Category: Frankenstein

2016 Monster Month: Day 21 – Hipster Frankie

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 31, 2016

Welcome to the grand finale of 2016’s Monster Month!

As I have said here before, I love drawing Frankenstein’s monster a LOT. When trying to figure out why, it most likely stems from how much I loved the drawings the recently departed great Jack Davis used to do. His had such an ease about them, and a quiet grace amid his flurry of cross-hatching. So maybe each time I draw good ol’ Frankie, it’s a way for me to personally remember Jack.

This year’s Monster Month opened with a loose ink drawing of a more traditional view of the original zombie, so for our grand finale, we are ending with a modern version of him. With the hipster movement going on these days, I started wondering what ol’ Frankie might look like had he been put together with parts from this era. Perhaps he’d look a little something like this…

Sure hope his relationship lasts, otherwise that tattoo will be painful to remove.

In case you are curious, this is a completely traditional drawing. Inked with a sepia colored ink, and some white & blue gouache paint in my new Strathmore Toned Tan Paper sketchbook! Thought he’d be a good one to start the book.

Well, thanks for following along with my Monster Month posts again this year. I always enjoy drawing them, and hope you enjoy this October tradition of mine. Feel free to check out all my previous monster drawings from years past by CLICKING HERE!

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

2016 Monster Month: Day 1 – Frankenstein

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 3, 2016

Welcome to the creepy, spooky, and altogether ooky (I may have borrowed those words from somewhere) very first post of this year’s Monster Month here on the ol’ blog.

You may have noticed that last year I did not do any Monster Month posts because scary as it may sound, I was so preoccupied with work that it had slipped my mind that October had come once again.

There has been no mental slippage this year! Get ready for a new monster to be posted each weekday during the month of October. You will see twenty-one sketches, ink drawings, paintings, and various other artistic expressions of strange things that go bump in the night.

What better way is there to start such an entourage of entwined entities than with one of the greatest classic monsters who has been fearing fire since 1818, your undead favorite and mine, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster!

Frankie is just waving a Monster Month welcome to you! — Frankie is just waving a **Monster Month** welcome to you!

Frankenstein’s monster has made so many appearances over the years on my blog that he has his own category on the home page. If you would like to see other iterations of him from the past, CLICK HERE! Regarding this new one, this Frankie is a traditionally drawn ink sketch from my sketchbook that was later color tinted in Photoshop.

Art: Drawings Art: Inking Art: Photoshop Character Designs Frankenstein Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2014 Monster Month: Day 23 – The Nightmare

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 31, 2014

Welcome to the final selection in my 2014 Monster Month series of creepy crawlies and things that go bump in the night. As you can see, this grand finalè is autobiographical. Well, at least it is how I remember bedtime to be when I was a child.

I was that kid who would look pensively into his bedroom to make sure no monsters were peeking out of the closet or rumbling under the bed. If the coast looked clear, I would run full tilt into the room and leap onto my bed so fast that the monsters beneath had no chance to reach out and grab my ankles. Of course the mattress was off limits to them, so if I made it there safely, the monsters were powerless to attack me.

However, those monsters knew they would have their turn – a moment when I would be the most vulnerable. It was that moment in the middle of the night when one would have to get up to go to the bathroom. You wake up, and are too groggy to realize that you are sliding out of bed to go into the hall, which also means you are too groggy to think defensively. The monsters take that moment to SPRING out from the abyss beneath the box spring and munch on their midnight snack of a wailing child.

The next time your children wet their beds, don’t get angry at them. They are just protecting themselves from going down the gullet of a hungry monster. Instead, be thankful you still have your children and applaud them for their defensive thinking.

Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy night.

Well, thank you for joining me again on this year’s monstrous journey. It was fun letting my mind wander to create these creatures. Hope you enjoyed them as much as I did in drawing them. Keep coming back throughout the year to see what other goodies I unleash, and feel free to click on the Monsters category on my blog homepage to see what beasties you may have missed in the past!

Happy Halloween! Be safe!

Art: Drawings Art: Inking Art: Photoshop Character Designs Frankenstein Illustrations Monsters

2014 Monster Month: Day 10 – Jackenstein

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 14, 2014

I often get asked “why monsters?” There are two answers to that: 1. the world of fantasy allows for as much creativity as one can handle, and 2. Jack Davis.

Jack Davis is the monster king. He has drawn many topics over his career for MAD Magazine, TIME Magazine, advertising art, movie posters, TV Guides, animation – you name it! However, his abilities with comic monsters have no comparison. While he has drawn the grotesque at times, it is his fearless work with a brush and ink on countless comedic takes on the creatures of the night that have delighted this fan for a long time. And which monster of his do they keep coming back for more? Frankenstein’s monster, naturally (or should I say “unnaturally”?).

