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Description

EDIT 9/13/19: If you're curious as to why some of the character backstories and relationships don't match The Lion Guard, please check out my Lion Guard Fan Theory .

Iniko

Ref outdated. You can find the new one here

Amani

Name Meaning: Peace. Named in the hope that his birth would bring an era of peace to the Pride Lands following the chaos and heartbreak preceding it.

Sex: Male

Mother: Kiara

Father: Kovu

Siblings: Uzima (biological) and Iniko (adoptive)

Uncles (maternal): Kopa and Kion

Cousin: Iniko

Grandparents (maternal): Nala and Simba

Grandparents (paternal): Tahiya and Hasani

Personality: Shy, insecure, and reluctant to bring attention to himself, Amani is used to fading into the background. His lack of ability to speak means most lions don't know how to communicate with him, and even his parents sometimes have trouble understanding what he's trying to say. Part of his reluctance to draw attention to himself comes from the pain he always feels when he tries to communicate, only to be met with confusion. It became so frustrating and upsetting to him that he just stopped trying, and instead decided to remain safely passive and undemanding. The only one who seems to consistently understand Amani is his adoptive sibling, Iniko, who has learned to translate everything from paw and tail signals to simple expressions into a clear, understandable language. Iniko has tried teaching this to the rest of his family, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Iniko is one of the few lions Amani will let his guard down in front of, and really the only lion who knows just how much Amani wishes he could say.

Random Facts

Amani is completely mute (unable to speak).

Amani's mane is very similar to his grandfather, Simba's.

Amani has always been a bit smaller than your average male, and, like his grandfather, was very late in growing his mane.

Amani was the firstborn of Kiara and Kovu, and was originally destined to be king. However, when it was discovered that he was unable to speak, his parents decided to instead name Uzima future queen, believing this would make him unable to communicate with his subjects. Amani pretends this doesn't bother him, but it's secretly caused him a lot of heartache, which only Iniko seems to really understand.

Out of all the cubs, Amani is closest to his grandfather, Simba. Simba took the death of his mate hard, and would frequently isolate himself, forgetting to eat or even move for hours on end. He would simply lay on a crop of stone and stare silently out at the world. Amani took to finding his grandfather and laying beside him. Simba would be more alert when Amani was there, and more conscious of what he did, making it harder for him to pull into himself and become numb to the world. Simba may not be able to understand Amani the way Iniko does, but he loves him dearly and will sometimes tell him stories about the Great Kings of the past.

Uzima

Name Meaning: Full of life. Like her brother, she was named in the hope that new life would bring the Pride Lands out of the dark times preceding her birth.

Sex: Female

Mother: Kiara

Father: Kovu

Siblings: Amani (biological) and Iniko (adoptive)

Uncles (maternal): Kopa and Kion
Cousin: Iniko
Grandparents (maternal): Nala and Simba
Grandparents (paternal): Tahiya and Hasani
Personality: As a young cub Uzima was brimming with confidence. Energetic, outspoken, and, in her mind at least, very mature. She liked to think of herself as being above silly, childish games, and often scoffed at her siblings for their foolishness. She was fully prepared to take on the role of queen someday, and was not shy about bossing other cubs around. Only when she hit adolescence and a genetic defect caused her to grow a mane alongside her brothers did her confidence waver. She became very insecure about this, which was not helped by the fact that many of the lions outside her family (and Zahra in particular) teased her relentlessly about it. She began to wonder if she was never really meant to be leader after all, though she never shared this with anyone but her brother, Iniko. She keeps an authoritative, outspoken attitude, but it is now laced with an underlying fearfulness and insecurity that she did not have in her youth.

Random Facts

Maned lionesses like Uzima actually do occur in nature on rare occasions blog.nationalgeographic.org/20… .

When she first started growing her mane, other cubs teased her for looking like a male, so she tried pulling it out. Afterwards she was left with painful, scabby, hairless patches, and the cubs teased her for that too. Kiara ordered her daughter not to do it again, for fear that the wounds would become infected, and the mane soon grew back. When stressed she will still occasionally pull out tufts of mane, though not enough for it to be overly noticeable.

Uzima is one of only two female cubs of her generation born at Pride Rock (all the other cubs were male).

Uzima inherited the diamond marking on her forehead from her great, great grandmother, Uru.

Uzima idolizes her mother, dreaming that she might be a great queen like her someday. The two are very close, but the pedestal Uzima has her mother on can occasionally put a strain on their relationship.

