Eurasian Cave Lion & American Lion

The American Lion & European Cave Lion
(panthera atrox & panthera spelaea)

I love lions and have been meaning to illustrate these two giant cats for a good while now. I always wondered how different they would be from each other, as well as the African Lion of today.

As we can tell, these two lions had pretty different proportions. The Cave Lion seems to have had a stockier build with shorter, beefier limbs and a longer torso. The American Lion had a shorter torso with longer limbs, making it more ideal for speed in open plains.

We actually also have cave paintings of Cave Lions, illustrated by cave people in prehistoric France. It shows they might've had long dark tear marks running down the face as well as a possible stripe or hard transition between colors down the front of the shoulder.
I experimented with all sorts of colors and hues. It's kinda crazy the range lions actually have with colors.
Both males and females are depicted in the paintings and there seems to be no indication of a mane on the males, so I ditched it as well. Gives this large male I've drawn here a unique look.

When it came to atrox, I had to reference ligers for the colors. It's hard for me not to try. I always thought Ligers were just gorgeous cats. I also love the short mane that Ligers and Tigons have. I feel it just works so well on him.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how these two came out. I'm proud of em and think they look pretty cool.