"Honoring the Gods" ("The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor")


Pencil Marks: Its all Jake's fault of course. So blame him.
He started it all when he couldn't come up with an idea for “Pirates of the Carribean 2“ and got the genius idea to just continue with the thought train I had instituted for the first flick. It turned out to be one of our most successful running gags since we started the site. And it got me in the mood to "re-do" one of our earlier works. I mean Jake goes back all the time and retouches his previous works, why can't I? (Just ask him how many page fours there have been to his comic). But the opportunity never really came about. Then one brisk afternoon while we are sitting at our round table (a purely theoretical round table of course) trying to come up with ideas for the upcoming (or in some instances already passed) films, I was focusing long and hard on “Mummy 3“. I wanted to do it justice because it WAS a "sequel" to our first SMB gallery pic, so I loaded up the picture and took a hard look. I still look back at it with fondness, but to tell the truth it just hasn't aged well. Long story short, I got it into my head to play it homage by redoing it - not line by line, but more thematically.
It turned out better than even I had thought. And yes, I was cringing for weeks hoping that Jake didn't screw it up, but as you can see - it all worked out. - Tony

Ink Smudges: Since we were homaging the very first picture we did in this gallery, I wanted to make it special. Now I had inked and colored a few of Tony's pictures since he made his return so I felt confident in experimenting a little without it becoming a disaster. My idea was this: I would take his completed illustration that was done up on one sheet and ink it in three different stages (foreground, middle, and background); scanning each layer in separately so that I could assemble it in Photoshop. It sounds like a lot more work than necessary, and I'll be the first to agree that it is. But I was hoping the result would be something slightly different than our usual collaborations.
And I honestly believe it would have succeeded if only I hadn't switched computers half-way through completing it.
See, since I was using the same program on both computers, I thought nothing would be lost in the translation. After all, why would it? But what didn't occur to me was my scanner would revert to another setting in order to work properly with my new Dell. Suddenly the things I was scanning on 300 DPI came out much clearer than what I originally done prior. So in short, the temple in the back I scanned using my Dell was much more sharper than the Egyptian worshipper and Kari in the foreground layer I did with my E-Machine. After many hours of trying to correct it, I eventually erased everything I did and started over. And given how much I tolled on this already, I didn't have it in me to try the same approach again.
Frustration aside, I really like how this came out. The second run-through was a bit rushed considering I was already way past my deadline to debut this on the site. But I would hardly call this a failure. It's a good decent picture and a great visual comparison on how far Tony and I have grown artistically. - Jake