I think that was the first time I ever talked to Harrison. Disney had done the ride and had all the rights to Indiana Jones, but not the rights to Harrison's likeness. I said I won't do the poster unless I can put his face on it, because it would make it look like I can't paint. So I actually had the nerve to call Harrison for permission, and his response was "Well, if you're doing it, go right ahead." He's so appreciative.

For the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, you illustrated an advertisement for magazines. Anything else?

Yes, that was the first one I did. And then when they did the video release, George wanted me to do it. So I watched all the movies and did all the comps and under-drawings and had them ready to paint. Then the project got cancelled. Two years later they called up and said they wanted me to finish the paintings, but needed them in two weeks. There were like 24 paintings or something, and I couldn't do it in two weeks. So they took my original drawings and had someone else paint them. But what was cool was that later on, George wanted to buy all my drawings. He liked them even though I didn't get to paint them. He's a real loyal collector [laughs].

Do you have a favorite Indy illustration?

I love so many of them and I really like the book covers because I had so much freedom. But as far as my favorite -- I'm breaking my own rule here -- the one I really love, and I had it hanging over my desk for 20 years, was Temple of Doom. About a week after the movie they asked me to do it [Drew's poster followed the launch poster done by Bruce Wolfe]. I did one drawing, which they loved, and didn't ask me to make any changes. So it was one of those paintings where I was kind of free -- I didn't have to change it and alter it and try and make it work. So it was straight up the way I wanted to do it.

Many people can see personality in a painting. They can tell if the artist was sick or if he was happy or if he was having a good time or was intimidated. You can just feel it. I think it speaks well for art that it embodies emotion. That's what I really keep trying to do with the pictures -- to touch people's hearts.

For the San Diego Comic-Con International this year, Paramount was giving away some cool swag displaying a bunch of your artwork we hadn't seen before. Can you tell us a little about it?

Well, the color pieces were part of the comp group I did on Indy III. Those are full-size paintings. I haven't been in Steven's [Spielberg] office in awhile but last time I was, one was hanging behind his desk. I think the one with the yellow background [Indy on horseback with gun]. I was having a ball on that -- they said do what you want so I did everything.

But a lot of those, like the black and white drawings, are just sketches and drawings I've done over the years. They weren't for a movie, they were just me drawing Indy. They needed something for Comic-Con since we had nothing on the movie, and we were all sitting around the table wondering what we were going to do. So I said, well, I have a lot of pictures of Indy. So we pulled out some of those comps and some of my personal drawings and that's what they used.

On the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull teaser poster, we get the feeling there might be some hidden features to the artwork -- are we wrong?

You've been on the web too long! Well, any publicity's good publicity [laughs]. If people see things in it and dream about it and make up stories about it, that's a good thing. And whether or not I actually did that on purpose, I don't think I should answer that. I think that's part of what my art is about. I want it to have that room so you can feel your way through it with your own eyes. I think it's really fun that they were saying that. It was obviously designed to be mysterious and sort of entice you, so if it did that, it worked perfectly.

Are you working on any other artworks featuring Indiana Jones that we can talk about?

I'm still on Indy. There are three new [artworks] -- I've done two of them and am working on the third one now. I've been working on this for like six months!

Check out the large gallery of some of Drew's work at his official site here.

StarWarsShop's currently got Drew Struzan's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull teaser poster, as well as the final release poster, available for order now!