Back in early winter, Answers Magazine contacted me to create a custom illustration for them. They are a science magazine written from a biblical point of view. You may recall that about two years ago I did a five-page spread for them about white blood cells (CLICK HERE to see post). This time the assignment dealt with PARASITES!
Dan Stelzer, Answers‘ Magazine Designer, sent me the article which was a straight-up scientific view of the role parasites play in life. THANKFULLY, he wanted me to use my humorous approach to the illustration which I was more than happy to do.
Out of curiosity, I actually did a quick scan of the web to see what was out there in the real world of parasites. It was very inspiring in developing completely fake ones.
So, Dan suggested a large parasite invading a family’s dinner table. I roughed out a quick sketch of one for him, and then came up with two more ideas for him and his team to consider…
Look who’s coming to dinner! Yikes! No table manners AT ALL!
The sports fanatic dominating a family’s personal space seemed like a good way to show how parasites can be invasive.
And now for something COMPLETELY different, who was the biggest parasite in children’s literature? Goldilocks of course! I got this idea after looking at the teddy bear in the boy’s hand in the first concept drawing.
So, which one do you think they picked for the magazine? Check back tomorrow where I will reveal the chosen one (sounds ethereal, doesn’t it?), and will show more steps in the process towards the final painting.
For the past three Octobers, I posted a new monster drawing almost daily in what I called “Monster Month”. Here we are in the middle of October, and only one person has asked me where my creatures that go bump in the night are this year. One person.
Well, Mom, it has been an extremely busy year for me working on a new television show, the occasional illustration here and there, and trying to work on a new children’s book. What it boils down to is that there has been a whole lotta art goin’ on that I can’t share on the blog for now, and the monsters I love to draw in my spare time haven’t had room to roam and groan.
That being said, yesterday I got the itch and sketched out this beleaguered beast. It was just one of those things that came out of my stylus without a plan in my head. I began with the mouth, and the rest just fell into place. Background is courtesy of Canson paper, and the art was all done in Photoshop.
It’s a hard-knocked life for him.
So, perhaps I’ll get another monster or two up on the blog before October is over for the fan who asked. The rest of you can take a look at them as well if you’d like.
Last year I did a few character concepts for a potential television program set in New York City. I can’t divulge anything more than that about the project, but I can show you some of the drawings since the producers decided to go in a different direction.
I liked the way these sketches turned out. They were pencil on paper, with a splash of Photoshop color thrown in for good measure. While they all should look like they are living in the same universe with each other, hopefully they portray specific personalities with just their expressions, costumes and body language. That’s always the goal when working on good character design — unless the client wants a series of characters that are cookie cutter to each other. I’ve worked on those kinds of projects, too.
If you’ve already had your shots, enjoy the drawings!
This morning, NBC’s Today Show gave a little sneak peek at a few of the floats that will be in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year. I was surprised to learn that there will be a Zhu Zhu Pets float based on our little animated Quest for Zhu movie that is currently on DVD. I was even more surprised to see that at least one of the characters, Pipsqueak, is based off of a drawing I did back in the development process of the movie!
While an annual tradition for New York City, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was also a tradition in the Frye home. We always would watch it on television, but as Jersey people, we had also gone to see it live on the freezing city streets. (I remember fondly seeing the Big Bird balloon getting sucked down an alley by a gust of wind with all the balloon handlers being dragged behind it – good stuff that they never show you on TV.) To have a small influence on a float in this year’s parade is truly mind-bending for me.
Here’s the clip from today’s Today Show! I’ll be looking forward to seeing the full float on television on Thanksgiving day! Enjoy!
In the recently released Zhu Zhu Pets DVD, The Quest for Zhu, there are all manner of beasties ready to threaten the four hamster heroes Mr. Squiggles, Pipsqueak, Num Nums and Chunk. One such danger is a pack of saber-tooth tigers called Zhurassic Zhus.
Today I thought I’d share with you two versions of these growly striped kitties. Like a nature photographer, though remaining at my much safer desk, I was tasked with capturing the behavior of these creatures for inspiration to those that followed me in the creative pipeline. In our story, these fellas reside in the snowy mountain cliffs. Putting myself in the position of the hamsters, I imagined that the most frightening introduction I could have to this life-ending threat would be to perch them above on a cliff looking hungrily down while being framed by the blinding sun. So, I penciled out the pose, scanned it in and added some dramatic flare in Photoshop by including shadows.
Now THIS is something that could just ruin your whole mountain hike. (Click on image to see it larger.)
Usually when I did these kinds of character development drawings, they would be passed along down the production line just as you see it. This time, however, the director took a shine to the drama in this piece, so he asked my buddy Tom Cain to paint it in color as I moved on to do other drawings. I really loved how Tom handled the whole scene so I thought I’d share with you his terrific version of these snarling, drooling hamster nightmares.
Here is Tom Cain’s great Photoshop rendition of my Zhurassic Zhu drawing. (Click on image to see it larger.)
Come back tomorrow to see if you scream, if I scream, if monsters scream for ice cream!
Prior to this year’s Monster Month, I shared with you some of the art I created as a character designer for the new Zhu Zhu Pets movie, The Quest for Zhu, that came out on DVD last week. The drawings showed lots of cute little hamsters with their big eyes and button noses. What I didn’t tell you was that the movie also contains a few monsters, the most villainous of them all being the evil Mazhula!
