This piece is based on "Lion Attacking a Horse", an oil painting by Theodore Gericault from 1820. I recreated the background with more detail, as Gericault's painting was really just a loose sketch. In keeping with his Romanticism I tried to make the forest fantastical and overwrought.
The lion is based on photos of an old toy I found for sale on eBay, and the horse is based (quite closely) on an illustration from the summer 1950 issue of "Frontier Stories”, by an artist named Allen Anderson.