Today is the final of three illustrations that appear in the July 2017 issue of Clubhouse Magazine for kids published by Focus on the Family. (If you missed the other two, just look at the previous two posts here on the ol’ blog.) All three images belong to a fun quiz that kids can take to help prevent summer boredom!
This image is of a little girl who, out of desperation of being stuck inside for a three-day rainstorm, has decided that her bed is the ark, her toys are the animals, and yes, that she is Noah in search of dry land with the rubber ducky she is about to release.
As in the previous posts, here is the rough drawing with a rough color job all worked out in Photoshop in preparation for the final traditionally created illustration.
This girl takes her playtime very seriously.
To help dry up “Noah’s” water problem, water was used with watercolor paint and colored pencil on textured paper to create a scene that is epic in this little girl’s own mind.
I’m sure to a child, three days of rain can seem like forty.
I sure enjoyed this assignment. Hope you enjoyed seeing all three illustrations created for it!
If you are interested in owning this original published art measuring roughly 14×12″, it is available for $700. Shipping is included within the USA. Additional charges will apply for international shipping. Feel free to contact me at Chad@ChadFrye.com if interested in purchasing this or any other art in my FOR SALE category here on the ol’ blog.
Last week I started sharing with you the first of three illustrations created for the July 2017 issue of Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse Magazine that is available NOW if you reach out to Clubhouse! Today you get to see the second piece.
This one is a tad bit unusual. Lobster Lad is a boy who is pretending to be a lobster in order to get out of a writing assignment. After all, how can a lobster ever hold a pencil with those sharp and powerful claws? Also, it is terribly difficult to write on wet paper. The boy’s plan is genius.
First, here is the final rough drawing that was colored in Photoshop to work out the color scheme.
You might say that this is the lobster art before it is cooked.
Here is the final watercolor and colored pencil illustration that appears in the magazine.
I wonder how much a 50 pound lobster would cost?
If you are interested in owning this original published art measuring roughly 11×12″, it is available for $500. Shipping is included within the USA. Additional charges will apply for international shipping. Feel free to contact me at Chad@ChadFrye.com if interested in purchasing this or any other art in my FOR SALE category here on the ol’ blog.
Earlier this year I worked on some illustrations for the July issue of Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse Magazine. Clubhouse is a Christian magazine for kids that along with teaching life lessons and biblical principles, it is LOADED with fun!
My assignment was to create three illustrations to go along with a silly multiple choice quiz to help kids avoid summertime boredom. So I whipped up some concoctions with genuine watercolor paint and colored pencils for maximum entertainment! I’ll spread them out over the course of this month, but for now, here’s one to remind you to stay alert on road trips!
To start, I send an uncolored rough drawing to my art director for approval. If she wants changes, I make changes.
Then I do a color rough for myself in Photoshop. It helps to figure out what colors work in the composition in this way before going to the trouble of mixing paints. There was also the added issue of doing three illustrations for one story, so I wanted to be sure my colors would help all three pieces look cohesive.
Photoshop helps set the scene.
Next is the fully traditional illustration created in watercolor and colored pencil on genuine paper. Believe it or not, some artists still work this way.
While the destination is the goal of a road trip, there sure is a lot to enjoy on the way to the destination. Don’t miss it!
If you are interested in owning this original published art measuring roughly 13×12″, it is available for $600. Shipping is included within the USA. Additional charges will apply for international shipping. Feel free to contact me at Chad@ChadFrye.com if interested in purchasing this or any other art in my FOR SALE category here on the ol’ blog.
Spider-man Homecoming is the big new movie this coming weekend, and I am especially excited to hear the music written for the film. Past Spider-man movies have set a very high bar for exciting compositions from some of film music’s best composers such as Danny Elfman, Christopher Young, James Horner, and Hans Zimmer. No doubt this latest iteration of the web slinger will meet that bar and possibly exceed it with music slung by Michael Giacchino!
Giacchino is the perfect choice to bring something fresh and exciting to a character that Disney/Marvel hopes to make cinematically fresh and exciting again. This project comes after a year where the composer has set his own personal bar very high with amazing work for films that include Zootopia, Star Trek Beyond, Doctor Strange, Star Wars: Rogue One, and the upcoming War for the Planet of the Apes.
So, in anticipation of some thrilling musical delights, I present to you my latest inked and watercolored piece called “Giacchino-man!”
Spins a musical web – any size!
By the way, those musical notes are from the opening of the original Spider-man TV show theme song from the 1970s. 😉
I was aimlessly doodling in my sketchbook one day without a thought as to what was going to come forth, and penciled an overly large head with no other details. For some reason, that large blob seemed to suggest that this was a hero’s head of some sort, so my pencil continued doodling until it became clear that that face needed some kind of a retro ray gun. Combined with his old school cape, he looked kind of groovy, and immediately I whipped out my brush pen and inked him.
This fella sat in the sketchbook for MONTHS. I was flipping through the pages a couple of weeks ago, and realized that this odd guy needed to be in color. So, he was scanned into Photoshop, and with my trusty Wacom Cintiq monitor, I proceeded to paint him digitally.
Once completed in all his technicolor brightness, the name “Space Avenger” seemed to fit.
If you see this guy out and about, just let him avenge all the space he wants to.
