"Hangin' at the Beach" ("2Fast 2Furious")
When it came to the list of movies being released during the Summer of 2003, the one I dreaded the most was "2Fast 2Furious". It seemed like no one, and I mean no one, wanted to take a stab at it. As much as I've been surrounded by some very talented artists, when it came to illustrating vehicles, nobody even tried entertaining the notion. But given that it was one of the top five anticipated flicks of the season, it would have been downright cowardly to skip it so I reluctantly added it onto my share of responsibilities.
For the next couple of months I dabbled at it. I knew whatever I decided, it had to involve some fast cars. So I rummaged through magazines, surfed internet sites, and pretty much went on a hunt for a 'sweet chariot' that would look cool, give a notion of high-octane thrills, yet easy enough for me to do a decent job drawing it. That car turned out to be the 2004 Ford Thunderbird. So I started on it.
But it wasn't going to be that easy. Half way through it (and I have to note this was the week prior to when this picture debuted) Tony showed off his picture for "The Italian Job" with Erik and Daryl in a high-speed car chase with a helicopter. So I suddenly found myself in a development. I couldn't draw Erik and Daryl in a car now because two weeks in a row would have been repetitive. So I was faced with quite a problem: how to do a homage to "2Fast 2Furious" without involving cars?
As you can see I settled on handling the underground rebel theme by homaging the style of independent comic artist Jim Mahfood. For nearly four days I worked on aping his look by doing sketch after sketch after sketch; incorporating the best of the bunch into this piece. I'm not saying it's the most incredible thing I've done, but there are things that stand out of it that I can't help but feel a little pride in. And yo, I was completely in the zone with that background. You gotta admit it's bitching. - Jake