The Chad Frye - Illustration GuyWhen you work in the world of animation, you have to be prepared to draw some pretty interesting stuff when the script calls for it. In the Zhu Zhu Pets DVD movie, The Quest for Zhu, we had to come up with a hamster based abominable snowman. Stephen Silver did some initial designs, and I proceeded to refine the character.
The following are some of my pencil drawings of the winter sasquatch creature we called Zhusquashya.
Ever have one of those days when nothing seems to be going right? You wake up to a jack hammer outside your home, spill coffee on your freshly pressed cape during breakfast, head on out to work and you step in a deep puddle, and then horror of horrors, the little girl you are trying to scare actually fights back. That’s when you have to swallow your pride and implement “Plan B” by stealing her little pink tricycle and just peddling out of there as fast as you can.
Get some rest. Tomorrow is another day.
It’s one thing for a kid to set up a lemonade stand in her front yard to make a little money, and it’s another thing entirely when she gets some big competition that can swallow her whole. Capitalism at work. It’s a common American tale kind of like what happened to my uncle’s camera shop years ago when a Walmart moved into his little town.
By the way, today’s beast is really more of a sketch than anything. Because I drew the whole thing from scratch on a Cintiq tablet on the computer, I was able to quickly dab in some color here and there for your amusement.
My good friend and neighbor Brian Joseph Ochab formed his own production company called Wonder Motion Studios. Under this banner, he is developing some wonderful family entertainment. In fact, one of the projects he is working on is TIM, the Tim Burton inspired animated short film that I am co-producing with him. (CLICK HERE if you’d like to be up to speed with that project!)
In starting Wonder Motion Studios, Brian wanted a fun logo to get across the whimsy and imagination his projects have. He enjoyed my creatures from previous Monster Months, and wanted me to create one for him. After a few different ideas, we settled down with this purple balloon-loving mascot onto which Brian later incorporated his typeface.
For some odd reason, I am forever fascinated with the idea that no matter how creepy and menacing a monster can be to us humans, these same monsters may also happen to really enjoy their ice cream. So much so, that there has been an ice cream eating monster in every Monster Month to date! They can have their homo sapien entrèe, then top it off with a cool, sweet dairy delight to eliminate that icky aftertaste.
Today’s art goes beyond just one drawing of a monster enjoying his frozen treat. I offer you a glimpse into a whole page of my sketchbook. You can see the beast of the hour there, but there is also a half conceived image of a creepy caterpillar creature, and what looks like a goofy dragon head.
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.
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.
Not sure if today’s monster is the chaser or the chasee. If it is chasing something, I would NOT want to be in his way. If it is being chased by something else, just think how much more hideous its enemy must be! No matter what the story is behind this drawing, it was just a doodle that sprung to life in my sketchbook.
I often like to draw things that look like they are in the middle of a story. Hopefully this one makes you wonder where he is from, why is he running, and where he is going. Or maybe its not even a he!!! YOU get to write his or her story in your own imagination.
About a month or so ago I went to see the amazing exhibit of Tim Burton’s personal artwork at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and came home totally jazzed about drawing and painting weird creatures for MONSTER MONTH.
A common motif in Tim’s work seemed to be stripes and swirls, and for days after soaking up all that creativity, I was bursting to do a piece of my own. So, after a quick sketch in my sketchbook, this little ugly bug character came flowing out. I quickly redrew it quite large (24″x18″), inked it with my brush pen, and then watercolored that sucker with as much energy as I could put into it.
I really loved how it turned out – it feels really spontaneous for me, which is good. So often in my daily job I am being very analytical when drawing characters because they are for the mechanical CG animation world. I shoved all those rules aside and just had fun. I hope you enjoy it, too.
Since I have been helping to develop a Burton-themed short animated film this past year, it was fun getting my Tim Burton on again. If you’d like to see more of my art inspired by Tim Burton, CLICK HERE. And if you are in the Los Angeles area, be sure to check out the Burton show at LACMA. It will be there until October 31.