This is my first drawing of a character from Disney's The Lion King. I originally hadn't even planned to ever draw any Lion King characters- my original intent was to look at the Lion King "style" in order to create a cartoon character of the mountain lion I had drawn a few days previously. I decided the best way to pick up the Lion King style however was to actually draw a few of it's characters, so I started to look up pics of the adult Nala who most closely resembled the original character I wanted to design. While browsing through Lion King fan sites and screen-shot galleries however, I discovered that Nala was an interesting character to learn to draw in her own right. She has a lot of interesting facial gestures and a personality that is fun to put on paper.
The Lion King is the most successful animated feature in the box office ever. It really is an exceptional piece of work. Everything from it's character design to it's voice acting to it's backgrounds are incredible. I admit it had been years since I'd seen the movie, and I really had forgotten how great the movie really was. Also interwoven throughout the film are several adult ideas- from goose-stepping fascist Hyenas to the most racy romantic encounter ever shown in a Disney film. I mean just watch the love scene from this movie and compare it to other animated Disney films: Prince Charming never got this steamy with Snow White, Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty! Looking back, it's amazing that The Lion King didn't get a PG rating like the other more "mature" Disney cartoons The Black Cauldren and Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
The rough pencil work was done on 80lb. medium surface Strathmore drawing paper with a .05mm mechanical pencil loaded with 5H lead. The pencil lines were darkened with 2B lead. The result was darkened and cleaned up with Paint Shop Pro 3 and printed on fax/copy paper. The printout was colored with Crayola and Sanford Prismacolor colored pencils and the inking was done with a Pigma Micron 05 pen. The lettering was done with Paint Shop Pro 7.02.
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