/19/2008

Playing with my Mheetu design and colors. He reflects his daddy a lot more as an adult now. His nose is also pink rather than gray which strays from the concept sketches a bit but works better with Mheetu's color scheme.

The drawing of him younger is between baby and cub age, hence the spots, etc. I also put in Nala for color comparison (my Mheetu is a white lion). :)

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08:16 Mon 12/15/2008

Hurray! I have finalized my most recent design for Uru, mother of Mufasa and Scar.

--She strongly resembles Mohatu, with the heavier build, Pridelander features, etc. so it's obvious Mufasa got mostly her genes (plus the big nose).

--While I love the idea of Hellion's Uru and her birthmark, I didn't want it to be so vivid. So I'm running with the notion that Uru's "diamond" is actually just an unusually shortened form of Zira's head stripe. It helps explain why her parents named her so (Uru means "diamond"). Hard to see in this pic.

--She also has outlander-style cheeks, which is a new addition to my design that I probably will keep.

--The thin ear rims may go; but I like them and they've been on my Uru design from day one.

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00:53 Wed 7/16/2008

Hurray--I made a ref sheet for the "other" Nuka, the one found on the beanie tag, as he is a separate character from the SP Nuka in my version of canon. According to moi, this is SP Nuka's uncle, Zira's brother, and SP Nuka is named after him.

piccomments.cgi?Koraden+NukasAGoodName.jpg

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21:14 Wed 4/16/2008

And here is Tama's sheet. ^^

Trying out a couple new poses. Also used a more refined sketchy-style on Tama's adult pic and I really like the result, so you may see that more in the future.

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05:49 Fri 4/11/2008

Sheet for Nala--difficult because of how her design changes. Her SP colors/version is not depicted on this sheet, although screencaps are provided.

Some neat name info:
Nala does NOT mean "Gift" in Swahili. TLK created this myth. It is unknown if the name was picked and then incorrectly translated after it was chosen, or if the original selection of "Nala" was based on faulty info. Nala, ironically, is a form of the verb Kula, and means "I eat" in Swahili.

Nala is also said to mean "Luck" in Zulu. This too may be incorrect; no sources I know can confirm this. In Zulu "Nala" can be a verb tense of "Deny". Nala DOES mean "Prosperity" in Sesotho, a language spoken in S. Africa, which may be the source of the "Luck" derivation.

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06:20 Fri 3/7/2008

Finalized my design for Mheetu! Spots/tail are because he's between infant and cub stage.

I haven't decided if in my version of canon he is 1)a runty littermate of Nala's 2)a younger brother to Nala 3)a half-brother to Nala from the same father.

I'm also running with the idea that he is a white lion. If two normal parents carry the right recessive gene, they can have a white-colored cub. It's not albinism, instead like white-blond hair in humans: it happens, but not very often. I thought it would be cute for Mheetu.

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04:37 Wed 2/27/2008

I am working on a revamp of my canon sheets at the moment; I compared the one I did for Joka to some of my older ones and cringed. XD So here is Kula again, complete with color wheel, cub/adult stages, character information, and the only existing canon picture of her.

Kula is one of Nala's friends, who happens to have a healthy appetite. My personal opinion is that she is a sister to Chumvi, whose sheet is coming next. First appears in The Lion King: Six New Adventures in the story "Nala's Dare."

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07:56 Wed 2/20/2008

Gasp--a canon sheet!

Anyway, he needs to be drawn more around here. "King Joe" appears in just one comic, but he's a fun character. He lies to Simba in order to get food because he's starving, telling him he's a great ancestor. Zazu finds out and nearly gets Joe's cover blown so the trickster splits. But when Simba runs into some trouble, the rogue comes back to save him. Sneaky but good-hearted guy.

I call him Joka (big snake), just so he has a "real" name. That's my own cub design as well.

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00:17 Sat 4/7/2007

Tojo's mother, from the "Orphaned Birds" comic.

She only appears once, in the very last frame, and is not named. But I figured I might as well make a sheet for her.

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23:47 Fri 4/6/2007

Malka's mother, from the "Simba's New Brother" comic. Comes looking for Malka after he gets lost. She doesn't have tufted ears like him, so he might have got them from his father's side.

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23:21 Fri 4/6/2007

"Mega" from TLK6NA: Vulture Shock

Described as "an old lion with a full mane" who has only one line of dialogue. I've decided to make him the father of Sabini and Sarabi.