Here in the United States, today is our Memorial Day. It is a day we honor our fallen warriors who gave their lives in the service of our country no matter which war over the course of our country’s history. We are grateful to all our veterans and heartily applaud them for their service today and especially on Veterans Day (which will be November 11 this year), but today is the solemn remembrance of those who gave their lives in service.
When I worked for Disney Feature Animation a few years back, our country entered into war after the events in New York and Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001. It was a scary time, not knowing if other parts of our country were also going to be attacked. We had received word that possibly the movie studios in Hollywood could be attacked, and security got really tight for a while with bomb sniffing dogs, checking all employee cars for bombs in trunks and underneath, and etc. We were appreciative of the troops that were being sent to the Middle East to try to prevent such a thing from happening again.
During that time, the studio put forth an effort to have employees draw, make cards, and participate in care packages being sent to our troops. I was asked to create a poster in support of these efforts. This Goofy image is what I came up with, and it was on display in the lobby of Feature Animation in Burbank, CA, for a while.
For those of you who are interested in art creation, Goofy was painted in gouache paint with colored pencils. Tanks and helicopters were inked on paper, then the rest was painted and assembled in Photoshop.
I was extremely honored to be asked to do it, and did so with an eye on the old posters for World War II. It was my goal to stir folks into helping out by hearkening back to the sacrifice many Americans made during that daunting time in our history. No one knew how long our latest efforts would take. Unfortunately, those efforts continue today, but we also continue to SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
A little close-up of Goofy.
Two years ago I was fortunate to visit the Middle East and Africa with several of my cartoonist mates as we traveled with the USO to bring a few smiles to our soldiers. We visited with many of them listening to their stories while drawing for them. We brought to them a little piece of home, and they brought to us the realities of war. It was a sobering time that I shall never forget. (CLICK HERE to see previous posts of that trip here on the ol’ blog.)
I mention that because I brought this Goofy along with me on that trip. The USO printed up cards that each of us could give to the soldiers as a little memento of our visit, and this was the image that graced my cards. The cards brought many smiles to the folks overseas, and hopefully reminded them of all of us over here in the States.
One of the posters in the Middle East advertising the arrival of we cartoonists coming to visit with the soldiers.
On this Memorial Day, thank you to all the soldiers who have given the ultimate sacrifice, and I wish comfort to those they left behind. I thank our veterans for their service, thinking especially of my father, David Frye, who served during the Vietnam War. And thank you to the thousands of you serving today in some pretty rough places in this world. After having spent just a few days in some of those places with you, I came away with a greater appreciation for what it is you do and where you have do it.
No matter how tough things get in life, I always try to keep this passage from the Bible close to my heart:
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Now, I know that title above sounds a bit politically auspicious, especially to those of us who know Bill Morrison, but no, I’m not suggesting anything regarding Washington D.C. Rather, I’d like to call attention to the National Cartoonists Society that is about to invade Portland, Oregon for their annual Reuben Awards Convention over the Memorial Day weekend, and they are being led there by NCS President Bill Morrison!
If you don’t know Bill, he is an amazing illustrator/comic book artist/art director/editor/and probably a few other things that escape my memory right now. You’ve seen his work in the past as cover artist for many Simpsons comic books at Bongo Comics, he has drawn comics for DC and Dark Horse, he art directed the animated Futurama show, and back in the day he illustrated movie posters for films such as House, The Little Mermaid, Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan, The Land Before Time, and Mickey Mouse in The Prince & the Pauper to name a few.
It’s traditionally created art with genuine watercolor paint and colored pencils.
Two years ago Bill asked me if I’d do a caricature of him for use in the NCS member magazine, The Cartoon!st. I dragged my feet, wondering what I could do in a clever way. As Bill and I were talking about plans for the Reubens this year, and with his hair style, and the fact that I drive by Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, CA all the time, it seemed like I should draw “Big Bill” holding a Reuben Award instead of a hamburger.
In case you don’t know what Bill Morrison looks like in real life, here’s a photo of him back when he was President of another comic art organization in Los Angeles called CAPS on the night of a banquet in honor of Stan Lee when he received CAPS’ coveted Sergio Award.
Bill Morrison with Stan Lee in 2007.
So there you have it. If you live in Portland, get ready because the cartoonists are about to invade your fine city led by Bill Morrison and his wife Kayre who have planned what is sure to be a GREAT convention!
There seems to be a lot of mermaids showing up on the social media sites I frequent. That’s because of the efforts of my pal Tom Bancroft who started the #mermay hashtag a few years ago encouraging artists to post mermaid art each day in the month of May.
Now, while The Little Mermaid was the film that first influenced me to consider animation as a serious career choice, I am not actually a fan of mermaids. They creep me out. Half woman? Half fish? Yikes! I’ll take my women with legs thank-you-very-much. So, you haven’t seen me posting mermaids left and right here on the ol’ blog, or on Twitter, or Instagram, or Facebook.
However, I DO like puns, and the other day while perusing the latest batch of mermaids from everyone, a pun came to mind inspired by my all-time favorite comedy movie It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (which itself was full of puns). Made in 1963, it featured many of the nation’s best comic actors, and had cameos of the rest of them. It was truly epic. One of the featured players was Ethel Merman who played a loudmouthed brassy mother-in-law to the beleaguered Milton Berle.
So, here is my one entry for #mermay, Ethel Mermaid as she would have appeared in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Seaworld.
I think she is part of the loud mouth bass family.
