Halloween 11' / Charlene Chua illustration

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

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.

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 as a sketch a while back. Started by drawing the girl and didn’t know what else to do so I kept drawing and added the hands and chicken. It reminded me of Baba Yaga’s chicken house so that’s why it’s titled as such. But honestly I have no idea what’s really go on…

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:

Some new work for Penthouse. Did these recently for their December erotic fiction piece. It was a fun piece although somewhat challenging since not all that much was happening in the story (a girl meets an old flame at a condo she’s eyeing, they make out in the pad’s outdoor shower). I tried to come up with some ideas that didn’t involve showers, but couldn’t really. The magazine prefers the images to be more direct and less conceptual anyway. The suds were quite fun to figure out, and I think generally it worked out well.

Here’s the spot that accompanied it:

I kinda liked this sketch that didn’t make it (thanks for the anatomy help Vince!), might do it up when I have the time:

Hello, and sorry for the lack of updates! Been busy with work, as usual.

However, I am happy to announce that the comic anthology Liquid City 2 has been released! You should be able to pick it up in stores now.

Click image to preview 'Worn'

My husband and I contributed a short story called ‘Worn’, which I think I slammed out over 4 or 5 days several months ago. The style is a bit of a departure from the usual, but I think it worked out quite well. For Sandman fans, I hope you enjoy the stylistic influence of Marc Hempel (I loved his work on Kindly Ones and his stuff has been an influence on me ever since).

Liquid City 2 is the brainchild of Sonny Liew (Wonderland, Regifters, My Faith in Frankie), and is a compilation of short comics by artists and writers who hail from South East Asia. There are some lovely stories in this book – I really liked ‘Salvage’ and ‘Paper City’.

You can preview all the stories on the comic’s official website. The book should be available at all comic book stores now, or on Amazon.com

Did this a while back as a quick overnight fix for a magazine. Usually I’m not one for using Photoshop filters but for once it actually worked out pretty well. The article was about a indie punk band called Trigger Effect, and was mainly talking about how they tended to do a lot of their business independently, although they disliked the being associated with the term DIY. For visual sake though, I thought the 80′s DIY punk aesthetic made sense for the article.

I basically ran a stamp filter over a photo of the band and cobbled their heads together to make the record cover. Was trying to get it to look like a grainy black and white photocopy – actually tried drawing it but it looked too clean. All in all  I thought the experiment worked out pretty nicely.