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22:53 Fri 4/6/2007

"Boga" from TLK6NA: Vulture Shock

Female cub shown in the illustration with Babu and Sabini. Sabini's daughter in my alterno-canon.

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22:37 Fri 4/6/2007

"Babu" from TLK6NA: Vulture Shock

Shown in the same illustration as Sabini. Babu is male. To my thinking, he is Sabini's son.

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22:20 Fri 4/6/2007

"Sabini" from TLK6NA: Vulture Shock

This lioness is shown in one illustration in the book. She has a strong resemblance to Sarabi, so in my alterno-canon I'm casting her as Sarabi's younger sister. Sarabi...Sabini...makes sense, don't you think?

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07:14 Fri 4/6/2007

Last of the taunting trio from "Shooting Star".

This guy seemed to have fewer continuity issues, and was the easiest to do. The eye and tail tuft colors I made up. He is skinnier than the other cubs, including Simba, and seems to be a good deal scruffier. In fact, he seems to resemble a much younger Scar.

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06:55 Fri 4/6/2007

Second of the unnamed trio that tease Simba in the "Shooting Star" comic.

Again, there were plenty of discrepancies between comic panels. I believe this one is female, because she is shown without whiskers in every panel but one. I chose to have her lighter fur extending up her neck, but the comic was about 50-50 with her only having it on her belly. I chose the neck because that seems to be more common for canon lionesses than lions when they are cubs. I'm thinking of a name for her, too.

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04:11 Fri 4/6/2007

This cub is unnamed, but he is the leader of the trio of cubs who torment Simba in the comic "Shooting Star".

He and the other two teasing cubs' designs change from frame to frame, but I've tried to take the greatest common factor. His ear rims are twice shown as black, like Simba's, and at one point his yellowish belly fur extends up his neck like Nala's. But I have chosen no ear rims and only belly fur as that occurred more frequently. In addition, he has whiskers in nearly all the panels and thus I believe he is male.

I have not given him a name yet, but I'm going to think about it.

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03:39 Fri 4/6/2007

"Leo" from TLK6NA: Vulture Shock. He is drawn twice in the book, although never specifically identified as the Leo who has dialogue. He laughs at Kopa who asks where to find his family tree. Leo is a mature lion whose age is really indeterminate, for he does have a fuller mane than Simba in the comic, which could indicate he is older. However, no mention is made of his origins and when he joined or was born into the pride.

My personal opinion is that he is somehow related to Sarafina and Nala, due to his light coloring that is reminiscent of early concept art of Mheetu, Nala's younger brother. I think that he is either Sarafina's brother or her son. That would be a reason why he is allowed by Simba to be part of the pride.

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03:09 Fri 4/6/2007

"Tojo" from a comic about little orphaned birds. He helps Simba take care of them during a time when Tojo's leg is hurt. His hair tuft is fluffier than Simba's and he is also of darker coloring.

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00:10 Mon 3/12/2007

Wow, I haven't done one of these in a while! Anyway, this is my interpretation of Ahadi, father of Mufasa and Scar, from TLK6NA: "A Tale of Two Brothers". The book describes him as having "a long black mane and bright green eyes", but the artist's interpretation put him as a Mufasa clone. See here: TwoBrothers.png .

My version of Ahadi is that he's actually one of the "outsider" subspecies and that his mate, Uru, was a pridelander, daughter of the king Mohatu (from the book "The Brightest Star"). Scar takes mostly after his father, Mufasa after his mother's side.

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19:52 Mon 11/6/2006

"Kopa" from The Lion King: Six New Adventures books and possibly the end of TLK. Simba and Nala's son, who is basically a Simba clone with a hairtuft. Very curious--most of the book series is about him learning morals through stories told by other characters.

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22:16 Thu 10/26/2006

"Chumvi" from TLK6NA: Nala's Dare. Another of Nala's friends, an annoying guy who dares her to talk to Ni. I think he's Kula's brother, but that's just a personal opinion.

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22:14 Thu 10/26/2006

"Kula" from TLK6NA: Nala's Dare. One of Nala's friends, who has a healthy appetite.

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22:11 Thu 10/26/2006

"Ni" from "The Lion King: Six New Adventures" series, "Nala's Dare". After Scar takes over the pride, Nala and her friends notice him wandering in the Pridelands, and she is dared to go and talk to him. He's a rogue lion.

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