Sketches and Studies by Craig Houghton

Craig Houghton July 27th, 2007

I keep returning to the trailer for Wes Anderson’s new movie, The Darjeeling Limited. I’m not sure if it’s the sunny smooth palette, the music, or the memory of the Life Aquatic that keeps drawing me to the 2 minute 20 second clip — it’s certainly not Owen Wilson’s bandaged face. I’ve never really pinned-down why, but I have a lot of love for Wes Anderson movies (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Rushmore).

Click Here for the Trailer

Images from the trailer for The Djareeling Limited:

and, a film poster

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

I think the poster has a thing for people sequences: Eggman’s Youtube Vid Gallery

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Craig Houghton April 29th, 2007

I don’t think I can get away with naming this ‘The Donkey King Returns to the Sea,’ but until I get that kind of pretentious absurdity out of my system, it’ll stand.

This is just a quick oil-sketch rip-off of Daubigny’s The Lone Cow, which I think should be named The Cow Princess Returns to the Sea. I really didn’t spend enough time on this, but I kinda like it.

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Craig Houghton February 14th, 2007

Last night I watched the Carlos Huante Gnomon Creature Sketching and Design Video. He demonstrated a drawing technique that included colored pencil, marker paper, and rubbing alcohol. Once he had the basic forms down with some selective detail and value, he splashed alcohol on a cotton square and rubbed out the work. He then lifted out the lights with an electric eraser and reapplied the darks. From there he used the mid-tone to help him carve out a creature. I tried out essentially the same technique, but I did make use of a white colored pencil as neeeded.

I apologize for the marker tree there. This started out on my scrap page of marker paper — I didn’t expect to go anywhere with it, but the technique felt comfortable enough to keep me going. I didn’t expect the colored pencil to be so forgiving (in terms of getting things initially hammered out), but when you wash out the light lines using the alcohol, it cleans it right up.

-Craig

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Craig Houghton January 9th, 2007

Check out the watercolors (I suspect there’s some gouache in there, but I haven’t asked) of Melanie Fain. Her subjects couldn’t ask for a better stage than that fantastic simple subject on stained paper look. I love this hummer I came across on her blog.

Whether you’re into natural subjects or not, her watercolor gallery is definitely worth checking out. I’m not sure how one ends up handling almost everything in just one particular style, but that approach seems to suit some.

-Craig

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