by DGFone » February 10th, 2014, 5:23 am
I think it comes down to a simple fact that the artists on the SP team didn't have the experience of drawing lions as much as the original team, nor the time and money to really get the hang of it. They had to get to a "good enough" state on a TV movie budget and go with that compared to the TLK team, which had:
A lot more money and time to get practice in.
Actual lions in the studio to look at and draw. This is a much better tool compared to still photos or even footage taken of lions.
The lack of a previous movie to copy the art style of.
Not only did the SP team have less resources, they also needed to make sure that SP looked acceptable to the TLK crowd. At the same time, I think they wanted to make both Simba and Nala look older, hence the fuller mane and general bulkiness of the characters.