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This form will send an email directly to Craig Elliott.
16429 Lost Canyon Road
Santa Clarita, CA, 91387
United States
(661)299-9478
Drawing from the visual worlds of science and nature, the human figure, the grand tradition of American illustration, Japanese scroll paintings and woodblock prints, fantasy illustration, and great artists of Europe, Elliott’s work strikes the viewer at first with a powerful tableau and draws them in to experience the subtlety and beauty within. Beyond the pictorial impact of his work, themes personal to him such as body image, environmental preservation, and social and psychological repression weave themselves throughout his work.
OhNoDoom! gallery in Chicago will be having a group show on June 5th titled: Painted Ladies. ~And I have a piece included in the mix!
If you live in the area or are in the area stop by and take in some great artwork! Keep an eye on their website for details: http://ohnodoom.com/
or the online store: www.enstore.com/ohnodoom
1800 N. Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60647 USA
hello@ohnodoom.com
773.698.8348
Issue 3 ofthe great new comic and art magazine Vehicle was launched at Calgary Expo in Canada a few weeks ago and a pinup piece by me is announced on the cover.
The "Goddess of Fall" painting was done from a pencil sketch and painted in photoshop. She is meant to embody many of the aspects of fall found in nature. The piece is also available as a print:
Digital, 2010
Print Size: 11.5" x 17.5"
$45
Sign up by May 31 to get 10% off of your passes to CTN-Expo 2010! Last year was awesome and sold out fast! Code: CETTX10
CTNX Sign Up Early and Save.
The hottest ticket in town is at the Creative Talent Network Animation Expo (CTN-X). Back by popular demand this 3-day animation talent tradeshow beginning, Friday November 19th – Sunday November 21st again promises to bring some of the best animation studios and top talent artists from around the world to the City of Burbank. The 2009 event sold out and had a waiting list and they anticipate no less this year. So if you're thinking of going you should sign up now to attend the CTN animation eXpo and secure your ticket for the exact same rate as 2009. (Prices good until May 31, 2010)
Register online before May 31st:
http://www.regonline.com/ctnx2010 and receive an extra 10% off any 1-day or 3-day pass using our special discount code of: CETTX10
Or stay the weekend and rent two nights at the event hotel and get a 3-day pass free of charge.http://www.ctnanimationexpo.com/stores/housing_travel/
(limited availability)
CTN animation eXpo
November 19-21, 2010
Burbank Marriott Convention Center
2500 Hollywood Way
Burbank CA 91505
Final Poster
New Orleans Burlesque Festival founder Rick Delaup commissioned me to create the official New Orleans Burlesque Festival 2010 poster. This beautiful limited-edition art poster depicts a striptease dancer performing to a live jazz band. To create the original painting, I used oil and pencil on Rives BFK cotton paper. The size of the original work is 20” x 32”.
Visit Rick's blog or the festival website to read more!
Some of you may have noticed there is a bit of a tribute to a fellow artist included in this painting. Can any of you correctly identify the artist in question?
I am saddened to hear of the passing of one our greatest american artists, Frank Frazetta. I thankfully had a chance to spend a whole day with he and his wife Ellie a few years ago in their Pennsylvania home. I have learned so much from Frank, and was glad to have told him of my gratitude.
Below is a Photo Ellie took of Frank and I in his studio in 2005.
You will be missed Frank.
Exciting News! I have been chosen to write an introduction for a new printing of Xenozoic Tales by the great Mark Schultz!
This comic book series by Mark was one of my early inspirations when I first started art school. A standard to attempt to achieve. Mark's imagination, drawing, composition and storytelling abilities absolutely amazed me, and still do.
I am so honored that Mark and John Fleskes asked me to write this introduction, and I hope that my writing can help people appreciate this amazing work even more than they do now.
Even though I have all the comics, I can't wait to get this! It will be bigger, not on yellowing paper, and include new work!
Mark Schultz: Xenozoic
by Mark Schultz
introduction by Craig Elliott
352 pages, 8.5 x 11 in.
black and white
Softcover
ISBN: 978-1-933865-31-7
$39.95
Coming October 2010. Pre-orders accepted in August.
