Sketches and Studies by Craig Houghton - [11/16]

[AlexC]

belly button animation is wicked.
A bit of random personal trivia..
when I was a wee little tacker, whenever my mum asked me whether I knew where babies came from, I always replied with "the bellybutton".
The look on her face was priceless!
hmm, never seen a charcoal animation, but it turned out pretty good!

[Razorb]

holy shit u have the same old tablet as me! ace i thought i was like the only one lol its such a relic hehe ace ooooh btw nice portrait of the girl with the blue jester style hat on .. lookin good !

[Justin.]

Ha! That portrait is awesome. Keep it up Craig Draftsman.

[Craig Houghton]

entdroid - Hey thx. I doubt I'll ever try another animation in exactly that style. It really, really took forever, even when keeping it loose.

Alex - I really like the new avatar btw. oh, and you mean they _don't_ come from the navel? hmmm

razorb - I really thought I was the only one.. I mean, I have to solder it before every other use many thx. oh, and for 40$ or less on ebay, a 9x12 aiptek is a great bargain for what it does. the sensitivity is terrible, but it's roomy

Justin - many thanks - I think I'll be forcing out another oil this weekend

--------------------

I hate to start a new page out with a substandard update, but here's some sketchwork




colored pencil over a sketch -- this was just to test out derwent's new Coloursoft line of colored pencils (some painter cleanup in there as well)


edit panda - good point. I added a little digi wash, but i only spent a minute pulling things.

[Lake]

love the faces and the digitals craig! - both have excellent form... but are lacking in depth.

Try adding light shading around the heads or something that lets us know that you've pulled the drawing out of the paper rather than just putting pencil marks down, you know what I mean?

[entdroid]

I love the faces in the first image, bird and turtle are great too, as always.
But... you have to learn to love REDS Craig!!!! LOOOOVE THEM!
No, no, I didn't loose all trail of sanity, your flesh tones really need them... you should start using red more and white and black less Also, the fabric in the girls outfit looks a bit rigid.
But its all good really Craig You know, you can always ignore me
Cheers!

[Craig Houghton]

panda - good point. many thanks

entdroid - you know, you're right about the reds. I recall now and then slapping my forehead and thinking, red! I just don't use red. While it's true that my scanner doesn't pick up red very well (and I fail to adjust the scanned image sometimes), I'm just plain red-deficient. I'll see what I can do

-------------------

wip for the chow (needs to be a. sixties b. supermodel c. trashy)


previous ver http://leversandpulleys.com/artblog/...HOW66_rev2.jpg

it's been a while since I did a digital. this is rushed though, and still a wip

[BryanYoung]

Really nice sketchbook. Great variety of materials and subject matter. Your CHOW for this week is looking really nice. Did you use ref for that?

[entdroid]

I like this girl a lot. Her expression is hilarious! Tho I think it needs harder edges in the focal points, and I gotta say you choose a palette too subdued for it to fit the sixties theme. This topic is a GOLDEN opportunity for you to go mad on saturation Craig And I mean MAD!
And even if she wasnt drunk (which she apparently is, hehe) you know what color would be great to add to her nose? Yes my friend, you guessed right: RED!
Keep it up Craig! Always great to see your updates

[Craig Houghton]

Bryan - Thx. I feel guilty if I stay with any one medium for long. ref for the pose and (lucky-find) the boots

Entdroid - your crits are spot on. I updated the pic above, but I didn't change all that much and there's still no red. I tried to add red. I really did, but I couldn't. The next time I touch color I'll go for the red. The problem is that I tend to hit a certain palette on a piece and red gets pushed out. I'll make room for it from the get-go next time

------------------
colored pencil rubbed with alcohol


white over charcoal over ochre over ink




going to turn one of these into a pen and ink, but I'm not sure which.


-Craig

[Lake]

I can tell you've done plenty of anatomy work and/or life drawing, but it seems like you have the same problem I do: it's difficult to translate these skills to works from your imagination.

Straight up crit: just slow down man.... take your time and think about the stuff that you already know - the location of the upper lip above the gums and how deep the shadows get. If you really think about it, you'll nail this stuff no problem.

[entdroid]

Squirrels get me every time! And those are particularly cute Craig
Hand's cool too, really creepy!

[AlexC]

that hand looks great, kinda scary
http://leversandpulleys.com/artblog/...07/04/cowl.jpg
What effect did you use for the background in this?
The squirrels are great and full of flavour

[Mindflaw]

I was just in here to have a quick look... but I ended going back as far as the last time I posted

[Craig Houghton]

panda - thx for the crits. I really appreciate it. There's nothing much to speak of in this update, but I'll be back in the saddle soon I hope.

entdroid - thanks

AlexC - After doing the initial drawing in black Primsmacolor color pencil I wet a cotton wipe and smudged it. the color pencil is alcohol soluble. the smudging doesn't affect the lines too much, and then after that I went back in with the cp and erased out the lights w/ a kneaded.

mindflaw - that's what I like to hear. thx for coming by.

