A Cool Lion

At some point in my recent plying of the Intertubes, I found commentary noting that Velociraptor as we know it was a relatively stocky animal and by not being as sleek and aerodynamic as human expectations would have a predator be it was thus deemed «Boring!!!» and artists even while claiming to use references and to be depicting the aforementioned dromaeosaurid were free to exercise their artistic freedom, creating a concept that would be 'cooler'. At that I flippantly commented:

“So let's make lions the size of rhinos, with claws the size of elephants' tusks and let's throw in some saberteeth as well”. 

I intuited that a sleek, aerodynamic lion is at best approximation a cheetah and, as everyone who has seen wildlife shows knows, those are the buttmonkeys of the savannah. I believe that's not at all dudebro enough as far as the types making the above utterances are concerned.

That is then the prompt for this silly, silly concept of a 'cool' lion.

It's not as outrageous as my outburst would have it because I really couldn’t see how an animal like that would walk. That and I wanted to make something that looked marginally plausible and thus allowed me to apply some of my anatomical knowledge. Still it'd likely walk like a cat with socks on.

For those that care for more subdued satire, take it as a rather misguided recreation of a lion from a distant future time and location where the baseline animals don’t exist. There likely would only be a single individual living on the indulgence of its commissioner. Probably a novelty pet to impress guests with. I believe that has some resonance with a pop culture item with an upcoming reissue.

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Done with no references but my recall of anatomical schematics and some roadkill dissections.

ETA: And I couldn't have done it without Manowar's "Battle Hymn" providing the right amount of cheese.

Much obliged to 8bitAviation, PixelMecha, lightningchaserart, Spikeheila, Pfunkei and Jheuloh for commentary and encouragement.

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Wacom tablet on Photoshop CS3. Cropping and *.jpeg compression on Paint Shop Pro 9.