Red lion logo development

These are the two images that I am going to combine the lion of course isn't the edited version but I originally drew it there. At this stage I was trying to think of the best way to combine both of the pictures.

I decided to flip the lion so that it fit into the open part of the lettering and this would be a good place to start developing the logo into the final image. At the moment they look like two separate images but I want them to become one. I am going to develop the lions mane by extending the individual locks so that they entangle the lettering and move freely.

I re-drew the image in the way that I planned with the wild, freely moving locks of the lions mane. I drew them so that they looked like vines in a jungle and hence relating to the genre.

This is the final logo. When I finished drawing the image I scanned it into Photoshop to clean up the image and to make the lines darker so that when live tracing in illustrator there where no gaps between the lines and no problem when coloring. I chose red for the writing because it says red and when looking you already have that thought in your head. I used the same creamy, subtle yellow for the lion and a bolder yellow for the background as it makes the lion stand out more and brings it forward. For the cracks in between the lettering I used purple because it doesn't attract too much attention to the area and fits well with the red.