Category: Sketchbook

Tuesdays with “TIM”

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date March 8, 2011

It’s Tuesday, so that must mean it’s time to share some more behind-the-scenes tidbits with you about my short animated film TIM. My producing partner, Brian Joseph Ochab, and I were recently discussing the need to have a logo that would appropriately communicate the vibe we are trying to elicit with TIM. It needs to be fun, whimsical, and maintain a creepy Burtonesque vibe that the film itself will have. In essence, something that can be the public face of our project. So, I broke out my sketchbook and started conceptualizing!

When I begin the visual thought process, often a flurry of very loose doodles tumble out of my pencil. My hand just whirls around the paper blorping out whatever it wants in the search for the right idea. You’ve heard of someone’s hand having a mind of its own? Believe me, sometimes it’s a challenge to get my actual mind to coordinate with the hand. My hand can go off on its own like a teenager who is handed the keys to the car for the first time. In this case, the hand was exploring lots of things that just weren’t working. It spent several hours involved in this pursuit until one sketch fell onto the page that caused my actual mind to say “THAT’S IT!”

Tim Burton — This is the rough blue sketch of TIM that became an “eureka” moment.

After working out a more detailed pencil drawing, the next step was to create a nicely inked drawing. I do like inking by hand with brush on paper. I bought a really terrific brush pen a year or so ago and use it almost exclusively over my traditional paint brush/bottle of ink. It’s a Japanese brush pen sold by Pentel here in the States, and the ink in the cartridges is a nice solid and permanent black ink. That sucker really holds a point, too. Anyway, enough about my love for my brush pen. I also use permanent black ink pens like Microns or Prismacolor to supplement what the brush pen can’t do.

So, Tim was hand-inked, then scanned into Photoshop for some coloring. In this case, I did a kind of digital airbrushing to bring little Timothy Todd to life. The final art has all kinds of potential applications. We already made it the face of our “TIM – the movie” Facebook page (come join us by clicking here!), he makes an appearance on a coffee mug in a video update we posted on our Kickstarter page, he’s in an ad on Stop Motion Magazine’s website, and he’ll pop up in other places as well. In fact, we believe that a version of this drawing will even be the special limited edition collector’s pin that we are offering as a reward on Kickstarter!

This image may also become a T-shirt down the line. Well, it IS a T-shirt now, but only a one-of-a-kind at the moment. Just this past Saturday, Plaxico the dog featured TIM on his website. (If you’d like to take a look, CLICK HERE!) We’d like to eventually make shirts down the road, but for now am concentrating on trying to actually get the film made! But, if we do make it a shirt, it would likely look something like this…

So there you have it – the anatomy of logo creation. Come back again this THURSDAY where I’ll have a BONUS “Tuesdays with TIM” post for you. There was just too much to cram into one day!

And if you’d like to be a part of our film, come visit us at TIMtheMovie.com for more information!

Tuesdays with “TIM”

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date March 1, 2011

Welcome to another fine addition to my Tuesdays with TIM posts showing you some of the artwork created in the development of this exciting short film project I’ve been working on with my producing partner Brian Joseph Ochab!

When trying to develop the visual style of TIM in early 2010, we didn’t wish to stray from the visuals of Tim Burton’s creepy animated films. We wanted to channel the look of Burton’s 1982 short Vincent while combining it with the visual sophistication of films like Corpse Bride and Henry Selick’s Coraline. Vincent was in black and white, and had a certain economy of scenery that was inexpensive to produce yet visually compelling. The latter films incorporated color and style to their imagery that just captures the imagination.

So, with visions of the macabre dancing in my head, I grabbed my sketchbook and started to draw various scenes based on lines in the script. We chose a couple of them to illustrate, and I got to work on this particular piece.

Yes, the art below is a genuine old school painting in real life. I created it primarily in watercolor, and incorporated the use of colored pencils just a tad. I really love the watercolor medium, and use it often for my development art on this film. I think the uneven nature of it helps give a certain tactile feeling to each scene, and helps give the viewer a certain uneasiness with the creepy subject matter.

