The first thing that popped into my mind were gladiators, and the lions and… yeah… I ended up with this idea. This’ll be fun!
I’ll get started on searching for references and getting concepts done right now!
Edit: This is a little harder than I expected, does anyone know any good animal reference sites?
If anyone has references for roman armor, that would be much appreciated.
Furry animals are tougher to find good anatomy reference of, but usually you can find a grip of great images on Google’s image search, especially now that you can limit searches to “large” images.
This is one of the ideas I hoped someone would try. A Lion as a Gladiator. Perfect. Good luck with this. Alpha channels would look great for the mane.
Here’s my WIP concept. I wanted you guys to know what I’m goin for before I start on my model.
Edit: Oh yeah, and he’ll have a tail, I just haven’t put it in the concept yet.
i remember Hero’s Quest III had a whole class of lion warriors. Try doing some searches for that if you need inspiration.
Here’s my progress on the model. I’m fairly new to modelling so I’m kinda slow and I don’t really know how far I can go with the polycount. After I’m done modelling it I expect to do a lot of optimizing. I’m trying to do it for facial animation, but I’ve never modelled an animal head before. I still have a lot to go as you can see, and the arms require heavy tweaking.
I did the legs, shoulder pad, eyes, tail and made the arms a little shorter. Still need to do the thumb, feet, more armor, sword n shield, mane and the end of the tail. The polycount is 1994. Please crit away!
Edit: Small update, critiques would be very much appreciated. If any anyone has advice on how to do the mane, that would really help.
I’ve done some stuff, all I really need to do is add detail and the mane. I haven’t done the mane yet because that’s the thing I have the least experience in doing and I didn’t want to impair my progress on other areas. It’s at 2518 tris. Unless this is the best model you’ve seen in your life, I’d like to know how I can make it better.
i think his waist could be a smidge thicker and higher, and some more detail could be spent on the tip of his toes there (not much, just a bit). the head isn’t especially convincing as a large cat - it might be easier to look at a picture of a cougar or mountain lion to see the skull structure a little easier (soemthing without a mane you know). His eyebrows, forehead and cheeks need the most attention i think. I’d like to see his wrists, hands and ankles be a tad bulkier as well…lions and tigers are kind of famous for having very large powerful paws, and this would be a cool thing to include i think. His neck could probably stand to be bulkier too, but that may be hidden by his mane? not sure.
very cool model! i only gave so many crits because you asked for them 
just 1 thing i notice that hasn’t been mentioned- his thumb seems a bit short and thin, also are u gonna give him claws?
I’m gonna bulk up the whole upper body, and I may reduce the number of fingers and make them more paw-like. I removed the strap on the sheath and just made it attach directly to the model so I can texture it on. I’m gonna do a little re-designing of the weapons and his general proportions to make em look more aggressive. Thanks for the crits guys, and about the thumb, I was kinda annoyed with it so I left it a little deformed. I’ll get back to that once I get to the hands.
Very good mesh bro, r u gona put any more details or you are on the poly verge? How many poly is it again?
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