"Defusing the Situation" ("The Sum of All Fears")
Every summer we have a handful of movies that absolutely stump us in regards of "how the hell do we draw this?" The Sum of All Fears was one of those films. Jake knew nothing about the flick aside from the fact that Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman were in it. I had read the book, but because of the off-kilter casting I had no clue as to how much of the film was going to be left intact. All we really had to go on was the trailers. And we were still stumped. How the hell could we fit Plight into this flick?
At first we tried a play on the title, trying to capture the sum of Plight's fears. Eventually we thought that idea to be too cerebral and not fitting to the summer blockbuster gallery. Next we thought of taking Plight and placing him with the stars as characters from other films, with Ben Affleck as Daredevil and Morgan Freeman as his character from Robin Hood. But again we were left with a "how does that fit" feeling regarding the entire thing. Suddenly I drew a bit of "obvious" inspiration. The film is essentially about a bomb, so what if I had Plight trying to disarm the thing? Simple, forthright, and fitting in the tone of the flick. A "Why didn't we think of that earlier?" type of thing.
I choose an odd style for this drawing, portraying Plight in a more abstract "cartoony" style. It was a style I've used before, and one I use again from time to time. It’s a simple method, but I think adds a bit of character to things. I am quite proud of this art, especially considering it was a spur of the moment drawing. – Tony