Sketches and Studies by Craig Houghton

Craig Houghton November 28th, 2007

This is simply for the sake of practice. I’ve been working on it here and there for a few weeks. I’m drawing in colored pencil and then using alcohol to blend it and then going back over it with the colored pencil. Some things I’ve left untouched by the alcohol and whatnot.

Click for bigger version!

• techniques , colored pencil , figures , women , illustrations , portraits
• Comments(0)

Craig Houghton September 7th, 2007

I’ve been meaning to post about this, but I’ve been ill. I find the nearly visible endlessly fascinating, so I’m sure I’ll return to this topic soon.

Near-infrared light is just beyond visible red light. With wavelengths of 780nm and up, it’s a spectrum we’re just not built to see. Well, there is a bit of an overlap, but the visible light around us overpowers the narrow band we can see without technological assistance. Near-infrared is the channel-changing bright light your remote control shines at your tv box. Take a look. If you can’t see the light when button-mashing (and, you shouldn’t be able to), look at it through your digital camera viewfinder. Note that this isn’t heat-based thermal vision and it isn’t infrared boosting night-vision, but it’s very cool.

See the links below for more on this, but the short story is that most digital cameras have a filter to block infrared light. They’re not out to spoil your fun — it helps to improve your pictures. However, it’s often a weak filter that still lets through some infrared light. However, whatever filter is there still acts like a pair of infrared-blocking sun-glasses, so you’ll have to use a looong manual shutter speed or set your camera to nightshot.

Learn more:

Infrared goggles ($10)- milk that narrow band of near-infrared that we can actually see (yes. they work.)

same idea with less talk, more pictures

use old film/exposed negatives to make an IR filter - that works, but the $30 dollar filter I bought for my digital camera worked far better. try the home-made filter method if you can’t buy a real IR filter for your camera. there are some tutorials out there (and there are many) that use floppy disks instead of exposed negatives. the floppies I used just wasted my time and made everything rather dark and smoky

remove the internal IR filter to increase sensitivity - most digital cameras (and probably webcams too) will do just fine with their internal filter intact, so I wouldn’t reach for that screwdriver yet

As for me, I’m very happy with my purchase of an Opteka 58mm 720nm Infrared Filterfor my Sony DSC-H1 digital camera. I’m sure there are other more IR sensitive cameras out there, because I have to keep the camera shutter open quite a while to let in enough IR light for a decent picture. This usually means about 2 seconds of exposure (auto white balance with manual shutter of 2 seconds). Of course, I have to use a tripod at that setting. And, (assuming you’ve been doing some reading elsewhere) no I haven’t seen clothing turn to Saran wrap. Then again, I haven’t really tried, wouldn’t recommend it, and doubt that someone, sun-bathers aside, could hold perfectly still for the required 2-4 seconds. Here’s what I have seen of the ‘invisible’ and beautiful world of near-infrared.

(all photos here taken with my sony dsc-h1 and opteka ir filter)

the photos often look best when tweaked to grayscale. before adjusting, you can get some funky colors

chlorophyll, like in these normally dark leaves, shows up as a strong white in near-infrared

it’s hard to read this photo, but the tree in the center here is a purple plum. the leaves are very, very dark, but they’re white when using a near-infrared filter. the sky also turns dark unless it’s overcast. barely visible clouds and rainbows are easier to see as well.

in near-infrared, a clear sky can be dark like this without after-tweaking

infrared in grayscale (at top) versus visible light in grayscale (below)

the dark plum looks almost like a negative, but it’s not. here’s the visible (bottom) full color along with what an actual negative would look like (at top) just as a reminder. notice that it’s quite different from the infrared atop the first pair.

Also, I really do recommend the $10 goggles (cost a bit more with mail-order parts). When the light is strong (noon till 3 or so on a bright day), it’s a world of pink and white leaves, dark networks of branches, and black skies. We only see a narrow band, but I know it’s the real thing as the plum tree turns a white I could never get with normally-visible light interfering.

• techniques , photography , digital , plants , media
• Comments(2)

Craig Houghton July 1st, 2007

the rendered version doesn’t have the same likeness as the sketch, but I wasn’t particular about what direction this was heading

this is done with a black colored pencil, a cotton pad dipped in rubbing alcohol, and some touch-ups on the pc

• techniques , colored pencil , women , portraits
• Comments(0)

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
• Comments(2)

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
• Comments(0)

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

• birds , techniques , colored pencil , other artists , figures , markers , women , plants
• Comments(0)

Craig Houghton January 8th, 2007

In the spirit of continuing to cycle through a variety of styles, here’s a colored pencil in the general style of Hikaru Nakano. I couldn’t find a good (read any) link to him on the web, but he’s featured in Japanese Comickers. The style includes pastel colored pencil lightly applied with outlines and subtle value shifts. I kept the pencils sharp, spent a lot of time lightly dragging over the paper, and I forced myself not to think too much in terms of form.

5×7 colored pencil on hot press watercolor paper

-Craig

• birds , techniques , colored pencil
• Comments(0)

Craig Houghton January 6th, 2007

Here’s a goldfinch in the blue, the basics, and the render. I couldn’t get myself to do the bg. For those who haven’t seen my old sketchbook, I usually do the initial drawing first and correct until I’m happy. Paper permitting, I then do a light underdrawing for the final over my own sketch. When things need a lot of correcting, I sometimes do this several times over until I hit the final.

American Goldfinch, HB pencil on hot press watercolor paper

-Craig

• birds , techniques , graphite
• Comments(0)

Craig Houghton January 5th, 2007

Blog’s open.

Last weekend I was impressed with a floral from Susan Dorothea’s book, Draw Like Da Vinci. I tried her technique, using a pastel pencil in place of the goldpoint. I built up the whole structure with the gold, worked over the darker values with a charcoal pencil, and used a General’s white charcoal to finish it off. I think I’ll revisit the technique. I’m looking trying out some of the book’s silverpoint suggestions as well.

brown-headed cowbird, 4×5 pastel and charcoal on ink-stained hot press paper

I originally had some text there, but my handwriting is awful. I cloned it away in Painter afterwards.

-Craig

• birds , techniques , charcoal , pastel
• Comments(0)