I've had this idea of making this artwork of the trio — Sir Shrek, Donkey, and Princess Fiona — in the Shrek 5 style while interpreting what they'd look before the events of Shrek 5 itself (i.e. Shrek without crow's feet and one of his rolled-up sleeves not asymmetrical), Fiona with her bangs not grown out, and Donkey's mane looking less like he's balding).
I started Donkey first; it was a mere five hours of tracing for a small guy like him. Afterwards, Shrek himself was next; it was approximately seven hours tracing him, apart from a few breaks and going to work this afternoon. I skipped adding the details on his vest and pants for later. Meanwhile, Iost track of the total of hours it took tracing Fiona; during the process, I had trouble tracing her right hand on her hip to where I had to trace it separately and add it in. Donkey and Fiona's poses were from these "heritage" renders posted by a Shrek archive account called The Shrek Storybook, while Shrek's pose was made with the use of the following: his body was from a screenshot from the 2025 cast announcement, the legs were from illustrations from a book called Shrek Evergreen courtesy of another Shrek archive account called Shrek History, and his head and arms were from screenshots from the official teaser.
Once the tracing was done, next came the coloring. For Fiona's dress, styled after the one from Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After (as well as Scared Shrekless), I based the colors off her appearance in the current DreamWorks Animation logo since 2022 with the gold accents on her sleeves and belt. I intentionally skipped adding the symbols on her dress, namely the chest part and bottom half, to mimic how Puss in Boots' cape to his design in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish lacked the symbol on the back of his cape.
Soon after the coloring was done, I started to do the details on Shrek's vest by layering the warping screenshots of his vest from the Shrek 5 teaser and an official screenshot with Image Warp followed by layering it on the artwork with PhotoLayers and tracing the details. I considered adding the details onto his pants, but there was little to work with as his legs were as present in the teaser and I couldn't make out much of the details from the official render of him, so I skipped the pants.
After nearly eight days of progress, the end result was better than I could hope. It's impressive how they transitioned well into 2D, especially with their Shrek 5 designs.