Uzima is also very close with her great grandmother, Sarafina. She is the only one Uzima will occasionally confide in, and she's always willing to be a sympathetic, non-judgmental ear for her great granddaughter.

I was really tired of seeing all of these amazing Lion King artists open for commissions and never having a character for them to draw. So I finally got around to finishing these guys. I’ve been fighting off a nasty case of art block, so instead of drawing these from scratch I just redid some lines I made a couple of years ago fav.me/d8qh1jn. Fun fact, originally Iniko was going to be a side character and Amani (then called Reon) was going to be the main character. I changed my mind about that after falling in love with the way Iniko’s design was turning out.
Anyway, in my headcanon The Lion Guard series is seen through the lens of Kion’s childhood fantasy. So the magical roar, fighting off bad guys as a cub, and extreme importance of the Guard all comes from Kion playing pretend with his cubhood friends. That makes the whole thing easier to accept in the context of the TLK universe, and besides, who didn’t play games like that as a kid? There really is a Guard, but there’s no magic involved. It’s really more like a mix between forest rangers and a police force, where they patrol the Pridelands, settle minor disputes, and report news back to the king or queen. Plus, Kion doesn’t really begin to lead the Guard until he’s a young adult. I’m not sure yet if I want the characters from the series to be part of Kion’s real Lion Guard in this story, or if they all went their own way when they grew up and the Guard really is made up of other lions. For one, I think losing friends he had from cubhood would be more devastating, but at the same time I think losing members of the pride would have a nice domino effect on the story. I guess we’ll see.

Also keep in mind that the characters' grandparents (AKA Vitani and Kovu's parents) are based entirely on my own headcanons. I'm not trying to claim that it's official. I'm only saying that because I know someone's going to be like "That's not who so-and-so's parents are, it's obviously -insert random characters' names here-!!!!" Yeah, the TLK fandom gets a little intense, so I just wanted to cover my bases.

No critique desired. Please respect that.

The Lion King belongs to Disney

The art and characters belong to me, and you are not permitted to steal, trace, copy, reference, or otherwise redistribute it in any way. I also do not want to see this posted on RP sites, Facebook, YouTube, etc. without my permission. That's still art theft.

Description

EDIT 9/13/19: If you're curious as to why some of the character backstories and relationships don't match The Lion Guard, please check out my Lion Guard Fan Theory .

Iniko

Ref outdated. You can find the new one here

Amani

Name Meaning: Peace. Named in the hope that his birth would bring an era of peace to the Pride Lands following the chaos and heartbreak preceding it.

Sex: Male

Mother: Kiara

Father: Kovu

Siblings: Uzima (biological) and Iniko (adoptive)

Uncles (maternal): Kopa and Kion

Cousin: Iniko

Grandparents (maternal): Nala and Simba

Grandparents (paternal): Tahiya and Hasani

Personality: Shy, insecure, and reluctant to bring attention to himself, Amani is used to fading into the background. His lack of ability to speak means most lions don't know how to communicate with him, and even his parents sometimes have trouble understanding what he's trying to say. Part of his reluctance to draw attention to himself comes from the pain he always feels when he tries to communicate, only to be met with confusion. It became so frustrating and upsetting to him that he just stopped trying, and instead decided to remain safely passive and undemanding. The only one who seems to consistently understand Amani is his adoptive sibling, Iniko, who has learned to translate everything from paw and tail signals to simple expressions into a clear, understandable language. Iniko has tried teaching this to the rest of his family, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Iniko is one of the few lions Amani will let his guard down in front of, and really the only lion who knows just how much Amani wishes he could say.

Random Facts

Amani is completely mute (unable to speak).

Amani's mane is very similar to his grandfather, Simba's.

Amani has always been a bit smaller than your average male, and, like his grandfather, was very late in growing his mane.

Amani was the firstborn of Kiara and Kovu, and was originally destined to be king. However, when it was discovered that he was unable to speak, his parents decided to instead name Uzima future queen, believing this would make him unable to communicate with his subjects. Amani pretends this doesn't bother him, but it's secretly caused him a lot of heartache, which only Iniko seems to really understand.

Out of all the cubs, Amani is closest to his grandfather, Simba. Simba took the death of his mate hard, and would frequently isolate himself, forgetting to eat or even move for hours on end. He would simply lay on a crop of stone and stare silently out at the world. Amani took to finding his grandfather and laying beside him. Simba would be more alert when Amani was there, and more conscious of what he did, making it harder for him to pull into himself and become numb to the world. Simba may not be able to understand Amani the way Iniko does, but he loves him dearly and will sometimes tell him stories about the Great Kings of the past.

