As the swift cool breezes of fall waft through the amber leaves of the neighborhood trees, it delivers the delights and mischief of creatures strange and mysterious who venture out to taunt all good citizens like yourself. (Well, here in Los Angeles the temperatures hit 113°, so the leaves are amber from having been burned.)
Welcome to the return of MONSTER MONTH here on the Chad Frye • Illustration Guy blog! I have been busy like a mad scientist hunched over in his laboratory slinging pencils, ink, paint and pixels to terrorize and amuse you each day during this fine fall month of October. You will get to see a variety of approaches to the beasties as some are watercolor paintings, others fully rendered ink and Photoshop cartoons and illustrations, some pencil drawings, and others are simply doodles and sketches from my sketchbook.
To kick off the month, here is a piece I created with ink and Photoshop using myself as a model for the Wolfman that reminds you that while some things may go bump in the night, there may be other reasons why you would have to watch your step….
A couple of days ago I shared with you the step-by-steps of a little piece I did of Disney’s Captain Hook with a caricature of yours truly in the place of Hook’s first mate Mr. Smee (CLICK HERE to see that post). When I created that little watercolor sketch this past winter, it was only one of two pieces on that theme. While that was a close-up, perhaps you’d like to see the second piece, this time full-bodied poses.
Since I went into some detail on each step in the last post, I’ll post these three stages with minimal comment and just let you enjoy the visual progression. So, without further ado, Captain Hook and Chad Frye as Mr. Smee! Peter Pan would certainly not be the same movie had it been done this way!
This is a colored pencil line drawing on nice textured watercolor paper.The purple watercolor paint will take care of all the shading in the painting.And here is the final Capt. Hook with Mr. Shmad – or is it Mr. Chee? Well, while “Chad” and “Smee” don’t mix well verbally, pictorially they go together fine.
I thought I’d share with you a couple of paintings I did this past winter. I got into a Disney’s Peter Pan mode of thinking and envisioned myself as Captain Hook’s first mate, Smee.
Well, while they are technically paintings, I tend to call these “watercolor sketches”. Each of these took maybe an hour or two to do from start to finish, so they aren’t my typical full-blown watercolor illustrations. This is what I do if I’m making a card for a friend, or doing quickie pieces for fans. There is a certain spontaneity to them that gives them a real energy. Everything is fast and loose and hopefully pure fun.
I’d like to show them to you step-by-step, which is something I haven’t done in awhile. Since there will be a few images for each, I’ll show you one of these today, and I’ll post the second one on Thursday.
So, as with any art I do, it all starts with a rough sketch. I don’t have to please anyone but myself, so it can be as rough as I want it to be. As you can see, the rough sketch for this one started with blue pencil, then I finalized my lines with regular lead. Captain Hook is always fun to draw, and it just seemed with my own body type that I was a shoo-in for Smee.
This is the initial rough sketch of the pirates!
Next, I took that rough and put it on my light table and created my final line with colored pencil onto a rough textured watercolor paper. I didn’t want to get too tight with the drawing, so you can see even in this phase the line work is sketchy in places, and not all the shapes are closed.
This is the final pencil line drawing of Capt. Hook and Chad Smee.
Next will be the tones. I often like putting the tones in purple. It looks nice when working with bright colors, which I will be for this piece. The purple seems too bright and dark right now, but later when the final paint is placed on top of it, the purple will get muted a little, and even somewhat blend in to the wet medium. And so that all my shadows don’t have a hard edge, I was careful to have it fade off in certain places like on Captain Hook’s face, and even his hat.
Hook and “Smee” get the purple tone treatment in watercolor.
Then lastly, I painted in the final colors. You can see that some of the purple shadows got absorbed into the final colors, while in other areas it served as an enhancement. Then I ended with flicking some blue specks on with a toothbrush (preferably NOT the one you brush your teeth with).
The final piece bringing Hook and “Smee” to life.
Come back on Thursday to see the second Captain Hook and Chee (or is it Shmad – thanks to my friend Jennifer Hobson-Plattner for the name) full-bodied watercolor sketch!
Welcome to the FIRST DAY of Monster Month here on the Chad Frye • Illustration Guy blog!
To kick off the event, the monster of the day today is none other than ME ! It only seemed fair that I set the example to all the monsters to follow in the days to come.
“Why monsters?” you ask? Earlier this year I got caught up in creating an illustratiton of Frankenstein’s monster in a Mona Lisa setting, and I just caught the bug. Ever since then I’ve been doodling monsters. If you click on the Monsters category on the blog home page, you’ll be able to see other monsters that currently reside on the blog.
So for now, strap yourselves in, and get ready as we unveil a fun month of hairy beasts and creepy eyes! Hope you enjoy them as much as I did drawing them!
