This was done back in...um...1995? Something like that, since I never wrote the date of it on the back of the photo. And by that time, The Lion King was either available for video rental or coming out soon.

When I was in high school, my after-school job was to work at a pharmacy. Later on, around Christmas time, I would paint a Christmas scene on the store front window.

After a year or two, the owner of the video store that was in the same plaza as the pharmacy came into the pharmacy and asked me if I could do his windows too, and I did :) He wanted something on the window that would be easily recognizable by everyone, as well as it being popular on video.

So I painted Simba with a Santa hat. It took me FOREVER if I remember right. For one thing, I'm horrible at drawing something without a character construction (ex. penciling it in first before inking it). After drawing it out freehand with the black ink, I used up most of my tempera paints mixing the right colour for the main fur. I think it took about 2 days just to do Simba (because I was working on it during a weekend, and once it started getting dark, I had to stop because I couldn't see the black outlines then).

He wanted something for the other window too, and originally I was going to do Nala, but I ran out of the brown/tan paint. So I just did Snoopy, sliding down a snowy hill (this photo was taken before I had added that spray-on snow), as kind of a homeage to when I first learned how to draw; Snoopy was the first thing I ever learned how to draw, back when I was an ankle-biter ;)

Looking back at it, I'm all "OMG!! OLD ART!!!" but at the sametime, I kinda smile back at it...it was fun doing that :) I almost hated it see it be washed off after Christmas. I also thought I had more photos of my store-front paintings, but I haven't found them yet...or maybe they've gotten lost somewhere. But I figured I'd share this one with you guys :)

Simba © Disney
Snoopy © Charles M. Schultz