If you would like to hear Christopher Lee’s narration that goes with this piece, we feature it in our promo film over on Kickstarter. If you watch it long enough, there’s even a quick shot of me working on this very painting. You can go there right now by clicking on www.TIMtheMovie.com.

If you go to Kickstarter, please consider pledging some money to us so that we can actually make this film. We are in our final month of fundraising. I know at the $100 level, one of the things you’ll receive is a special limited edition print of one of my paintings. We have a few to choose from, so the print might even be of this particular painting.

Come back again next Tuesday for more revelations about TIM the movie! And come join the TIM Facebook page by CLICKING HERE!

Animals Art: Colored Pencil Art: Watercolor Character Designs Development Art Illustrations Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook TIM the Movie

Post-It Parade

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date February 28, 2011

When you are in a meeting at the office, you can always look around and see that people have paper and pen in hand scribbling as other people are talking. One would assume that they are taking notes, and often that is the case. When you work in an animation studio, however, the scribbles are very likely doodles – doodles that usually have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I first started doing this years ago. I used to sit in meetings, and would have trouble keeping my eyes open. In order to stay alert, I would let my hand wander on a blank piece of paper before me. Sure, I’d sketch something now and then that had to do with the meeting at hand, but this was my way of staying alert.

I know what you are thinking, “How can you pay attention to a meeting when you are drawing something else entirely?” Beats me. It’s something I discovered I could do back in high school. I would be doodling away on my notepaper, and yet when a teacher would call on me, I’d be ready with the correct answer. If my hand is silent, my mind tunes out.

So, all you really need is a ball point pen and a pad of Post-It notes. Then, let the parade of the imagination come forth! Here are a few such doodles that spilled from my hand in a recent meeting.

There’s no rhyme or reason to whatever spills forth from the pen in a random doodling.

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Ronald Reagan’s 100th Birthday

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date February 6, 2011
1 Comment on Ronald Reagan’s 100th Birthday

On February 6, 1911, the 40th President of the United States was born. After a career in Hollywood and another in California politics, Ronald Reagan was waxing poetic as he took the highest office in the land in 1981. I was busy learning my multiplication tables and the musical stylings of the flutophone while in the third grade.

Ronald Reagan was the President during much of my childhood. I looked at the office with awe and wonder, and to even a child, this particular President seemed special. Perhaps it was his warm look, and grandfatherly voice that caught my attention, but he also seemed to capture the attention of the grown-ups. When the President was giving a televised speech, we would stop what we were doing and see what he had to tell us. And what he had to tell us was always spoken with such elegance, even if I didn’t understand everything he was talking about.

Some things I understood right away. I remember him talking about Star Wars and thinking that I liked that movie, too. As I grew older and understood more, I remember his speech asking Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. I was in high school when the space shuttle evaporated before our eyes, and I’ll never forget his touching words that seemed to usher the fallen astronauts to their eternity.

Happy 100th Birthday, President Reagan.

One year my parents let me skip school for the day to see President Reagan give a speech down the street from my father’s office in Bloomfield, New Jersey. He was to speak on the steps of city hall before two giant brass doors that the city had polished up to a shine. Even though I was just a kid, Dad let me go down into the crowd on my own. I scurried through the legs of the adults standing there and found my spot right down front where I took some pictures on my little camera. To this day, that is the only time I have seen a standing President in person, and what an amazing experience for a wide-eyed kid from Jersey.

Years later, when I moved to California, my parents, my sister and I were able to meet President Reagan. At that point it had been made public that he was suffering from the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease, but I saw a news report that said he was still going to his office in Los Angeles every day where he would meet with people. My sister was about to turn 16 having been born the year he first took office. After some correspondence with his staff in which her birthday was mentioned, we were able to visit him in his office in early 1998. The ravages of his infliction were evident that day, but it is a day I will forever hold dear. It was the day I was able to thank him.

I don’t particularly enjoy engaging in political debate. You have your beliefs, I have mine and we deal with them at the polls. Today debate rages amongst the politically minded about his contributions to our country, and yet whenever there is an election, it seems as though candidates from all sides wish to have the association of Ronald Reagan placed upon them. That in and of itself speaks volumes of his legacy, a legacy that began 100 years ago today.

