Illustration Guy Blog – The Chad Frye

Creative musings about creative stuff by a creative cartoonist.

Sketch Challenge 1 – Big Belt Buckles

My pal, Andy Heckathorne, challenged me to draw. Yes, I draw every day, but specifically he challenged me to a sketch-off. At first, he wanted it to be every day until we die. Thinking that perhaps the sketching and posting daily is what would kill me, I said, “no.” So, he compromised and suggested we…
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A Mouse, a Duck, and a Dog

I am a longtime member of the National Cartoonists Society (NCS), and recently the NCS has partnered with the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to help and volunteer where possible. What goes better with cartoons than children? NCS members around the country have been volunteering to draw for the kids at various hospitals in the…
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Cartoonist USO Tour 2015 – Part 6

On the final day of our time at Incirlik Air Base in Adana, Turkey, we had two big drawing sessions. The base had a Facebook page on which photos were being posted of our activities, and word-of-mouth buzz was building. Our first session was at the Youth Center where kids as young as 4 came…
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Cartoonist USO Tour 2015 – Part 5

The last destination for nine weary cartoonists on this fantastic USO tour was Incirlik Air Base in Adana, Turkey. Adana is in south central section of Turkey above Lebanon and Israel. However, before making our way there, I managed to snap a few shots of locals in the Istanbul airport where we had a layover.…
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Cartoonist USO Tour 2015 – Part 4

As our time in Djibouti was coming to a close on this USO–NCS trip, one of the officers invited us to join him and others at the Chief Petty Officers club. We entered through a rusty gate past some piles of what some might call “junk”, and entered through a door into a structure of…
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Cartoonist USO Tour 2015 – Part 3

The second country my cartoonist pals and I visited while on our USO-NCS tour was Djibouti. Located on the Horn of Africa, Djibouti is bordered on land by Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and by sea the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. And just for kicks, it is a stone’s throw distance across the…
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Cartoonist USO Tour 2015 – Part 2

Continuing our USO/NCS cartoonist adventures in Kuwait, my pals and I had a few more moist moments at Camp Arifjan during our first full day in that arid country. As guests of the base, we were fortunate to be able to run through the 120s heat from one air conditioned situation to another. Despite having…
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Cartoonist USO Tour 2015 – Part 1

I had a unique opportunity last month to go on a trip to visit some of our United States troops in the Middle East in conjunction with the USO organization and the National Cartoonists Society (NCS). Together with 8 of my friends and colleagues, we traveled to military bases in Kuwait, Djibouti, and Turkey to…
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