"Of Men and Ogres" ("Shrek 2")
After witnessing the travesty which was Jake's homage to the original Shrek film, I knew history was due to repeat itself when he tried to tackle the sequel. In his defense, you must look at the surrounding circumstances. That year he was drawing the whole gallery all by himself. He had an admittedly shady past dealing with the franchise (I mean, I know "A Knights Tale" was a bad film, but to take the picture dedicated to that flick and "re-use" it as a Shrek tribute was just asking for trouble.) But above all else, he had my persistent child jumping on his back, literally jumping on his back, to make sure the picture honored one of her favorite movies or else there would be trouble. I don't care what you say, being micro-managed by a seven-year-old is a tremendous amount of pressure. So, regardless of my drowsy condition, I felt compelled to intervene and work my mojo.
Purposely avoiding the "pin-up of the week" format, I just took a stab at a good old-fashioned action scene. True, there isn't much action, but you can tell that there will be! This is also one of those wonderful drawings I woke up thinking about and less than four hours later made it a reality. No do-overs, no discarded start-ups; full straight ahead illustrating exactly how I pictured it. Ask any artist and they'll tell you how rare something happens like that. I was proud of this piece and for good reason.
Months later as the DVD came out and we all sat around for family movie night, I made the comment to Jake when Dreamworks comes out with the eventual "Shrek 3", it'd be his turn to reclaim his honor. He stared at me blankly for what seemed like an eternity not having a clue what I was talking about. Seems in my drowsy condition I forgot telling Jake I was covering "Shrek 2" and neglected to post said picture to the website which is why this was relegated to the "Deleted Scenes" section. - Tony