The goal for this project was to design a logo for a sports team.  The mascot I had to work with was the Portland Panthers.

I started with some reference photos, showing a panther face and body.

From these images I started the first rough sketch of the panther, focusing on simplifying the shapes of the panthers face.

The next step was a more bold outline, with the first rough sketch as a guide. I wanted the mascot to look mean and intimidating, so I used strong, simple strokes. I also tweaked the eye shape to add a more mean look.

From this I ended up doing a second group of rough tweaking the panthers face shape. I also went back to a more realistic eye shape. 

Next was color, I decided to play with a few colors to see what worked the best before I decided on just one color.

I did end up deciding one the blue for my design, thinking about how panthers are nocturnal predators and the moon would reflect a blue look against them. Next was adding some highlights to the figure and playing with the name of the team. I also played with some claw scratches just for fun to see how it looked. I included some swatches out of the way for easy coloring. I decided on a strong font with sharp edges to match the aggressive nature of the panther but not pointed so it wouldn't take away from the sharp point of the teeth. 

The final step was to add some finalizing tweaks like some highlight on the nose and some fur in the ears, bringing the whole piece together.