For aspiring and/or professional tatoo artists, design help?

the best thing you can do is go to a custom tattoo artist and bring them pictures of what you want to incorporate into your tattoo. it is not necessary to have a tattoo picture ready for them to do. artwork is part of their job. i never take a tattoo to my artist and have him put it on me. i just tell him what i want and let him run with the idea. i am working on a full backpiece and the only input i have had so far is colors for some of the stuff. (NO PINK!)

Why don't you think about having a large lioness done with her tail curled round in a spiral? Or does the spiral have to be separate? You could have her tail curled around a compass rose, perhaps. Or her paw resting on it. I think back pieces look best when all the elements of the design are incorporated together rather than left floating.

I love Angelina Jolie's tiger tattoo - perhaps it will give you some inspiration. See the first two pics below.

There are lots of examples on the third page I've listed below, and I think the lesson is that lion tattoos look much better when they're quite stylised, and not too colourful.

You're thinking along very elegant lines with Japanese woodblock styles. The fourth pic below is a Japanese print of a lion: to me this is just lovely, and I hope it inspires you, too.

You need to have the place you plan to get your work done draw one up for you. They usually make you put down a $20 deposit (ends up being deducted from the overall price of your tattoo) and draw it for you according to your specifications. You're sort of scamming if you want someone to do this for you for free... but there are some super nice and bored folks out there.