If your a Canadian fan come visit me at Calgary Entertainment Expo this weekend April 24-25. I'll have a selsction of new art ann will be premiering and new line of jewelry at the con! The jewelry will be silk ribboned women's necklaces holding glass cameo pendants of 9 different works of art. Come by while they last!
Con info:
http://www.calgaryexpo.com/ 
Calgary Expo 2010
If your in the area come by and visit Craig at Wondercon in San Francisco this weekend!, Booth #1226- New prints books, comissions and more will be for sale. stop by the wondercon website for details:http://www.comic-con.org/wc/
This card started as a shadow power card, and came out as you see it here. The Orc was originally clad in less clothing, but I was asked to add more and more clothes as I worked on it! I rather like the more atmospheric thumbnails that I did, but Blizzard wanted more detail. 
Thumbnail Sketch, 4" x 7" Graphite on paper
First Illustration without armor
Final painting, Digital
Final Card as Printed
Thanks to my friend Christian Alzmann, I found out yesterday that I had won a silver medal in the Olympics of fantasy art- the Spectrum Fantastic Art annual! Spectrum has posted a video of the award announcements, and my painting was the first one announced by John Fleskes of Flesk Publishing (who is a super-great guy by the way!) The winning piece was Never the Twain. This is a painting first sketched in the fist few days after my brain surgery using my new re-found skills of sight.
"Never the Twain"
-From time to time in human history taste for different body types changes, but all types remain. Never are all types happy together at one time. Only human social structure prevents this equality from happening. Members of one society are prevented from differing in their tastes by ridicule, the threat of abandonment by others in the group, guilt and many other modes of social manipulation. I find these aspects of society no longer serve us in any positive way.
A 12.5" x 17.5" print is available for $45
Thanks to Arnie and Cathy Fenner, and all the Judges for this honor. It is much appreciated, especially for illustrators such as myself who work primarily for movie and TV studios and have little chance for exposure of our work as individual artists.
Here are a few sketches of my beautifully blooming Magnolia in the front yard... They are also studies for a poster I am working on. More on that in a few weeks!
Where: Icon6 Illustration conference
When: July 17th 4:20- 5:00pm
What: I will be speaking about my work in film and TV and how it relates to my illustration and fine art work. Stop by and see me! Also joining me on the panel are my co-workers from Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" Ian Gooding, Bill Schwab, and Disney veteran and all around great artist John Mahoney.
The second card I did for the Warcraft card game set Scourgewar, is titled "Mighty Shadow Protection Potion." Here is an image of some sketches, and 2 of the final versions of the painting. This is a digital painting in Photoshop.
Enjoy!
Sketch on paper in pastel and Prismacolor pencil, 10" x 10" 
Final painting, digital 
The final warcraft card as printed!
This isn't a post about how to walk down stairs, don't worry! By stairstepping, I mean a way to see subforms on any shape. This way of seeing forms is based of the simple shape of stairs, and when taken to a more sophisticated level resembles the ridges and steps in a shale rock face. One of the artists who most clearly uses this idea is the american illustrator Dean Cornwell. His drawings show this very clearly, and he uses this in his paintings as well, but blends the simple geometry more to create a more finished realistic look.
The basic concept is to imagine a tubular or other basic solid and then carve steps into it that will be in shadow. This technique is great for all sorts of subjects such as trees, rock, buildings and the shapes on an animal or human.
Below are some of the basic steps of this technique as applied to a human figure:
Figures drawn, and basic outline of steps drawn in line
Steps filled in with shadow value
The shadow areas are blended where the edges are soft
Highlights and smaller details are added
Blizzard has finally released the 4 cards I painted last year in the set called Scourgewar, as part of their wildly popular trading card game based on The World of Warcraft MMORG.
Ill be posting the sketches and process leading up to these cards in the next few weeks. Here is the first card called "Crimson Cranium Crusher" -Great name, Blizzard!
