Sketches and Studies by Craig Houghton

Craig Houghton September 7th, 2007

I’ll probably use this as a cover for a collection of short stories if I ever put it together.

painted entirely in photoshop. here’s the original sketch When doing digital stuff with a tablet, I’m used to corel Painter IX, so the adobe switch is a first for me.

and, a closer view

It’s sorta funny, but while the girl’s profile was entirely from imagination, I realized afterwards that the lip shape, nose, and chin all match up very closely to my girlfriend’s profile.

Oh, and the font is debatable…

• cartoon , digital , figures , women , illustrations , portraits
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Craig Houghton July 25th, 2007

I don’t think I’ve ever done a political cartoon before, but I’ve drawn (with varying success) just about everything else. This is regarding a local town issue where our town government bent over and changed the laws to allow some big developers to pave-over (along with some token shrubbery) 400 acres. We even just found out that there’s a 65′ tall hotel in there as well. To my dismay and surprise, it’s the dems that sold us out here. The cartoon makes a lot more sense when you know the details, but nonetheless, here it is:

• cartoon , pen , figures , illustrations , men , ink , political
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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 , women , illustrations , creatures , animals
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Craig Houghton June 17th, 2007

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.

• cartoon , other artists
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Craig Houghton June 11th, 2007

Water em’. They’re thirsty!

• cartoon , colored pencil , figures , women , watercolor , illustrations , plants
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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 , graphite , other artists , figures , women , illustrations , animation , animals
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Craig Houghton June 3rd, 2007

No finished drawings or paintings here, just some recent sketchbook bits and pieces thrown together.

random scraps 1

and 2

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• cartoon , acrylic , objects , pen , figures , markers , illustrations , ink , crap
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Craig Houghton April 22nd, 2007

I drew this elfin lad/lass in colored pencil and rubbed it out using alcohol on a cotton swap. Then, I redefined and repeated. In the end I pulled out the lights with a kneaded eraser.

• techniques , cartoon , colored pencil , illustrations , men , portraits
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Craig Houghton March 22nd, 2007

This is another work in progress. So long as I don’t abandon him, I’ll opaque over this w/ digital color (for now he gets a pinkish ribbon because, well, it’s this fellow’s favorite color).

• cartoon , graphite , digital , figures , illustrations , creatures
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Craig Houghton February 25th, 2007

a no ref slightly caricatured acrylic sketch using Bob Kato’s techniques from his gnomon painting vids.

and a bunch of sketchbook crap that I wouldn’t normally post, but it’s been a busy week

Here’s a detail of the acrylic sketch. Kato’s method involves a very loose underdrawing and then a series of easily digested setps. It’s a good time.

Thanks for looking!
Craig

• cartoon , graphite , acrylic , figures , women , illustrations , men
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Craig Houghton February 5th, 2007

just this

• cartoon , digital , women , illustrations
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Craig Houghton January 22nd, 2007

This is a just get-it-on-paper concept for a side-character in a webcomic-ish project I’ll never get around to completing. In other words, this probably isn’t going anywhere, but I might use it as a prelim to paint or properly render.

-Craig

• cartoon , graphite , figures , women , illustrations
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