Did this as a sketch at FanExpo. It was the last day and I figured ah to hell with it, I’m drawing something fun and cartoony. Turns out doing fun and cartoony is A) fast B) recognizable and C) generally family friendly. I think this sketch attracted the most attention, and made more than one person think ‘if only I had a Cintiq, I could do that too!’. Which was kind of the point of the demo, so mission accomplished I suppose.

Anyway, fast forward a month and a house move later, and I finally found the time to use this as an excuse to test CS6. Some nice features like the editing on the fly line tool, but the somewhat slower responsiveness of the software is making me stick with CS4. Anyhoos, hope you enjoy the art at least.

Big thanks to the guys at Kayak for working with me on their Titanic anniversary issue cover.

The sinking of the Titanic was one of the big events of the 20th century; a tragedy that ended the lives of many people, but also marked the decline of an era of optimism and faith in human engineering and commerce. It also was a bitter display of classism at work – a theme that was played up heavily in James Cameron’s movie. As I was working on this, I kept  wondering if society was slipping back into Titanic’s time, where a small number of super rich ruled the world and literally jumped ship when calamity struck, leaving behind the poor to perish. There were some 1st class passengers who did answer the call of noble self sacrifice, but the stories of those who didn’t have become even more legendary.

My initial suggestion was to show the Titanic in a more positive light, perhaps leaving port or being built. The magazine wished to depict the sinking however, but requested it not look too gruesome. I did want the ship to be visible, but I also wanted the passengers to be be prominently visible. So we settled on a shot of people in a lifeboat looking in shock at the sinking ship. I would have preferred not to have the small silhouettes of people in the water (as this is a children’s history magazine), but I guess for historical accuracy they had to be there.

The cover was accompanied by 2 spots in the article. I’d originally suggested the guys in the Marconi room, but we later changed it to the band instead.

For the record, in my head, the rich guy in the life boat is Bruce Ismay. He’s not meant to look like Ismay, but in my head that’s who he represents.

Did this some time ago for Kayak’s ‘Shopping History’ cover. Kayak is a Canadian kids history magazine. It was a fun cover to work on, though I do think the historical family over extended their credit…

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’.