Illustration Guy Blog – The Chad Frye

Creative musings about creative stuff by a creative cartoonist.

Gnomeo & Juliet 5

Well, here is the last of my 2002 audition pieces to work on Disney’s Gnomeo & Juliet (opening on February 11). Not having seen it myself, I can’t vouch for its content. With all the years it has been in development, one would hope that it is every bit as fun as they are leading…
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Gnomeo & Juliet 4

When I lived in Greenville, South Carolina back in the mid-1990s, this one house near downtown was just COVERED in lawn ornaments. In particular, they had soooo many whirly-gig type devices that made their whole property look as though it was in constant motion. You know what I mean, right? They had anything that had a…
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Gnomeo & Juliet 3

For those of you just joining the blog this week, I have been showing you some art each day that I submitted to Disney back in 2002 in an attempt to get on Gnomeo & Juliet as a development artist. I had been working for the Feature Animation division for five years at that point…
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Gnomeo & Juliet 2

I mentioned yesterday that the upcoming Disney release of Gnomeo & Juliet was ultimately created up in Canada and was NOT the product of Disney Feature Animation down here in Burbank, CA. I was never privy to the big business branches of the studio, nor was I really all that interested in those decisions. I…
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Gnomeo & Juliet 1

Back in 2002, Disney Animation Studios began to develop a film about lawn ornaments based on William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet called Gnomeo & Juliet. It only had a few people doing some visual development and storyboards as they tried to explore this idea that I heard had been brought to Disney by Elton “Lion…
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Penciling the Friendly Skies

This past Monday I concluded my holiday travels. As you well know from previous blog posts, I always carry my sketchbook with me to keep me entertained during all the waiting one has to do in airports. An airport provides a wonderful cross section of society to try to capture with the pencil. And seeing…
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The Sunshine Boys

Just before the holidays, actor Daniel Roebuck called me up to ask if I’d be able to help with the poster art for a local theater production he was producing, directing and acting in, Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys. I have a vague recollection of the George Burns/Walter Matthau film version from some Saturday afternoon…
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Merry Christmas 2010

Well, another year has come and gone. Living here in Los Angeles, Christmas has a way of sneaking up on you. I blame the weather. Sure, we have had some frigid temperatures here of 40º, but usually that’s at night for a week here or there. As I write this, it is 2:30am and only…
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