---------------------------

this update isn't much to speak of, but nothing cheers one up like finding out that your work is now in Walmarts across the country. I’ve been waiting for over a year for this drawing to show up on one of their new packages. They purchased the rights for three images, but this is the first one I’ve seen out. Originally this was going to go on a different kit, but I’m just glad to see it in-store.





I’ve _no_ idea what I’m doing with Sculpey, but I played around for a while. I might do some limbs and hands and then put something together with fabric, but in order to do that I’d have to plan a bit more, and by the time I do that, I’ll end up wanting to redo the head anyway.

wip


So, it might just end up staying as a pencil topper.



eastern screech owl - ignore the background. I'll hopefully do a real one later.


And, this is just a quick oil-sketch rip-off of (or response to) Daubigny’s The Lone Cow. It's an intentionally odd composition, and I really didn’t spend much time on this, but I kinda like it.



Thanks for looking!
Craig

[Craig Houghton]

I couldn't help but play with super sculpey firm again today. I've no idea what I'm doing, and I promise I'll stop.



and this was before I realized that you need to cook the eyeballs first, seperately. So they're flattened.



-Craig

[KromNz]

Beautiful works man. keep updating.

[AlexC]

haha, supersculptey is awesome, my friend does sculpting and uses it.
http://leversandpulleys.com/artblog/...to_the_sea.JPG
the colours are really rich in this, I like it lots.

[Gleeson]

Those squirels are rad. The trashy super model painting is realy nice, the expression on the face gives so much comical meaning to the fact shes pouring red wine onto what ever she is standing on. You have a realy good sense of colour in your paintings, im jealous

[Peter Berkovski]

wonderful stuff going here, i love this thread
subscribe!

[Craig Houghton]

KromNz - Thx. I'll try, but I have a bad habit of dissapearing

AlexC - many thx.

Gleeson - I just wish I could properly handle some super-saturated colors now and then

atlantik - Thx. Glad to have you around.

-------------------

Recent batch of bird photography (click for larger-size so they don't look like crap)

some photography

some recent sketchbook bits and pieces thrown together... random scraps 1


and2



and, now for something totally different...

classic animation studies (from the 100,000 dollar animation drawing course) (a weak point for me, so I've been studying)



getting used to the animator style construction




some cartoon line of action


clumsy copies of Katie’s work from lesson 6




this page more or less took me days to copy in a moderately faithful fashion


go easy on me -- just trying out some different stuff




and, I found more packaging. It seems that my work is on their product booklet insert thingy as well (news to me, but good news at least)


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


some more sketchy junk and idle time spent with a fashion mag


whew. thx for looking. I've been in a bit of a slump for a bit, but it's more of a retreat to the batcave sort of thing. I'll be fine.

Craig

[Craig Houghton]

and some colors on the spider priestess who has so lovingly volunteered her person

[comixnut]

Those cartoons are just too cool Craig! Very very well done man! I love them all as well as your animals and that little bust of an elf with the coloured pencil and alcohol. Please keep posting as it is always a pleasure coming around!

[Craig Houghton]

comixnut - thx. i'm glad you dig. great sb btw

----------------

WIP - going to do the colored pencil and alcohol thing with this

[Peter Berkovski]

wow, so many new stuf, i'm glad to see you posting around, great animation studyes, i have it too,you should upload more often
Cheers
::eter:::

[Andy Nicho]

WOW, great sketchbook Craig!

[Calis]

holy crap dude, if i just saw your artwork in a gallery, i would judge you to be around 37...
this art is amazing

[Craig Houghton]

atlantik - Many thanks - I really enjoyed the animation stuff even if it's not exactly my thing.

andy nicho - I can't argue with that. thx

calis - I really appreciate that. I've been rather down about my stuff lately, but it's all cyclical

---------------------

finished up on the wip from yesterday's post

black colored pencil with alcohol & cotton (some Painter IX to clean up a tad)

[Craig Houghton]

and, how could I not return to the belly-button theme? just some practice

4 simple bellybuttons. 2 in watercolor (upper left, lower-right) and 2 in oil pastel (upper-right,lower-left). these are all art trading card size w/ an attempt to make the navels appear actual size in rl. one got a bit away from me though.



I'll be doing a bunch more in a variety of mediums and then dumping them on ebay as aceo's

[AlexC]

haha, more belly buttons, awesome!
Sorry Ive missed your last bunch of updates, didnt have internets for a while, good to see you've been busy.
dig those cantoons, nice to see you branch out.
the girl is post 634 is great, like the texture