On a rare recent visit with Jack, he told me that the Frankenstein monster is the one he gets asked to draw most often, and is it any wonder? Once he created that six foot tall Frankenstein poster in 1972 that captured the imagination of little boys everywhere while disgusting their mothers, he cemented his status as the king! I have had my own fascination with Frankenstein’s monster over the years, likely due to Jack’s influence. So much so that I include a Frankie every year in Monster Month! (Click here to see the collection!)

So, this year’s Frankie is a caricature of the monster king himself, Jack Davis, complete with his own zombie Georgia bulldog in a piece I like to call Jackenstein!

Jack “Frankenstein” Davis roaming the countryside and keeping away from fire.

A little close-up so you can see the full hideousness of Jackenstein! Mwuahahaha!

If you are unfamiliar with Jack Davis’ almost 90 years of sketches, paintings and illustrations (he was born with a pencil in his hand of course), please CLICK HERE to see some great examples of his work!

Return again tomorrow to see how bees interact with monsters!

Animals Art: Inking Art: Painting Caricature Character Designs Frankenstein Monsters

2013 Monster Month: Day 14 – Frankenink

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 30, 2013

This year throughout the month of October I have seen many artist friends posting inked drawings on Facebook and calling them “Inktober”. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but I have deducted that “Inktober” means they are trying to post drawings created with ink. As I looked back on the past thirteen entries for Monster Month, the methods employed have included ball point pen, felt pen, gouache, colored pencil, watercolor, and Photoshop. Nothing seemed to have been inked the old fashioned way of brush or pen & ink! That is about to be remedied…

Frankenstein – the original zombie.

For those of you keeping track, you knew that eventually Frankenstein’s monster had to make it into Monster Month as he has every year. He comes courtesy of a black ink brush pen, highlighted with good ol’ white colored pencil with some black ink and white gouache flicked on via a toothbrush that isn’t much good for cleaning teeth anymore. And just like the real Frankie, this one won’t hold up to fire very well.

Come back tomorrow for this year’s grand finale of MONSTER MONTH!

Art: Colored Pencil Art: Drawings Art: Inking Character Designs Frankenstein Monsters

Frankensketch

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 31, 2012

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This Frankensketch came alive in one of my sketchbooks!

Well, I managed to squeeze out one more monster drawing here in what I usually dub “Monster Month”, and I leaned on my go-to guy Frankenstein. This one started as just a Prismacolor pencil sketch in my sketchbook, and I liked how he turned out so I added some watercolor right there in the book!

Yes, you purists out there will say that technically he is Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, and not actually Frankenstein. I differ with you on that, thou nay sayers! If one gives birth to a new life, they take your name. Dr. Frankenstein birthed, sort of, this creature, so by all rights he should also bear the name “Frankenstein”!

Regardless, Frankenstein has appeared a few times on the ol’ blog. In case you would like to explore my past with the big green guy, CLICK HERE to see all the Frankie posts.

Hopefully next October I’ll be back with monster art for each weekday. Until then continue to enjoy the various other art that I post here throughout the year!

Art: Drawings Art: Painting Art: Watercolor Character Designs Frankenstein Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2010 Monster Month: Day 5 – Blue Frankie

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 5, 2010

Alright, let’s just get it out of the way early, shall we? I can’t help doodling Frankenstein’s monster all the time. At least not since doing that big Frankenstein watercolor painting based on the Mona Lisa awhile back. (CLICK HERE if you would like to revisit it!)

So, here is yet another in the fine line of Frankensteins by yours truly – this time drawn with a ball point pen from the pages of my sketchbook.

You’d be blue, too, if your whole wardrobe was in tatters like Frankie’s.

Character Designs Frankenstein Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

MONSTER MONTH: Day 31 – The Flame Thrower

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 31, 2009

Welcome to this, the final day of MONSTER MONTH here on the blog. It has been a fun 31 days of monsters, and I thought I’d cap it off with a doozy for Halloween!

If you are at all familiar with the story of Frankenstein, you would know that the monster has a fear of fire. But what truly caused that fear? I mean, at some point, he must have been okay with it, right? Something had to set him off. Oh, there may be some paltry explanation in the pages of Mary Shelley’s tome, but I believe that the true moment when the monster’s fear was born came in the laboratory one fateful day.

I suppose that along with fire, one might fear Dr. Frankenstein after this incident. Igor only approaches him from the front these days.

Thank you for joining me this month. I had a blast drawing MONSTERS of all shapes and sizes. If you enjoyed it as much as I did, feel free to leave a comment here on the blog!

Art: Inking Art: Photoshop Cartoons Character Designs Frankenstein Illustrations Monsters