The Chad Frye - Illustration GuyAs we enter into the Christmas week, amidst all the hustle and bustle, keep in mind the sobering thought that God came to earth as Jesus to live among men and save those who believe from our sin. Now THAT is something to celebrate! Merry Christmas indeed!
This past weekend my mind wandered to a show I started working on for Disney about seven or eight years ago. It was the CG animated My Friends Tigger & Pooh. It was such a delight to draw Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Lumpy, and anyone else who came to the 100 Acre Wood during those two and a half seasons that we created their adventures. You, however, only were able to watch two of those seasons. We actually were halfway through planning the third season before the network decided that the first two were enough.
We did something in our show that seemed to polarize the Pooh fans, though. Christopher Robin was not included. Instead, we introduced a little girl named Darby to the stories. Darby was voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz when she was just a wee lass. She has gone on to bigger things working in movies with directors like Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese, but once upon a time she delivered great enthusiasm in her conversations with Pooh and Tigger.
Despite all of Darby’s cuteness and charm, fans missed Christopher Robin, including Queen Elizabeth who purportedly had an aide call the Disney Channel suggesting that Christopher Robin be returned to the Wood. Regarding the young boy’s absence, “the Queen is not amused,” was the rumor floating around the studio. So, while Darby remained, Christopher Robin did return for a few episodes, though one time the gang spent an episode calling a frog “Christopher Robin” thinking that the boy had turned into the amphibian, naturally.
Another element of this series was that Darby led Tigger and Pooh as the “Super Sleuths.” It was a fun device where something would happen, and the residents of the woods needed help solving the problem. Every episode they would don their Super Sleuth outfits, then go off to “think, think, think” in an attempt to find the answer, often causing more chaos in the process.
You know, while working on the show, my mother sent me a drawing that I did at the age of 5 of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh. It was so surreal to see I had an interest in him all those years ago, and then was making a living drawing him. I tease you with that, however. Little Chad’s art is not available to share with you here at this time, but eventually it will find its way here on the ol’ blog.
My Friends Tigger & Pooh really was a delightful show, and had some really wonderful scripts by our writers led by Brian Hohlfeld and Nicole Dubuc. It was a treat working with everyone, and especially getting to see the great Jim Cummings work his magic as Pooh, Tigger, and the Beaver, Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) who was Eeyore, Ken Sansom who (though now deceased) was Rabbit for many years, Rob Paulson (famous for Pinky from Pinky & the Brain) who did a raccoon, Max Burkholder (from TV’s Parenthood) as Roo, Dee Bradley Baker who was an amazing dog (Buster), as well as even Mark Hamill (yes, Luke Skywalker himself) who did a recurring character of a turtle.
It is available on DVD. Settle down with your little ones, put on your thinking caps and watch all the charming adventures of Darby, Tigger, Pooh and the gang!
While he is small, this is NOT Tiny Tim. This particular Tim was a piece I created a few years back when I was trying to get a short cartoon off the ground with my friend Brian Joseph Ochab. Narrated by Sir Christopher Lee, it was going to be a magnificent stop-motion tribute parody of Tim Burton’s early short film for Disney called “Vincent”. Through various efforts to get it off the ground, our “Tim” did not happen, but some fun artwork was left behind. This is a piece I never shared here before.
If you would like to see more of my development art for our short and even a video of when the project was talked about on TV, CLICK HERE!
We are down to our last three monster posts for the month, and it’s about time we classed up the joint.
Not all monsters are, well . . . monsters. While some roam the countryside making mayhem wherever they please, others are of an upper crust upbringing and behave in a quite dignified manner. They abhor the besmirching, (yes, I said BESMIRCHING) of the monster species by the uncouth antics of a few.
So, without further ado, may I present monsters who enjoy some rarefied air…
It is not often that I collaborate with another artist, but this year I came across an up-and-coming creator whose work was so young and vibrant that I knew it was impossible to pass up an opportunity to work some magic together. His keen eye for various color combinations using his preferred tools of the watercolor pencil medium brings such incredible energy to any two dimensional composition presented to him.
I drew bears and birds and even a reptile or two for this artist, and every one of them came to life with his unique sense of color. Then it dawned on me that those subjects were but a trifle to his skills. They were so easy that they were almost an insult to the mysterious workings of his technicolor mind. What this artist needed was a real challenge – something from the realm of phenomenal fantasy. What this artist needed was . . . a MONSTER!
What better subject could there be than a creature no one has seen before nor have they lived to tell about it?! I quickly sketched the mystical beast, and my collaborator proceeded to reach into deep wells of whimsy as he applied the workings of his wet media. The results are quite stunning.
So, without further ado, may I present to you the drawing by yours truly, painted by my fellow artist (and nephew) Marshall Frye, age 7.
Yesterday was the first day of the World Series! In honor of baseball (a sport I LOVED playing when I was in school), here is a monster about to show up “hit king” Pete Rose.
Now, of course I realize that the Cincinnati Reds are not in the World Series. However, a good friend of mine is a huge Reds fan, and I made this big red monster for him earlier this year whilst the Reds were in the fight. Swing away!
Who is to say that one monster’s face cannot be the comfortable warm home of another monster? This just might be the way to live for the upwardly mobile. Well, mobile to be sure. Living in this manner would prove challenging to accept your packages from Amazon, but it might be a decent tradeoff considering you wouldn’t have any grocery bills. I personally prefer less saliva in my living room, but the world doesn’t revolve around my opinions.
Sometimes you’ve just gotta stop and smell the flowers.
After half a work week of rampaging and eating villages filled with peasants, a monster just wants to kick back and enjoy the simple things in life. So, whatever your occupation, take a rest on this hump day from the screams of “stop, please stop” and “don’t eat my children” to enjoy your life.
