Sketches and Studies by Craig Houghton

In the Service of Spiders

Craig Houghton June 24th, 2007

I put some digital color down on the young priestess who has so lovingly volunteered her person to the spiders

cartoon , digital , figures , illustrations , creatures , women , animals
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I love finding cool art stuff. I really love finding cool art stuff that throws me back into the cycle of sketch slump depression — I haven’t yet gone through their whole page, but you can be sure that I’ll spend the next hour considering my own artistic inadequacies as I enjoy the great work over at http://www.drawergeeks.com/.

It’s a lot like ConceptArt.org’s cow/chow, but most of the designs at http://www.drawergeeks.com/ are truly pencil-dropping original.

Sketch Dump x - where x is equal to x plus 1

Craig Houghton June 17th, 2007

some sketchy junk and idle time spent with a fashion mag

in the service of spiders (work in progress) (yes, she’s quite happy about the whole affair)

and, I found more packaging. It seems that I’m on their product booklet insert thingy as well (news to me ).

Thanks for looking!

colored pencil , graphite , figures , illustrations , published , women , crap
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Don’t Water the Dandelions

Craig Houghton June 11th, 2007

Water em’. They’re thirsty!

cartoon , colored pencil , figures , watercolor , illustrations , women , plants
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Superman - Words That Saved the World by Chris Appelhans

Craig Houghton June 6th, 2007

I frequently drop by Chris Appelhans portfolio page to rewatch his Superman animated short, but I just noticed that it’s on YouTube as well. That makes it easier to share, and dare I share? I shall.

Superman - Words That Saved the World by Chris Appelhans (song is his as well)

Man, I love that short.

other artists , movies , animation
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My Crash-Through of the $100,000 Animation Drawing Course - Parts 1 - 9

Craig Houghton June 5th, 2007

I’ve discovered the ASIFA - Hollywood Animation Archive. And, not surprising, that led me to John Kricfalusi’s blog, all kinds of stuff. I’ve spent about a week and a half roaming the halls of the Archive and attempting to wrap my head around John K’s classic cartoon wisdom. There’s so damned much to learn from the Archive, and John K is one hell of a tour guide.

To start things off I’ve been doing a crash-course version of the archive’s (free)$100,000 Animation Drawing Course. I stress crash-course since I haven’t been drawing each and every example in the lessons, and I’ve not been checking my work against the originals using the computer as they/John advise. I think that means I fail, but I like to pretend that I’m unafraid of failure. Actually, it’s only because I started out casually — I’ve since been sinking further in day by day. John K knows his stuff.

Each lesson has a wrapper post on the Archive’s site that references the corresponding lesson on John K’s blog and provides additional links or necessary source materials. I’m including the links to both grouped along with my homework.

1: Construction/The Head | archive / john k
2: Squash & Stretch/The Head | archive / john k
3: Proportions/Check Your Work | archive / john k

My work from the first three lessons has been piled together on this page. I’ve left out some of my studies, but they weren’t worth posting.

4: 2 Legged Characters/Full Body | archive / john k

5: Line of Action/Silhouttes | archive / john k

6: Advanced Head Construction | archive / john k / GIANT MOUTH…post at Funny Cute with Katie Rice

The studies for lesson six come from Katies blog. These two drawings are my clumsy copies of Katie’s awesome work and are in no way my own.

7: When Generic Is A Good Thing | archive / john k

I was supposed to stick with something extremely generic in this lesson, but I ended up drawing from a disney model sheet. Nonetheless, I get the point that studies from simple generic subjects can really slingshot your learning process.

8: Proportions Affect Design / Contrasts | archive / john k

9: Hands- SImplifying Complicated Things | archive / john k

It literally took me days to complete this page, but I managed each and every hand from the lesson.

techniques , cartoon , women , graphite , other artists , figures , illustrations , animation , animals
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500 Years of Mighty Morphing Women

Craig Houghton June 4th, 2007

Morphing has a place of honor up there with the lens-flare filter, but I think it works in this video. There’s more morph than portrait time, but that ties the video together. And, bear in mind that this isn’t exactly representative of all female portraiture throughout the years. I think the selection bias fell heavily on the side of morph-friendly look-alikes. For example, he could have picked works that best represented common themes present in the depiction of woman for that particular period. Either way, a monotone string of masterfully painted pin-ups works too.

Women in Art - 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art