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Kiara Study

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:star: You may need to download it to read everything.

EDIT: I've noticed a small error. With the side by side base comparison, the last set, Simba/Kiara/Nala Movie 2 set... the hand written letters are incorrect on the color blobs. It should be S---K---N  for Simba, Kiara, Nala... I have it as SNK, which is wrong. Nala has that wonky pale color, not Kiara. Sorry for that ^_^;;;


I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and finally got around to it in the last week. It's to counter all the "Kiara is a Simba Clone! She doesn't look anything like Nala! Macaroni Color!!! There's NO WAY She could be Fluffy!" This takes both movie 1 and 2 into consideration.

COLORS BY SETTING
Colors are influenced by the settings around them. This is about color theory and the effects other colors have on main colors. Green and blue will cool a character's colors and dull them while reds and oranges will make them seem much richer and brighter. This is basic color theory 101 which they generally teach in you intro art classes so you can accurately portray the image you're drawing/painting. It also helps with creating shadows with the right colors. A green image will use reds for shadows to create contrast, same with using purple for yellows, and oranges for blues. Using darker shades of the same color will work, but it doesn't create the same depth.

Sunrises and Sunsets have a more intense gold or red wash over the characters, making them appear brighter. During the end of "We are One" Kiara is an intense, rich gold as the sun beams directly on her from its low position in the sky... but in the morning when she sneaks up on Kovu as an adult, she looks more orange due to lack of direct light hitting her and the reflection of the purple and pink clouds above her.
  
Midday leaves a more natural color closest to what they should be. However, it should be noted that midday tends to washout colors as well (but seeing how this is animated and not real life, they are the truest colors we have of them). Colors from their surroundings don't reflect as easily onto a character in midday.

Deep jungle or night will dull a character's coat and give them a more blue or green appearance. It is to be noted that we never see Simba's adult daylight colors. We only see his sun stained and jungle hued coat.

I don't know about the normal person, but Macaroni is yellow. Intense yellow.... like warning sign and sunny yellow. Kiara is a dull golden cream. The only time Macaroni looks a little orange is when it's on the front of a box and the colors are tweaked in photoshop. At least if you insult her colors... call her a wonky soft golden cream. Mufasa is closer to Macaroni.

That being said, Kiara is not bright gold like Simba was as a cub, nor is she the same, deep orange that Simba is movie 2 (nor as bright as Movie 1 Simba). Kiara's colors are more along the lines of Nala's movie 1 coloring. They have the same, peach like base. Sadly, Nala's colors were horribly distorted and make much more yellow than her original pelt, so she doesn't look much like her daughter or her original self, unlike Simba who is just darker with a purple tinted mane. Depending on the BG at the time, be it the sky, grass, Kovu's pelt... she looks more gold than she actually is. A darker BG will bring out the faint colors in her and a bright BG will dull them out, washing them away a bit.

One note - some of Kiara's tail colors are off because I couldn't get a shot of her tail in some of the images I used (due to gradation they are sometimes wonky colors... normally Kiara has brown or greyish brown) HOWEVER - in those cases.. I used her eyebrow color.

FLUFFY VS KIARA
Before I go into this, this is based on the fact that Kiara is a redesign of Fluffy. It has been published by Disney in a magazine that movie 2 starts exactly where Movie 1 left off (which was their original intention). It is a long known fact that Fluffy is genderless and was given no name at the end other than Fluffy. It is also a long standing fact that Kopa and his stories were made by a 3rd party and were given the rights to be published. Kiara did not replace Kopa because Kopa wasn't created by Disney, thus he does not exist in the movie universe. This does not mean Kopa doesn't exist, he simply does not fit, or was ever apart of movie 1 or movie 2. If there is a theory with Kopa in it where you try and squeeze him in with the movies, it is fanon. When you can find me concrete proof in the movies that Kopa is mentioned, or a published interview where Kopa is mentioned, then I will adjust my views accordingly. Until then, Kiara is Simba's first born, Kion is her younger brother and Simba's second cub in the official universe as stated by Disney. But that being said, feel free to love fanon, just know that I am working with official movie information ONLY for Kiara in this project.

Kiara has, since day one, been ousted by the fandom simply because of 3 things. Altered presentation time, color, and finally, the most important... the ear rims. 

The altered presentation is everyone's go to "It's obviously not Kiara at the end" argument. This, however, is the weakest argument. With such a big movie as the lion king, the creators knew that having the same opening as Simba's presentation, or even the same clips at the end of the first movie starting out for the new movie would be too confusing. It would be stale. And not only that, they needed to present Fluffy's new appearance. So like ALL the characters, the opening got a face lift and a new song. I didn't see people complaining about how it wasn't snowing as hard in Bambi 2 or the different placement of trees VS the original. What the creators of Simba's Pride DID keep, however, is the order of how Rafiki's monkey juice is put on the cub and lack of spots. At the Start of movie 1, Simba is blessed with the juice and then raised into the air. At the end, Rafiki brings Fluffy out and it is raised into the air... NO JUICE IS ON ITS FORHEAD. Fluffy also has NO SPOTS! This gives us the idea that Fluffy might be a bit older than Simba was when he was raised. That or the animators didn't reference the opening sequence of the movie and forgot Simba had no ear rims, juice on the head, and had cub spots. Probably the latter. Kiara has the juice put on after she's brought back down and has no spots. She has more in common with Fluffy.

