Category: Random Doodles

John Silver

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date July 19, 2016

A couple of weeks ago, I spent six days camping in the untamed nature of Russia. You read that right – in RUSSIA! I am not much one for going on a genuine camping trip. My last camping trip was when I was 14 years old, and it was the trip that convinced me to never go camping again. Well, sometimes you have to break promises you made to yourself.

This isn’t an official post about my camping trip. Maybe I’ll share with you more about that another time. However, this IS a post to share a drawing I did while on that camping trip. I went into the Russian forest with a large church group where we heard many messages preached from God’s Word, we went swimming in a lake, played volleyball, and had craft time every day.

Craft time for me mostly meant doing drawings for everyone else, which was perfectly fine. I drew several Mickey Mouses (or would that be Mickey Mice?), Donald Duck, Winnie the Poohs, a Kronk used on a nail craft project, and even some of my own creations. One that was maybe the most fun to draw, and most unusual to get a request for, was John Silver from Disney’s Treasure Planet.

While I did work on Treasure Planet, I was not one of the animators. I had done some sketches of him back in the day, but was long removed from the project. One friend of mine had internet access out there in the middle of nowhere, so we looked him up for reference, and I worked out this sketch of Silver with his companion Morph. I loved how it turned out, and thought maybe you’d enjoy seeing it, too.

Camping – in the woods – in Russia – with internet access – drawing John Silver – very strange, yet memorable.

Arrrr! The Russian woods be a risky place to be drawin’ pirates!

Honey Bear

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date July 11, 2016

Today’s sketch was a little something I created on the first page of a sketchbook I gave to a friend’s niece. She is a creative 10-year-old, so why not make a little gift of something to encourage her with her art!

The sketchbook is your regular ol’ white-paged book and the drawing was inked in it with a brush pen with just a splash of yellow watercolor to define the honey. I just decided to goose it a little digitally by scanning it into Photoshop, dropping it onto some brown Canson paper, and then adding some modest highlights and shadows on the bear.

A bear in his natural habitat. Just don’t ask where he got the straw and little umbrella.

Animals Art: Inking Character Designs Illustrations Random Doodles Sketchbook

Viking Cat

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date June 29, 2016

The other day in a weird burst of thought, it occurred to me that Vikings must have had cats for pets. They were a seafaring people, and with all that fish around, surely there had to be cats. Maybe the cats enjoyed plundering and pillaging little mouse villages, too – who knows?

One thing is for sure – after a hard day’s work of marauding, a tired Viking would probably enjoy putting his soggy feet up by a fire and exercise his sensitive side by petting a purring kitty as he drifts off to a Norse dreamland.

The ferocious Viking and his trusty kitty in tune with the purr of the sea.

Animals Art: Colored Pencil Art: Drawings Character Designs Random Doodles Sketchbook

Yo Ho Ho!

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date June 7, 2016

The other day I was reading an article saying that some ocean archaeologists found what they believe to be the anchor from Blackbeard’s actual ship off the coast of North Carolina! I got all excited about it, and for days I was thinking about pirates! I even went so far as to sketch this one on a letter I was writing to a friend. (Yes, some of us still write real letters – it’s better than e-mail to give friends real sketches.) Then I went back and re-read the article, and found that it had been posted in 2011. So much for current events.

Well, I suppose that since the anchor was found in the ocean, that qualifies it for being a current event no matter how you look at it. (Can I have a rimshot?)

This may not exactly be the pirate’s chest you were looking for.

Art: Drawings Character Designs Random Doodles Sketchbook

Happy Cat

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date May 31, 2016

Welcome back to work after the long holiday weekend! You know that’s where you are as you read this. You were too busy relaxing and having fun over the Memorial Day holiday to bother keeping up with Facebook and other such time wasters on the net. We all know that’s what the first hour or two back at work is for anyway!

While others may be dragging in grumpy about leaving behind their weekend experiences to sit under the lulling pulsating hum of fluorescent lights and in the warm gentle glow of a computer screen with the hint of weak coffee in the air, take this opportunity to be the optimistic happy cat in the bunch.

There’s always one.

As for me, I’m at the beach today. My smile is genuine.

Animals Art: Colored Pencil Art: Drawings Character Designs Random Doodles Sketchbook

Combover Lion

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date April 14, 2016

Sometimes when I sketch, I just start with a nose and see where it goes from there with no preconceived notion of what I am about to draw. Other times the sketch is informed by a curiosity I may have. Such is the case with today’s doodle. I saw pictures of some male lions, and I wondered what they might look like if they started losing their hair and decided to do a combover.

Once the lack of hair was drawn, the glasses soon were added, then the bow tie. The lion became an ivy league professor!

Animals Art: Drawings Art: Photoshop Character Designs Random Doodles

The Cookout

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date March 17, 2016

I’m not sure why, but next to monsters, I sure do love drawing bears. In fact, one of my favorite Disney characters is Humphrey the Bear from several Donald Duck shorts back in the ’50s, and then he even had a few of his own shorts. Bears can be interpreted in many different ways in art, and I usually go for some version of silly. As Leonardo DiCaprio can attest, though, real bears are not as pleasant. (Yes, that was a real bear, and no one can tell me otherwise, and I only saw the commercial!)

So, for your viewing pleasure, here’s a sketchbook bear for you, drawn with a rollerball pen. While he is friendly looking, I’m not sure exactly how he started that fire. Maybe he finished off some campers, took their fire, and the fish is just his dessert.

Clearly he is not at all worried about his blood pressure with that generous application of salt.

Animals Character Designs Random Doodles Sketchbook

In the Bleak Midwinter

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date January 18, 2016

I recently spent some time on the east coast of the United States, and was terribly disappointed that not a hint of snow was to be had anywhere in my travels. I returned to California this past week, and of course, the snow fell upon the ground I had tread just a few days before. Sigh.

With the hopes of snow dancing in my head, I sketched this bleak midwinter scene on the back of an envelope I sent to a friend who is situated in a very cold, white place where the winters seem endless. Perhaps that was mean of me. I should have shared some of my sunshine instead.

Animals Random Doodles Sketchbook