Fanboy and Chum Chum

Chad Woods

Chad Woods was one of the first artists Eric Robles brought on board for Fanboy and Chum Chum. In fact, Chad worked on the original Random! Cartoons short. We asked Chad a few questions about his work, inspiration, and super powers.

Frederator: What’s your job on Fanboy & Chum Chum?

Chad Woods: I’m the color stylist/background painter for the show. In addition to painting mattes/concepts for the CG texture department to refer to, I also do the color scripts for each episode. The color scripts provide direction for the lighting department for how to light key moments in each episode.

Color script from episode #117, “Viking”

Frederator: Where did you grow up?

Chad: I moved around a lot as a kid. I was born in Indiana and have lived in Florida and Texas, before moving out to California in the mid 80’s.

Frederator: What was your favorite cartoon as a kid?

Chad: As a kid, I loved GI Joe. In hindsight, I’m glad I never had to work on that show (or most shows from the 80’s for that matter.)

Frederator: Did you go to art school?

Chad: I went to Cal State Fullerton because they have a great animation program, plus it was a lot cheaper than my original choice of Art Center. I originally wanted to be a car designer, but instead made to change to illustration / animation being there was more variety in what I could be doing. I like to work on my car as kind of a hobby, so everything works out!

Frederator: Where do you get your creative inspiration?

Chad: Being around such talented people in this industry, it’s easy to get inspired every day (cheesy but true!)

Frederator: Any words of wisdom for young cartoonists?

Chad: The best advice I could give is that you need two things to sustain a career in animation, a strong network of people and a skill set to back it up.

Frederator: If you could meet any artist, living or not, who would it be?

Chad: I’d love to have a talk with Maxfield Parrish about his use of color.

Frederator: And, finally, the one super power you’d love to have…

Chad: I would love the power of teleportation so long as I could take my loved ones with me. Let’s all have a drink in Tokyo! Floooop! (that’s the sound of me teleporting out of Burbank.)

Thanks, Chad. Now get back to work.

(Thanks to Angie Polk for the interview work.)

– Eric (Homan)