People are just finding out how Shrek was originally supposed to look and it's absolutely terrifying

An artist has revealed the 'first iteration' of Shrek and people are 'in awe' of how different the character used to look.

You may count yourself an ultimate Shrek fan for noticing that woman's face during the original 2001 release, but do you know the franchise well enough to know one of your favorite green heroes nearly looked vastly different to how he appears on the big screen now?

The 'first iteration' of Shrek

Barry E. Jackson took to Instagram late last year to share 'the first iteration of Shrek' which he says the drawing of which was done by Mike Ploog and 'painting by yours truly'.

Indeed, DreamWorks Tours Shrek's Adventure in London confirmed the ogre used to look pretty different too, sharing the same concept art on its website, adding: "There was a much-changed concept design for Shrek in the early stages! As you can see below, he would’ve looked completely different - we know which one we prefer…"

Over on his YouTube channel for his studio - The Zoom Art Studio - Jackson also shared 'the original Shrek test' from 1995.

"Shrek started out as a dark edgy low budget film. This animated short was 'kind of' my production design. Years later Shrek became a big budget blockbuster and found its place in animation history," he said.

While one social media user noted the design is 'good artistically,' another commented: "This is like... some nightmarish mix of Wallace and Gromit with Grinch."

"The amount of changes from the original test to the final product is insane," a third added, with a fourth noting they're 'still in awe' Shrek 'used to look like that' and a fifth voicing it 'would've been a horror movie if it'd been released in theaters'.

And well, you can see it for yourself:

Why Shrek changed so much

Ruben Hickman says he worked alongside Jackson as another early concept artist for Shrek.

He told Vice that the 'new directors' vision for the character and movie was influenced by 'a lot of Wizard of Oz,' but Jackson's vision differed vastly, influenced 'much more' by 'underground comic[s]' and more 'edgy' and 'darker'.

'A tug of war' reportedly ensued and with CEO of DreamWorks at the time, Jeffrey Katzenberg, allegedly hating the short film.

Hickman said: "The more toned down version ultimately won out, because in a lot of ways it had to. A dark color scheme was not going to go over in a mass audience the way that Shrek did."

So, what do you think?