Rocket Ship Caption Contest

It is time for another CONTEST! Over on Facebook I have a Chad Frye • Illustration Guy Fan Page where from time to time I host contests with real prizes. I’ve given away a couple of drawings so far, and this time I’ll be giving away a copy of my 1998 children’s book Jonah and the Very Big Fish complete with a sketch and autograph inside!

This book illustrated by Chad will be the prize in the new caption contest.
This book illustrated by Chad will be the prize in the new caption contest.

And HOW, pray tell, can you have the opportunity to win such an item? Well, first you have to join Facebook if you are not already among the millions who are regular FB users. Then, join the Fan Page by first going to the page by clicking HERE, and then underneath the image you see there on the left, click on “Become a Fan”.

If you have done both of those things, then you can add your comments to the contest! Just go to the Rocket Ship Caption Contest photo album, read over the rules, and submit your captions! Easy peasy! Contest ends on June 9 at 12 noon P.S.T.!

And here's the drawing that you can submit a caption for in the contest over on Facebook!
And here’s the drawing that you can submit a caption for in the contest over on Facebook!

Well, there you have it! Come join the fun over on Facebook!

And just so there is no confusion, I am turning off the comments feature for this blog post. NO CAPTIONS can be left here! Only on the Facebook Fan Page! Thanks!

Drawn & Quoted: A Good Work Ethic

“A really great talent finds its happiness in execution. “

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)


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Boy Character Studies

I had gotten a bit spoiled being an employed artist for three and a half steady years until finishing my work on My Friends Tigger & Pooh for Disney last October. Suddenly I found myself with a lot of time on my hands – time to finally start developing some projects that have been festering in my brain for awhile.

Prior to coming to California in 1997 to work in animation, I worked full time as a freelancer. And as such, I worked on a lot of publishing projects. I LOVED working on books, and am very interested in getting back into it.

I recently started writing a story that hopefully will work its way into being a genuine bona fide children’s book. Writing silly ideas is so much fun, and being a visual guy, my silly words and silly pictures must go together to form the complete silly train of thought.

Of course you realize that I cannot just tell you my ideas here online as they are still just being birthed – where’s the fun in that? I like being surprised on Christmas morning, don’t you? But, I don’t think it’s giving anything away to show you some character studies I’ve been doing in my sketchbook of my main man.

So, without further ado, here are some development sketches of a young boy in a variety of poses and expressions. There’s a little inconsistency with some of the drawings because while looking for the emotions in him, I was also playing around with his look a bit. Enjoy!

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Drawn & Quoted: Monstrous Joy

“The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.”

– Peter Ustinov (1921-2004)

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Drawn & Quoted: The Wingman

“Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.”

– Honorè de Balzac (1700-1850)

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If you really dig this sketch, and you have an account on Facebook, please come check out the Chad Frye • Illustration Guy fan Page where you can read about how you can win this ORIGINAL ART in a contest that ends on April 20th! On the left side of the fan Page you will see a link to the event “ANOTHER WIN A FREE FRYE SKETCH CONTEST!” with all the details. Come check it out!

Aqua Kids Character Designs

I like designing characters. After all, that’s basically what fills my sketchbooks. I’ll start to doodle a face, then soon enough a whole page will be full of variations of that first drawing. You’ve already seen the results of that with my previous posts of bear sketches and Frankenstein head sketches.

Last year I started to sketch an old dude in a deep sea suit. It was just some random guy, but he kinda looked like he needed some young charges. So the sketch grew to include the chunky kid and the little blonde girl, and on the page next to it were a few octopus designs. The sketchbook continued to be filled with mental musings on other topics, but my mind would often go back to that underwater trio.

The initial sketch that got the ball rolling.
The initial sketch that got the ball rolling.

Recently I decided to do something about it. Already well into another sketchbook, I created more sketches of octopi looking for that one that would go well with the kids. It was kind of like drawing a balloon with personality. A few more kids and fish were added to the mix. It started to look like a cohesive idea.

A whole mess of octopi that were drawn to find the one that would best go with the kids.
A whole mess of octopi that were drawn to find the one that would best go with the kids.

After deciding on a few poses for a group portrait, I transferred the characters to Bristol board and inked them individually (I’m a brush and bottle kinda guy, with the occasional Rapidograph and Micron pen stuck in there). Scan ’em, color ’em in Photoshop, composite them together – and there you have the Aqua Kids!

The final drawing of all the Aqua Kids & the professor.
The final drawing of all the Aqua Kids & the professor.

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 8 – It’s ALIVE!!!!!

Well, not literally alive, but it IS done! The Frankenlisa illustration has reached it’s conclusion, and it’s time for the grand unveiling.

First, I thought it would be good to repost the original daVinci painting that inspired it all. It certainly has inspired many variations over the years. I just thought it would be the perfect setting for a portrait of the monster. Mona’s background is naturally creepy, so adding a creepy castle and an angry mob along the path was a pretty organic decision. And the idea of the monster sitting there calmly for his portrait during all that chaos brought a smirk to my face not entirely unlike Mona’s.

 

Painted in oil, da Vinci's well known masterpiece of the Mona Lisa.
Painted in oil, da Vinci’s well known masterpiece of the Mona Lisa.

 

Painted in watercolor (with colored pencil accents), Frye's Frankenlisa.
Painted in watercolor (with colored pencil accents), Frye’s Frankenlisa.

 

I hope  you enjoyed the journey with me. It was fun to force myself to actually document my process. I never quite gave it any analytical thought before. And I’ve got ideas swirling in my head already for companion paintings of the Mummy and Dracula. We’ll see if I get to those. There are a number of personal projects on my to-do list. Picking and choosing what to do in between actual real jobs is the challenge.

If you just joined my blog with this post, I invite you to go back and follow all the steps in the creation of this piece. To make it easy for you, links to each step are below. Thanks for dropping by!

 

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 1-Conceptualization

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 2-Research

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 3 – Prepping the Painting

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 4 – Painting the Background

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 5 – Painting Frankie (Step A)

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 5.5 – The Work Environment

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 6 – Painting Frankie (Step B)

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 7 – Color Penciling the Monster

Drawn & Quoted: Overweight America

“For the first time ever, overweight people outnumber average people in America. Doesn’t that make overweight the average then?”

– Jay Leno

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I was thumbing through my sketchbook the other day, and came across this drawing. Thought it deserved to be let out for some air. It isn’t based on some real-life scene that I happened to observe in a local park or anything. In fact, I’m actually not real sure of what inspired the scenario. Perhaps I might have been feeling a little guilty for having just eaten a generously proportioned sandwich myself. Whatever the case, I offer this for your visual digestion.