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Justin Beaver

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date February 3, 2011

I know the title is corny, but it made you look, didn’t it? I suppose the only thing this critter has in common with his namesake is the feathered fur, which, by the way was completely drawn on a Wacom Cintiq tablet – my first decent digital drawing posted here on the blog!

* No wood (pencil) was harmed in the creation of this drawing, though I can’t say as much for the tree he took that branch from.

For those of you not in the know, a Cintiq is pressure sensitive computer screen on which you can draw with an inkless pen called a “stylus”. Press lightly, your line is thin. Push harder, the line gets thicker. Pretty neat stuff that has been sweeping through the artistic community within the past two years even though these tablets have been around for close to ten years now.

Back when I worked at Disney Feature Animation, Wacom loaned the studio one of their first generation Cintiq tablets. It was housed in my office where many of the artists could come down and give it a try. Most hated it back then, but technology has a way of improving, and some of those guys now not only use one at work, but they’ve bought them for use at home, too.

I’ve been using one at work for a few months now, and had a few minutes of my own time yesterday to play around with doing something more than storyboards on it. Hope you like the results!

Animals Art: Drawings Art: Photoshop Character Designs Development Art Random Doodles Sketchbook

Penciling the Friendly Skies

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date January 13, 2011
1 Comment on Penciling the Friendly Skies

This past Monday I concluded my holiday travels. As you well know from previous blog posts, I always carry my sketchbook with me to keep me entertained during all the waiting one has to do in airports. An airport provides a wonderful cross section of society to try to capture with the pencil. And seeing how people present themselves for travel always intrigues me. Some folks dress up, others wear nothing but their jammies, while yet others may wear layers of the strangest ensemble you’ll ever see in an attempt to avoid baggage fees by putting on whatever didn’t fit into the carry-on (cough – me – cough).

So, here are a few folks that I captured in the airport in Baltimore, Maryland…..

“….all the king’s airplanes and all the king’s pilots, couldn’t lift H….”

“…and I’m waaaaaiting for a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll take off again…”

I’m not sure how he pulled it off, but this janitor looked like he was on a break while he was working! Wish I could work that relaxed!

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Illin’ & Chillin’

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date December 9, 2010

One of the perils of winter is the proclivity for one to become ill. How the evil germs seek out their victims is beyond me, but this past week I fell prey to their maniacal misdoings.

Just last Friday I finished my character design and storyboard revising job on two Zhu Zhu Pets movies. I packed my things, went home, enjoyed a nice Saturday, then BUM bum buuuummmm – Sunday hit with a thud. I started coughing in morning church, and after a two-hour afternoon nap, it was evident that something was wrong.

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again – curse that mischievous Murphy and his confounded law! My first week out of work and I have been spending it nursing a fever, achey back, and runny nose having never been ill while I was employed. Today is the first day I have felt well enough to even sketch something, which I’m sharing with you:

My infernal Cheshire Cat mug just sat there mocking me all week in my sick stupor.

This is not the first time I’ve ever been sick, but somehow it always strikes me as a big surprise when it happens. I tend to forget what it feels like in between illnesses, so when it hits, all the symptoms are rediscovered anew – much like how you look for Waldo again after having not picked up the book in a year – only less fun. Stupid germs.

So, whether you live in the cold reaches of Indiana, or in the 70+ degrees of southern California as I do, the winter bug may seek you out. Try not to be too hospitable to it, ok? Especially if it is wearing a striped shirt and glasses.

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2010 Monster Month: Day 26 – Bed Bug

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date October 26, 2010

Talk about a BED BUG problem…..

Bed Bug

This past weekend I spent several nights sleeping in a hotel in the Phoenix, AZ area. While the room appears clean when you first arrive, you always wonder what those cleaning ladies may have missed. With the current bed bug scare in the United States, you hope desperately that the preceding traveler didn’t leave behind little guests of their own that enjoy room service.

Thankfully I didn’t have bed bugs (that I know of), but it still didn’t stop me from sketching this drawing right there in my room of what could have been. Oog.

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