Mazhula has a head inspired by a cobra, body of an alligator, and the personality of a jar of mayonnaise that has turned. My colleague Stephen Silver conceived her basic look, and I began to define her behavior and personality with the following drawings….
I wonder if she realizes she has two fingers pointing right back at her?
Early in development, Mazhula’s tail was going to have a perpetual blue flame, but who wants an eternal flame near their backside, especially on burrito night?
You wouldn’t catch ME licking a hamster like that. I’d have no idea where it’s been!
While the above were character study sketches, towards the end of production I did one more detailed drawing of the evil Mazhula that can be seen during the end credits of the Zhu Zhu Pets movie. Mazhula has this ability to shoot electric fireballs from the palms of her hands, but when she does so, she depletes her own power. To recharge, she plugs her tail into a spittoon-looking device that is an electrical outlet for reptiles of her caliber. The following drawing is based on a moment in the movie that was storyboarded by my friend Mike Kunkel (known for his comic book a few years ago called Herobear and the Kid).
Click on the sleeping Mazhula if you DARE!
Return tomorrow to see how a monster deals with far-sightedness!
Back in 2004 I was contemplating getting into using the watercolor medium. For many years I created illustrations with colored pencil and gouache, an opaque water based paint. Watercolor paint started catching my eye to the point of inspiring me to give it a try. But what would be a worthy image on which to test this new medium? The first piece to drip out of my brush involved an alligator and a bunny rabbit, but then….. MONSTERS!
In the classic Frankenstein movie with Boris Karloff, there is a moment when this big lumbering beast comes across a little girl. As an audience, you know what this behemoth is capable of, and the little girl who is none the wiser just sees a potential playmate. What if some monsters got snagged into playtime with a fearless little girl who just would not let them go? Instead, she is the monster, and they are the victims. With that backstory in mind, I created this piece which turned out to be the launch of my interest in fun monster art:
How DOES a monster politely excuse himself from a tea party anyway? (Click on image to see it larger.)
Some of you may have seen the above painting on my website, but what you have NOT seen before are some of the preliminary sketches from my sketchbook that were drawn in the quest for just the right combination of monsters to be tormented by this situation. An illustration doesn’t just fall into place with the first critters that come to mind. Below are a few beasties that didn’t make the cut:
Manny, Mo and Jack here look fun and all, but just weren’t the right tone for the final painting.
Kukla, Fran and Ollie here also were not quite what was needed for a tea party.
The six fellas above were just a few of the dozen and a half heads that came out of my pencil. Three faces were needed, and three faces were found, but not all in a row. Scattered amongst the many pages of exploratory monster drawings were the three you see below – the three that made it into the final painting:
Capt. Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters are the three that made the final cut.
So, there you have the genesis of my interest in monster art! I also happen to love the Muppets, so that might help explain a bit of the ol’ Henson influence that may come through now and then, too. Come back again tomorrow for another strange creation that’s a vision, but only an illusion – a monster that has nothing to hide.
A few weeks back I learned that my friends Abi and Harrison Craig were going to be leaving Los Angeles with their family and heading to Kentucky. Harrison has accepted a job working on the Ark Encounter, a Bible-based theme park that is currently in the planning stages. It is being put together by Answers in Genesis, the people known for the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.
You may remember Answers in Genesis here on my blog. Last year I told you about an illustration assignment I did for their publication, Answers Magazine(click HERE to see it again). In fact, I believe it was just recently republished in their special 5th anniversary issue.
Well, Harrison wanted a drawing of his family to commemorate this big change in their lives. His kids have only known California, and they are excited about this grand new adventure that they set out on this week. I thought I’d share with you the drawing in it’s three stages: rough sketch, final inked art, and the full-color final piece.
Working from photographs, I worked out the rough drawing with blue pencil on tracing paper. It went through a couple of alterations as per Harrison’s request, then I made a few spacing and size changes with Photoshop on the computer.
Click on image for a slight enlargement.
You may notice some details like Noah’s ark on the pennant since they are going to work on the Ark Encounter. And if you noticed a chicken in the van, that’s because while the Craigs lived here in L.A., they had a chicken coop providing them with plenty of fresh eggs daily. Originally I had thought to add some chickens chasing the van, but then the idea of leaving palms for pines came to me and seemed like a better idea. So, one chicken made it into the van, although I don’t believe the same could be said about the real life chickens. Well, leastwise not sitting next to the bellies of those boys. (cough cough)
The next step was to print the blue lines out on a piece of 14×11 paper, and using a piece of graphite paper (similar to carbon paper but using pencil lead instead) under the print, I traced the drawing down onto a nice clean sheet of Bristol board. It was on this piece of Bristol that I hand-inked the art using a Pentel brush pen (a most excellent tool I don’t know how I ever lived without) and Prismacolor black tech pens.
Click on image for a slight enlargement.
Then, it was time to color. Scanning the art into the computer, the color was added in Photoshop. I chose to keep things fairly flat, only really shading the skin tones of the people. The grass and van have some gradations, but by focusing the shading on the skin tones, it draws attention to the characters rather than to the environment.
Click on image for a slight enlargement.
Well, there you have it. The A to Cs of a cartoony caricature drawing of one swell family.
