- Hi everyone, I'm Brian,
and I'm a character artist here
at The Animation Experience at Conservation Station.
That's inside Rafiki's Planet Watch,
at Disney's Animal Kingdom Park in Florida.
Here, you'll learn about some of the animals
who call our park home,
learn how live animals have inspired characters
from some of your favorite Disney movies,
and get to create a personalized piece of Disney art
through an instructor-led animation class.
I'll be your instructor here on the Disney Parks Blog.
So, who to draw?
From the day Disney's Animal Kingdom arrived on the planet,
"The Lion King" has been part of the park.
Right now, we've got the Hakuna Matata Time Dance Party.
The Tree of Life Awakens at night with projections
showing Simba's journey in a beautiful artistic style.
And everyone loves
the "Festival of the Lion King" live stage show.
So, today, as a tribute
to our 1994 animated classic "The Lion King,"
we're gonna draw our young lion hero, Simba.
Here at the Animation Station,
we help you get started with the basic head shape
and guidelines already on the paper.
Since you're not here to draw with me,
you can download that image
at the Learn to Draw Simba page on DisneyParksBlog.com.
We're gonna start with a circle.
We're gonna find these two guidelines,
they're gonna be about the third guideline from the top,
and we're going to start a circle,
which is gonna be right in between these guidelines.
The circle is going to lean, kind of lined up
with the top of this guideline right up here.
(upbeat guitar music)
And you can darken it as you go
because it's a lot easier to darken a circle,
if you're already in the process of making it.
Then we're gonna go over to the same spot on the other side,
and draw another circle.
I'm gonna try to draw Simba pretty symmetrical.
All right, then just inside of that circle
we're gonna draw another smaller circle,
just inside of that.
Creating the pupil and the iris around it.
I tend to hold my pencil
kind of weird for most people.
But, just hold it however feels best for you.
Inside the pupil,
we're going to draw
a little glimmer of light.
The light reflecting off of the pupil.
Lions have great eyesight,
they do all their hunting at night.
It's the female lions that do all the hunting.
All right, while we're in there you can go ahead
and use the side of your pencil like a paintbrush,
and shade in that pupil around the glimmer of light.
It's a lot easier to shade with the side of your pencil,
rather than the tip.
The tip will just take you forever,
and you tend to break your pencil a lot faster as well.
So, we wanna see the whites of the eyes,
and so for that,
I'm just gonna follow the curve of the circle.
I'ma go just above that guideline.
And then curve around, towards the bottom of the circle,
creating the white of the eyes.
Little bit of space around there.
So, same thing on the other side.
And you can just go ahead and darken that as you go as well,
once you find the line that you like.
You wanna thicken up the top curve of the eye.
He's got these thick eyelids.
And so we're just gonna pull
kind of a little bit of an angle, like eyelashes,
up towards the top, and then thicken up the top curve.
We're going to draw his tear ducts next,
and this gonna be kind of a letter V shape,
coming down from the side of the eye.
Lions have a lot of darkness around their eyes.
We're gonna create these little points,
and then fill those in.
Same thing on both sides.
Now, let's draw the arches above Simba's eyes.
So we're gonna start from
that corner little letter V shape that we created,
and we're gonna draw an arch,
Like the Gateway Arch, or St. Louis Arch.
It's gonna curve up to the guideline right up here.
And then curve very close to the side of the circle,
and stop across from
kinda where we angle in on the eye right here.
Keep your lines nice and light to start,
always draw your lines nice and light to start.
Do the same thing on the other side.
Stay very close to the inside of that circle,
and then stop just right across in the middle of that eye.
Then we're gonna connect the eye to that line
by just drawing a curve that'll run right into that eye.
All right, now as we darken the lines for that arch,
we're gonna him eyebrows.
And the eyebrows we just wanna thicken up,
top curve out a little bit of fur up there,
and just add a lot of thickness.
Thick eyebrows.
Same thing on this side,
we can add a couple more little pointed juts on that side,
doesn't need to be completely symmetrical.
Lions have pads under their eyes,
it helps reflect the moonlight.
And so we're just gonna stay just below the eye,
and run back into that little tear duct shape right there.
Same thing on both sides.
Just kind of an angle down to that guideline,
and then connect it all together.
Do those dark, once you get a shape that you like.
Starting to look a little bit more like Simba.
Now that we've got the eyes down pretty well,
we're gonna move on to Simba's nose.
So, I'm gonna start just at the bottom of the arch shape,
where the tear duct meets,
and I'm just gonna draw a very light curve.
Gonna be lined up with the side of the eye,
down to this longer guideline right here towards the bottom.
I'm gonna drag a line across the top to create wrinkles.
It's just gonna run down to the center guideline,
and then another one right above it.
That one you can run through that guideline.
Creates these little wrinkles that'll be above the nose.
On the right side, I'm gonna start in the same spot,
but I'm going to start just above it,
and draw it curving out, that way he's not,
his nose won't be that symmetrical.
It should still be lined up to the inside of the eye.
Then we're gonna draw kind of a stretched out curvy U shape,
it's gonna start from this line and go to this line,
run down to this little notch guideline down there.
Now we're gonna turn that into a boomerang shape.
If you've forgotten how to draw a boomerang,
don't worry, it'll come back to ya.