Uzima

Name Meaning: Full of life. Like her brother, she was named in the hope that new life would bring the Pride Lands out of the dark times preceding her birth.

Sex: Female

Mother: Kiara

Father: Kovu

Siblings: Amani (biological) and Iniko (adoptive)

Uncles (maternal): Kopa and Kion
Cousin: Iniko
Grandparents (maternal): Nala and Simba
Grandparents (paternal): Tahiya and Hasani
Personality: As a young cub Uzima was brimming with confidence. Energetic, outspoken, and, in her mind at least, very mature. She liked to think of herself as being above silly, childish games, and often scoffed at her siblings for their foolishness. She was fully prepared to take on the role of queen someday, and was not shy about bossing other cubs around. Only when she hit adolescence and a genetic defect caused her to grow a mane alongside her brothers did her confidence waver. She became very insecure about this, which was not helped by the fact that many of the lions outside her family (and Zahra in particular) teased her relentlessly about it. She began to wonder if she was never really meant to be leader after all, though she never shared this with anyone but her brother, Iniko. She keeps an authoritative, outspoken attitude, but it is now laced with an underlying fearfulness and insecurity that she did not have in her youth.

Random Facts

Maned lionesses like Uzima actually do occur in nature on rare occasions blog.nationalgeographic.org/20… .

When she first started growing her mane, other cubs teased her for looking like a male, so she tried pulling it out. Afterwards she was left with painful, scabby, hairless patches, and the cubs teased her for that too. Kiara ordered her daughter not to do it again, for fear that the wounds would become infected, and the mane soon grew back. When stressed she will still occasionally pull out tufts of mane, though not enough for it to be overly noticeable.

Uzima is one of only two female cubs of her generation born at Pride Rock (all the other cubs were male).

Uzima inherited the diamond marking on her forehead from her great, great grandmother, Uru.

Uzima idolizes her mother, dreaming that she might be a great queen like her someday. The two are very close, but the pedestal Uzima has her mother on can occasionally put a strain on their relationship.

Uzima is also very close with her great grandmother, Sarafina. She is the only one Uzima will occasionally confide in, and she's always willing to be a sympathetic, non-judgmental ear for her great granddaughter.

I was really tired of seeing all of these amazing Lion King artists open for commissions and never having a character for them to draw. So I finally got around to finishing these guys. I’ve been fighting off a nasty case of art block, so instead of drawing these from scratch I just redid some lines I made a couple of years ago fav.me/d8qh1jn. Fun fact, originally Iniko was going to be a side character and Amani (then called Reon) was going to be the main character. I changed my mind about that after falling in love with the way Iniko’s design was turning out.
Anyway, in my headcanon The Lion Guard series is seen through the lens of Kion’s childhood fantasy. So the magical roar, fighting off bad guys as a cub, and extreme importance of the Guard all comes from Kion playing pretend with his cubhood friends. That makes the whole thing easier to accept in the context of the TLK universe, and besides, who didn’t play games like that as a kid? There really is a Guard, but there’s no magic involved. It’s really more like a mix between forest rangers and a police force, where they patrol the Pridelands, settle minor disputes, and report news back to the king or queen. Plus, Kion doesn’t really begin to lead the Guard until he’s a young adult. I’m not sure yet if I want the characters from the series to be part of Kion’s real Lion Guard in this story, or if they all went their own way when they grew up and the Guard really is made up of other lions. For one, I think losing friends he had from cubhood would be more devastating, but at the same time I think losing members of the pride would have a nice domino effect on the story. I guess we’ll see.

Also keep in mind that the characters' grandparents (AKA Vitani and Kovu's parents) are based entirely on my own headcanons. I'm not trying to claim that it's official. I'm only saying that because I know someone's going to be like "That's not who so-and-so's parents are, it's obviously -insert random characters' names here-!!!!" Yeah, the TLK fandom gets a little intense, so I just wanted to cover my bases.

No critique desired. Please respect that.

The Lion King belongs to Disney

The art and characters belong to me, and you are not permitted to steal, trace, copy, reference, or otherwise redistribute it in any way. I also do not want to see this posted on RP sites, Facebook, YouTube, etc. without my permission. That's still art theft.