Week Nine: Lion King Time

There's no point in hiding it: I love the Lion King.  I think it's an awesome movie, probably my favourite movie of all time.  I've certainly watched it more than anything else.  I still have most of the script memorized.  When I first started this drawing challenge, I knew I'd be drawing cartoon lions a lot.  This week, it's the only thing I've been drawing.  I think it worked out.

Here we have two young Simbas and a Nala.  We already met Nala during my Month In Review a few days ago, and I think she's beautiful.  I now realize that my reference picture has a slant that my version completely ignores, but it doesn't tarnish my work at all.  The two others were drawn from tutorials found here and here.  (Nala is completely my own work, only a reference)  All three are decent: you can clearly tell who each is supposed to be.

Now, you may be wondering why only half the page is drawn on.  If not, I'll give you a moment to start wondering.  Moment over.  I decided I wanted to draw this:

Without doubt, this is from my favourite scene in the movie.  For those who haven't watched TLK in awhile, this is the Can You Feel The Love Tonight sequence.  Now, I wanted to draw the entire image, not just Nala.  Without the water or the reflection or the ripples or the rocky edge, much of the magic is spoiled.  I needed a full page.  I present you my finished work.

I'm biased: I absolutely love it.  This is my first composition, the first time I've drawn a complete scene, not just a hand or a body or a pose.  It took somewhere between 5-8 hours.  It's likely closer to eight, but that seems a long time.  I started Tuesday, working about an hour each day.  Where did the time go?  I spent maybe 45min to sketch the basic outlines, and evidently the last seven or so hours were various forms of shading.  Hey, I never said I was fast.  (Incidently, that's way more than just 20min a day!)

The background is black night instead of the jungle flora.  Mostly, I didn't think I could make the jungle plants stand out with only shades of grey.  I also think the black makes everything else stand out more.  The other part of the background, the rocks, came out quite nice.

I have several scans of this drawing as a Work in Progress (WIP), which I'll upload later, as well as more of my thoughts on this creation.  My first composition!  I'm so proud.