The Chad Frye - Illustration GuyI’m not a pet guy, but I can see the appeal. After a full day of breathing fire on angry villagers or BBQing knights in shiny armor who are always trying to kill you first, it must be nice to come home to the unconditional love of a dog.
Brown colored pencil in a sketchbook.
This one was fun to do. In my brown paper sketchbook, I let my pencil wonder what a monster in the time of Charles Dickens might look like.
I generally start with a light pencil line made with either red or blue pencil lead, then I inked it. Added some white gouache for a little dimension this time with the brown paper handling the midtones, and then a little brown paint for shadows and a hint of yellow in the eye. And before Jacob Marley can come calling with his chains, you’ve got yourself a Dickens monster!
You ever wonder where those random rain showers come from that even the weather people didn’t predict?
Colored pencil in a sketchbook.
Hey, going to the doctor’s office can be a scary thing, even for a big scary monster. They need a little love and reassurance, too! (And they also like lollipops when it’s all over.)
Traditional ink in a sketchbook with some slight blandishments from Photoshop.
…flock together!
Hey, if you find a group to hang out with that you get along with, hang out with them!
Traditional ink drawing in a sketchbook, colored in Photoshop.
Now and then, I like to take my sketchbook and just do some random freeform thinking with my pencil. This page came from a day of monster ruminations.
What that means is that I would sketch without a pre-conceived thought about where the sketch was going to go. I knew two things in advance. I would be drawing heads, and they would be monsters.
I would start drawing shapes, and then come up with the facial details as the sketch progressed. What came out was kind of fun, so I inked them with a brush pen, and dabbed on a little red watercolor paint. Five monster character design concepts were the result!
Welcome to day 1 of this year’s MONSTER MONTH!!!! After two years since the last one, did you miss it?
So, this being the first day, I thought I would gingerly let the first one out of the box without causing you too much fright. It is certainly nothing as horrendous as what Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt once found in a box, so you can breathe easily. Rest assured, you and the kiddies will likely enjoy (most of) what is to come this month.
Ink and black Prismacolor pencil from my sketchbook.
The birds, but no bees. Bees would just get in the way.
Ink and watercolor in a brown paper sketchbook.