Halloween 11' / Charlene Chua illustration

Happy Halloween everyone! To avoid the above scenario, do not use paper bags for trick-or-treatin’….

Super thanks again to Jason at CRP for letting me do this one! Frogger is one of the most iconic video games out there, and to do the cover art for it is just pretty sweet awesome. Yes I said sweet awesome. It just is.

This is the cover for the North American version; Japan and Europe have different covers. This cover is aimed more at kids, and we tried to convey different things in the game, like the classic trucks and cars, as well as the new additions. Apparently this poor frog also has to hop over tanks, evade mean snakes and rats and dodge Apache helicopters. I don’t know why, perhaps he escaped from Raccoon City or something.

My original art featured a night scene as I thought the lights would show up better. But I guess since the other covers featured day scenes we hanged it to a day scene as well. Below is the original color scheme and art. Frog had a longer tongue as well.

I’ve been rather bad with the updating of the blog this year, and this one’s another belated post. This was done for the Wall Street Journal’s Ask Teri column and it’s probably the fastest job I’ve turned around so far.

It happened that the 4th of July fell on a Monday this year, so lots of places were closed for the long weekend. As a result, I got the brief a day later than usual, but still had to turn out the final by the following day. So, I had to rush out a couple of sketches to the art director, then go straight into the final art in the evening. The article was a question from a senior lady who wanted to know what to wear that would be appropriate for her age but not frumpy.

The people at the Journal were very nice and helped give me some suggestions about what to draw.

Below are the two sketches I sent off.

Eye glasses were added on later. I originally had her with white hair but the editor felt that made her look too old so I changed it to a light blonde instead.

Another one for the Journal. This was about getting special offers and things on your smartphone. Was a bit surprised that they asked for this concept, but I guess it showed off the phone with the mannequin better than the sketches where you could see the lady’s face.

Another piece for the Wall Street Journal. I have actually already forgotten what the article was abo0ut… my memory seems to be getting worse and worse. Oh well. The ‘fashion mags’ were done in Painter, which was quite interesting. And quick.

Another fun, and quick, job for the great guys at the Journal! Did this for last weeks ‘Ask Teri’ column. The lady on the left is wearing a tight top (you know the kind – the super tight superhero ones where it’s actually fastened at the crotch), and the lady on the right is wearing a twofer. Being fashion-challenged, I had to Google up ‘twofers’. Thankfully the art director sent me some links to check out. Thanks a bunch – that was super helpful!

Wall Street Journal - Ask Teri / Charlene Chua illustration

I created an illustration for the Wall Street Journal’s Ask Teri column. The piece talks about winter boots, and how they are more practical footwear for the cold, wet winter weather in New York lately.

Here is the original sketch. The art director requested that the buildings be removed so as to let the girls come to the foreground. I think it was a good call!

By the way, I am making all the sketches blue in the hopes that they don’t show up in Google’s ‘clip art’ search. I don’t quite have a problem with Google itself (though I wish they would call it something other than ‘clip art’). However I noticed that there are some sites offering what they call ‘free coloring pages’. They’re basically riding off the Google clip art search, and running their own ads on their site. While it’s not a unique situation, I really don’t like how they’ve set up and besides, it’s running up bandwidth usage for everyone. It’s not cool. Anyway, here’s hoping blue sketches don’t qualify as ‘clip art’.

WSJ Ask Teri / Charlene Chua illustration

This was done for the Wall Street Journal’s Ask Teri column for Thursday Jan 20. It was a very quick turnaround (same day). The column is about a man who lost weight and so got his suits remade to fit. He was asking if he should get his shirts remade as well since the necklines were still uncomfortable. The art director originally asked for a picture of a tailor working at making a suit, and I supplied him a sketch of that. I also supplied an alternative sketch for an idea with a pair of hands with a measuring tape across a businessman’s neck, which I thought had related more to the text. The team at the Journal liked the idea and we ran with that. I ended up making the guy look older with a bit of a heavier neck. It was a nice, quick job, and it was great working with the folks at the Journal again (who are simply amazing with their response time!).

These were the sketches I provided:

This was the original tailor idea.

This was my original alternative. I adjusted the guy to be older.

Did this a while back. My agent requested a piece that had more guys in it, so I cooked this up. Hopefully they do, indeed, look like guys!

Thanks to Angela over at Santa Fe Reporter for working with me on this one! This is the cover for the magazine’s ‘winter guide’ issue. The space at the top is reserved for the masthead. The brief was open so I came up with some ideas involving winter. We both liked the idea of some sort of ice princss, so I married a couple of concepts together and came up with this.

Below are the other sketches I roughed:

(I ended up re-using this one for my own Xmas card.)

This was the reworked sketch: