The Chad Frye - Illustration Guy
I hear there’s a new Batman movie out now starring Robert Pattinson. I didn’t see it, but I figure this is probably what it was like.
Welcome to the grand finale of my 2021 MONSTER MONTH!! And what a finale indeed! Not one, not two, but FIFTEEN monsters!!! (Seventeen if you want to also count the kids.)
A little while back, I was invited to contribute a page to a kids’ activity book where each page was being created by different cartoonists. The book was going to be published, and handed out at various children’s charity events by the non-profit organization spearheading the project. Covid hit, and the donors who were going to pay for printing backed out, so the book wasn’t printed. Bummer.
This was going to be a black-lined coloring page for the kids, where they also had to find all the horns in the picture, and I don’t just mean the musical instruments. Since some monsters have horns on their heads, it meant ALL horns in the picture – thirty-five all together!
This was a traditionally drawn image hand-inked on Bristol board. I decided to spruce it up a little by adding some color in Photoshop just for you Monster Month followers.
I hope you have enjoyed this month-o’-monsters. It was fun for me coming up with them You can sigh in relief that now it is over. We will be returning to our regularly scheduled (non-threatening) art posts in the days to come.
Well, here we are on the eve of the final day of MONSTER MONTH. Have you been enjoying it? I hope so, because I’ve sure enjoyed presenting all these wacky characters to you this month.
This is one of my favorites for the month. It’s a traditionally created piece made with ink and gouache paint on blue Canson paper. I had doodled this idea about three years ago, and it just languished in my idea file. When I saw it again, I knew I had to do it, and part of the fun of this one was doing it with those traditional methods. If I ever have a monster art show some day, this will look really great in a frame.
I’m sure you can tell, but just to be clear, it is a version of Little Red Riding Hood.
(I think drool has been a recurring theme this past month.)
When out West roaming the lonely frontier, the mind can play a lot of tricks on even the most seasoned hombre. You start to hear things. You start to see things. You start to smell things – things that no living creature should hear, see, or smell.
If you should find yourself riding along a dusty trail surrounded by mysterious mesas and you hear the blood-curdling twang of the undead coming from a whirling dust cloud preceded by the stench of a fortnight’s worth of rotting decay, you might just want to tuck yourself behind a boulder to dare to take a peek at the soul-less cowboy riding by on his four-eyed, flaming-haired demon bull followed by his flitting gang of howling bats ready to do his evil bidding.
Speaking of smell, this painting actually smells REALLY good! You see, the paint was something I brewed up – literally. It’s COFFEE, punctuated with some brown colored pencils.
Back in my days at Disney Animation in the late ’90s/early aughts, one of Walt’s old animators Walt Stanchfield used to come in and give us drawing classes once a month. I remember he showed us some sketches he did in a diner that he shaded with coffee. Every now and then, I like to give it a try, too. As you can see, it takes to the paper in a gritty kind of way.
Maybe if the caveman had gotten the vaccine, he would be protected.
Ink in a sketchbook, colored in Photoshop.
Hard as they try, trolls are never very good chefs. They never use enough seasoning, their meat always tastes quite gamey, and they’ll eat anything that’s not related to them. It’s truly an ugly existence, even more so when you realize they actually have nothing of benefit to offer society.*
Although, they might offer a bit of a humorous escape for people if some producer gave them a cooking show.
*Of course, I’m talking about REAL trolls here. Not those fictional technicolor Smurf-like creatures who sing all the time.
Black cherry colored pencil in a sketchbook.
Time can be our friend, or it can be a cruel joke.
When time is more of the latter, that is when one must call upon the services of the Time Warrior. He travels through time to write the wrongs one has done, but he does so for a price – a price that you don’t always fully grasp until it’s too late!
Ink and gouache on brown paper. Sidekick not included.
I can’t quite be sure, but I think this alien has fish on the brain. The truth is very likely stranger than science fiction.
Ink drawing in a sketchbook, colored in Photoshop.