Color should be the LAST thing people complain about. The movie takes place on the same day as where it ended, so although the theory of Simba and Nala being older makes sense, since they're not... it doesn't. Meaning their designs are altered because of a different set of animators. Simba should be bright orange with a rust colored mane and a longer, straighter muzzle- he's much more rounded and darker than he was with a purple mane. In fact, so is Nala. Nala's base color isn't even the same shade. She went from a dull orange-cream color with dull green eyes to a dull - yellow color with very bright blue eyes. Fluffy and Kiara's colors are just a bit off, Kiara being a bit duller. Other than that, there's only one difference.

The ear rims. They were taken off for one very obvious reason. If she had kept the ear rims, as a cub, she could have looked even more like Simba than people already accuse her of. After adding the ear rims to her original colors and hoping people just accept the animation studio doesn't use the same colors for the main cast, she looks IDENTICAL to fluffy. Identical. Little hair fluff and all. Seeing as Simba didn't have ear rims when he was presented, the fact that Fluffy does, does NOT automatically make it male. Sarabi and random movie 1 lionesses have ear rims, as does adult Vitani.

The orange spot on original Kiara was put there to show how I color matched her to Fluffy's overly sun stained orange pelt.

KIARA'S TRAITS

-Dull cream pelt with a faint gold hue (The shade lands in about the middle of her parents)
-Long, rounded eyes (Nala's eye shape and eyelashes)
-Brown Tail (Again, Nala)
-Red eyes (Mufasa- Simba's side)
-Gloved Toes (Simba, Sarabi, Mufasa)
-Neck Marking up to chin (Nala, Sarafina, Sarabi)
-Violet Nose (Nala, Sarafina, more intense on Nala in movie 2)
-No ear rim (Nala, Sarafina)
-Darker upper eyerims (Simba - though they are a bit lighter than her dad's)
-Lighter Lower eyerims
-Short, rounded muzzle (Simba Movie 2, Sarafina Movie 1)
-Cheeks (Nala, Sarabi)

Kiara does look a LOT like Nala. She has large ears and a small chin as well compared to her dad. I can never understand how people can say she's a Simba clone considering she shares so much of her appearance between BOTH parents. At first glance, she does look as though she might take more after Simba, but if you take some time, you can see both reflected in her.

BASE PELT AND BLENDING
By blending JUST Simba and Nala (movie 2 colors only) I found that although I couldn't get a direct match, I got about the same shade of her daylight colors. Nala's yellow pelt made it harder to get a proper match. However, by blending everyone's colors a bit (minus Simba's movie 2 colors) I was able to almost perfectly match Kiara's colors to the blend mess. (This is how I blend my characters for those of you who are curious). I find a lot of Kiara's color hate resides in her overly saturated grey muzzle and intense purple nose. By fixing those two things to a bit warmer set of colors, her colors are actually quite nice.

Kiara's colors really don't change much from cub to young adult. I believe that to be because she's still quite young, thus ends up keeping her cub pelt. Kovu, who is a bit older than her, has already started to change, even if he is purple. But even Kovu is still younger than Simba was at the end of movie 1 by how his mane only covers some of his chest. Nuka, who is older, has a thin scraggly mane and it covers all his chest, meaning that Kovu is not full grown, meaning Kiara definitely is not full grown yet. Her colors most likely reflect her cub colors, so to the left I estimated based on Simaba and Nala's changes in movie one between their cub and adult colors... what Kiara's adult colors would probably be.

As you can see with the side by side base pelt comparison, Kiara's colors are extremely close to Nala's. Especially that last set of Cub colors, in which they're just a shade off from one another. Even in movie 2, Kiara's colors register around the same area as Nala's even if Kiara is more around the orange area and Nala is more towards yellow.

 
I took Nala's movie 1, 2 and Kiara's colors and put them next to the same color... only I dragged the color chooser to the far top right corner (where you should avoid when you're creating an OC, noobies) to show you the richest form of their colors. Nala's movie 1 colors are more reddish orange while movie 2 are very yellow hence why she looks as if she's been dipped in bleach.


Ok I'm tired~ I hope it gives some of you a new look on Kiara's design. And remember, you can always adjust her colors to what you feel fit her better. I probably missed a lot so if need be I'll update it.

The screenshots used were for an educational study purpose only. I make no claim to them, as they are (c) by Disney
Kiara, the Lion King 1 &2, and the screenshots used (c) Disney

Art (c) Anyahs
Image size
5400x4200px 6.41 MB
© 2015 - 2024 Anyahs
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Warrior-SpaceRanger's avatar

Hi! umm i was wondering if i could make the diff colours of Kiara, and any others, for one point per cat? i need some points....