The Chad Frye - Illustration GuyDay four in this week’s Sketch Challenge brings with it the wrath and menace of a crazed cat behind the controls of a mouse zapping spaceship, enough to send a chill through the spine of Buck Rogers himself!
Hopefully you are also following the sketch posts this week by my challenger Andy Heckathorne, a fantastic illustrator and designer. If not, pop on over to his Twitter account to see what my competition is up to!
Okay, okay. So yesterday we started off with a bang (so to speak) with some cowboys in this week’s Sketch Challenge between me and my buddy, Andy Heckathorne. Andy drew me getting punched out complete with a black eye (which you can see by clicking here). Today, I return the favor by sending him a bear that will maul Andy, if the bear doesn’t tickle him to death first.
I love drawing bears. There are lots of them on my blog. It is almost like it is a necessity for me to draw them now and again. There’s something about being able to put a goofy grin on them, and they have that lumbering, plump exterior that you can twist and turn any which way you’d like. I drew this guy on some brown Canson paper with ink, with added drybrush touches of white gouache.
Come back tomorrow to see what Day 3 in this Sketch Challenge will bring!
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 do it for five days. I agreed.
The rules of the game are that each sketch can take only a maximum of 30 minutes. I did not specifically time these, but am pretty sure I am close to that deadline each day this week. No stipulation was made as to drawing materials, so let the games begin.
Since Andy’s challenge reminded me of an old western duel, my first thought immediately went to cowboys. However, instead of dueling with guns, their duel is between who has the biggest belt buckle. Enjoy!
Come to think of it, did you know that I was on Twitter, too?! Click here to follow me!
It seems that it has been awhile since I have posted some art here on the ol’ blog. I would apologize, except for the fact that I have been insanely busy working on a new children’s book! I can’t say anything about it for now, but it does involve a good 20 or so illustrations, and I am doing them all traditionally in watercolor and colored pencil. So there hasn’t been much time for anything else.
That being said, last night I experienced a little insomnia. Went to bed, then two hours later I was wide awake. Not good. So, I channeled my energy into doing a sketch in my sketchbook, which escalated into giving it a quickie coloring job on the computer.
With all the media talk of sharks and shark attacks this summer, I decided to doodle my own fierce shark with a baby seal to add a touch of desperation. Enjoy, and swim safely out there in the big oceans!
A couple of months ago I was hired to do a corporate illustration in a comic book style for the ServiceMax company. Specifically, I was asked to draw the piece in an old school Marvel/DC Comics style showing a business-suited hero pulling an office building with screaming workers away from the brink of destruction. The art director gave me a rough sketch of what he wanted, and after a little back and forth, the hero emerged.
This style is a little out of my wheelhouse, but was fun to draw for the client nonetheless. It is nice when someone hires you to do something they haven’t seen you do before. We artists often like the challenge. It breaks up the monotony of doing the things you get pigeon-holed into doing all the time. Thanks, ServiceMax!
The other day I was doodling in my sketchbook with a blue pencil when this little creeper came out. I liked how he looked, and decided to put some ink on him. The rough inking raised his appeal a bit, and then it escalated into including some shading. Having just made a pot of coffee, I dipped my brush into the coffee and gave him some brown stains to complete the sketch. I know he doesn’t look it, but now he smells good – like a caramel macchiato latte.
“Hey, ho, hey!” That’s the greeting of the NCS LA. To those not in the know, NCS LA means the National Cartoonists Society, Los Angeles Chapter!
The NCS LA reorganized this year to become a pretty busy group of professional cartoonists. We used to have one gathering a year in December, but since this past December, we have been doing monthly activities where professional cartoonists can socialize with colleagues, learn something, and hopefully soon will involve some volunteer drawing for worthy causes.
Part of what the NCS LA has discovered is some of the history of our group. Our mascot has become Cornelius the Bear because back in the day he saved the life of Los Angeles cartoonist George Herriman, creator of the comic strip Krazy Kat, from a runaway toboggan. Cornelius is no longer with us here in the City of Angels, of course, so he himself is depicted in angelic terms on our official crest. I recently drew my version of Cornelius as seen above wearing the NCS LA uniform of a plaid sports coat.
That image of Cornelius was used on a flyer I put together advertising to our membership a field trip we took a few weeks ago to Revolutions 2, a fantastic museum exhibit of original illustration art at the museum in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, CA (go see it before it closes in early August if you haven’t already – it’ll knock your socks off!). Illustrator William Stout showed us around the exhibit, and was able to tell tales of his own art that is in the display. Afterwards, we went to lunch at a place where Walt Disney and his animators used to hang out (yes, that’s my Walt on the flyer, too).
If you are a professional cartoonist creating comic books, comic strips, illustration, animation, editorial cartoons, or any other genre in cartooning here in Los Angeles, or will be visiting our fair city in the future, please get a hold of me to find out when and where our next gathering will be! We’d love to welcome you here!
Some cats sit all alone in the moonlight, and can smile at the old days; they were beautiful then and remember a time they knew what happiness was, and they let the memory live again.* Other cats just like making new memories such as climbing on birthday cakes.
This was a little birthday piece I did for a good friend who has three cats. I may have made up their color schemes, though. Unless these are what Jellicle cats really look like, then the colors were very specific and intentional.
*Yes, those are lyrics borrowed from the song Memory in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CATS.