Protect your model by covering her shoulders with a towel or smock and tying back longer hair from her face. Cleanse the model's face with a damp tissue or babywipe.
Apply gold or yellow face paint with the makeup sponge to your model's entire face, except for a circular area surrounding the eyes and the space between the lips and the nose.
Cover the circular area around the eyes using the makeup sponge with pale yellow paint.
Add rust-brown or similar face paint using the sponge to give the face more dimension. Blend this paint in to the sides of the nose, cheeks and cheekbones, temples and sides of the forehead.
Fill in the blank space between the nose and lips using your sponge with the white face paint to create the lion's muzzle. Extend this area slightly beyond the corners of the lips about 1/2 inch to 1 inch depending on the size of your model's face.
Use the face-painting brush and black paint to make the details of the nose and muzzle. Paint a black line underneath the nose and to the sides of the nostrils and a line from the center of the nose to the top of the lip. Paint the upper lip black for the lion's mouth, and at the corners of the mouth, paint inward-facing half-circles to show the outer sides of the muzzle; use the section of the face painted white as your guidelines for these half-circles. Add a few dots on each side of the white area of the muzzle.
Outline the eyes with the brush and black face paint. Encircle the eyes completely, extending the outer corners up above the cheekbones and drawing the inner corner slightly down toward the nose. Younger children might not want the paint to be close to their lash-lines; this is fine because the important part is to emphasize the shape of the eyes.
Apply a little more pale yellow paint with the sponge to the area directly above the brows.
Outline the bottom of the lower lip with the face painting brush and black paint to complete the lion's mouth; you can also brush a light amount of black paint to the inside of the lower lip for more detail on older children or adults.
Add other details to complete the face depending on the time you have or the demands of your model. Some ideas include painting on whiskers, ears or layering yellow/rust colors to give the face a "furrier" appearance.