So we're gonna start right up here,
it'll hit that guideline,
curve down to about half way between this line and this line
and run back up, so you'll get this little boomerang shape.
All right, we kind of go back over those lines
if you haven't already.
Make them a little bit more solid.
You definitely need to throw some nostrils in there,
that's gonna help him, you know, smell.
A little hook shape in there, a little fisherman's hook,
kinda creating a sesame seed shape at the bottom.
You can darken those as you go,
once you get some shapes that you like.
And then we're going to fill those in.
All right, we're done with the nose,
now we're moving on to the mouth.
So we're gonna start by drawing just a short little line
that's going to between the nose and the circle.
Slowly just going to stop right in the middle right there.
Now we're gonna curves for his cheeks,
that'll start way back up here by the tear duct
where it touches his nose.
And then we're gonna draw a little curve
which'll run down to the guideline,
and then we're gonna curve it out to the side of the circle.
Darken that as you go.
On the right side, you can change it up a little bit,
and kinda make it a little bit more of a smirk
by creating this kinda bent S curve.
Now between this guideline and the side of the circle
we're gonna find the halfway point on this.
This'll be the corner of his mouth, and like his dimple.
And I'm gonna draw,
just gonna end up looking like a letter W.
Just gonna run down to the bottom of the circle right there,
and there, same place on the other side.
And then we're gonna come to a rounded off point,
and run into that mark that you made,
creating kind of a stretched out letter W.
You can go back over those lines, if you haven't already.
Refine them.
And then we're gonna move into the chin.
For the chin we start from the corner of the mouth,
and then just gonna run down to this bottom guideline,
the outside of the circle.
Same thing on this side, run down to the bottom guideline.
Then we can kinda very lightly curve off the bottom,
creating a big U shape.
Now when we darken this we want to add fur to it.
So we're just gonna follow the shape,
and just gonna add these little pieces of fur,
these little juts of fur sticking out.
Not too much, just a little bit towards the bottom.
And you can really do this however you want,
make it as fluffy as you want,
make him nice and fluffy.
Next, we want to draw Simba's ears.
So we're gonna find the half way point
between this top guideline right here,
and the second guideline right here
on the outside of our circle.
His ears are shaped like mug handles.
So I'm going to start right in there,
I'm gonna run to the top of that guideline,
I'm gonna curve out,
and down to to bottom guideline right here, this one.
And then curve back up slightly.
Just gonna get this big mug handle shape,
do the same thing on the other side,
big mug handle shape.
All right now it has these curves, these folds in his ears,
and we're gonna do S curves for those.
And we start just across from this line by the eye,
just on the outside of the circle.
We're gonna curve up and down, creating an S curve,
almost like a question mark shape.
And the same thing on this side.
He has a little tuft of fur on the inside of his ears,
and so we're just gonna draw the same curve
as the outside mug handle shape, just on the inside,
very lightly.
Now before we darken any of those lines,
we wanna work on the cheeks.
So I'm gonna start from
below this fold in the ear right there,
and just very lightly I'm just gonna draw a little curve
leaving the side of the circle,
and then angling back in,
and running down into the cheek.
Just very lightly.
So we're gonna do the same thing on this side,
and then curving down to the chin,
and just his jawline very lightly.
Now that we have that in place,
we know that we don't want to darken any of the lines
that are going through the cheeks.
So we can actually start to go back over the ear,
and once we get near the bottom
we can add just a little piece of fur.
Just to make him look especially fluffy.
Add a couple of juts of fur on this side,
and then we can get that inside curve to the ear.
Now for this little different color tuft of fur
on the inside of the ear,
we wanna just make that very fluffy,
so we wanna add lots of little juts of fur
all the way around.
And he has hairs on the inside of his ears,
so you're really just gonna make three hairs.
All right, then we wanna add fur to the cheeks.
So we just follow this curve, add some little pieces of fur,
and then run down to the chin.
Same thing on this side.
You can always add a little bit more on either side,
maybe he slept on his face wrong
and one side is smooth, the other side is really fluffy?
You never know.
And then this area of the ear is darker,
so you can use the side of your pencil and fill that in.
Always want to try to shade in the shame direction.
To finish up our Simba,
we just have to finish up the top of his head.
So I'm gonna start just inside the ear,
and start to trace back over the circle.
Now once I get towards the top,
we're just gonna pull some little pieces of fur out.
Be really, really loose with it.
Give him a little tuft of fur on the top of his head.
And then just go back over some of those lines,
and finish up this side of the circle.
Now something's missing, it's very subtle,
but it's his whiskers.
So let's add the whiskers in there.
We're gonna start just inside the face over here,
and throw four whiskers off this side, some lines,
and he actually only has three on this side.
All right, so the last thing you want to do
is always sign your drawing.
That shows whose masterpiece this is.
Just so you remember when you drew it,
always throw the date on there too.
So you can look back as you progress,
and see how you've improved with every drawing.
And there you go, you just drew Simba
from the 1994 animated masterpiece, "The Lion King".
And if you make it here to Walt Disney World in Florida,
come see me and the other amazing character artists
here at The Animation Experience at Conservation Station.
Maybe, we'll teach you to draw
one of your favorite characters.
(upbeat guitar music)