"King", African Lion, King of the Pridelands
"We are all connected in the great Circle of Life."

i miss you every day king keep thotting it up in heaven. No but seriously Mufasa is one of the greatest Disney dads on Earth, and that's why it hurts so badly to see him die. We get maybe a third or fourth of the film's total runtime to get to know him and see how he interacts with his kid before he's brutally ripped away from him forever, and no amount of pixie dust or magic-infused tears will ever bring him back. My grownass sister refuses to watch TLK again because Muffy boy's death cuts her too deep. When I saw the remake in theaters, even though it sucked, my eyes still got a little misty when I heard one of a surprisingly few children in the audience go, "Wait, what happened to Simba's dad?" The Circle of Life as ideology only makes sense outside of human interpretation and as a vague philosophy, ngl, but Mufasa was lit.

As you can see, I'm a boring bitch and just made him kinda as you'd expect. The main distinction from his OG design is his two-toned mane, something that I personally find pretty regal on real lions, and the fact that he's pretty chunk compared to most other lions in his pride. Mufasa gotta have that dad bod, that's the only way he can be valid. Aside from that, I planned on giving him some very subtle, vague spots kinda like Simba's darkest markings, but I mostly ended up painting over them. Wah wah. Still a fun excuse to draw him.