Crimson Cranium Crusher sketch, Watercolor and Prismacolor pencil on Rives BFK 9" x12" 
Crimson Cranium Crusher sketch, Watercolor and Prismacolor pencil on Rives BFK 1.5" x1.5"
Crimson Cranium Crusher sketch, Graphite on Cotton Bristol 5" x 5" 
Crimson Cranium Crusher, Alternate Finish, Digital
Crimson Cranium Crusher, Printed Card © Blizzard Entertainment
Here, in the final card, the hand is changed in hue to a blue to match the creature and composed in the frame of the card.
Here is a small sketch I did a few months ago of a windblown figure. My goal was to emphasize the curvy and gestural quality of something blown by the wind... This is on a 5" x7" sheet of watercolor paper in prismacolor pencils.
One way to simplify the process and not become overwhelmed by all the parts of what you are trying to draw is to do something I call "Sculpting" the form. So named because it is the same proceedure that you would use if you were sculpting something out of clay. Starting with the most simple masses you can see in what you are drawing you gradually, step by step, add more masses from large all the way down to small.
I have seen the students of Howard Pyle, the father of American illustration, use this technique very often and believe he must have taught something similar in his classes. N.C. Wyeth, Harvey Dunn and their students use this all the time. In addition to this being a drawing proceedure, it is also a way to indicate things further in the distance. The earlier in the process (largest forms and least detail) the drawing is the further away it will appear.
I have chosen a head from a Dean Cornwell painting to illustrate this idea:
1. The left sketch shows the first stage with very large masses, basically an egg of clay with a shelf on it for the eye area. this would be a good stage to stop at for distant figures and crowds. Only 2 values are used here.
2. The next sketch shows the addition of the nose, mouth and cheek subforms. There is also 1 slightly darker value introduced. The best use of this stage of figure is any mid-ground figure of medium importance.
3. Here the same values as the last drawing are used, but smaller forms like the eyes and lip subforms as well as details around the neck are added. Local values (such as the lips, pupils of the eyes and eyebrows) are added to some degree as well. This stage would work well for foreground figures that are not the main focus of the piece.
4. This is the final stage used for close up or focal point figures in paintings, with the final addition of a accent dark and light highlight value.
Dean Cornwell head study by Craig Elliott
Many people ask me how I draw so quickly, the short, and snarky, answer might be "practice", but that isn't very helpful! The long answer might include perspective, anatomy, technique etc. But, the thing that adds most to my speed when drawing is something called a "Mass Conception". Essentially, what the three dimensional form you are drawing is IN YOUR HEAD before you draw it. Usually, these forms are a nearly perfect geometric solid like a cylinder, cone, sphere, or taurus. The great draftspersons of all time use this idea.
I drew up 3 fingers that display this principle and exaggerate it so you can see it more easily. The knuckles of the fingers illustrate my point. The first finger uses a taurus and is an example of a mass conception used by the great J.C. Leyendecker. The second, a kind of flattened cube, is one of the most common used by many artists, but can be seen clearly in Frank Frazetta's work. The third is a prism- a fairly unique conception used by Michelangelo on some of his Medici sculptures. You can find many more out there and even invent your own.
The point is to actually have a shape in mind that is simple enough to draw BEFORE you draw it. Of course you need to know how to draw all of these basic forms already in perspective, and light them. Remember drawing all those spheres and cones you drew before you were allowed to do life drawing in school? Well, that's why! Most teachers have forgotten why, and the students get bored and frustrated, not knowing why they are doing what they are doing.
Enjoy!
Study of hands by J.C. Leyendecker
Here is another recent piece from my studio- all Prismacolor and Faber Castell on paper. about 11" x 17" Enjoy!
I recently purchased an antique drawing tool from 1890 known as a Cenrtolinead, or Linead from an estate sale. These tools are a tremendous aid in drawing perspective. I have known about these tools for years, and could really have used one for all my perspective work at Disney for the 10 years or so of work I have done for them.
This tool did not come with any instructions, so all I had to go on were catalogs from the early 1900's showing these for sale. They operate using 2 pins and are set to a "Y" shape and equal angles. the photos explain:
120 year old Centrolineaid and other tools usedAngle of "Y" set by drawing (2) 30 degree lines with a triangle.The 2 pins are each placed on a line at 90 degrees to the Horizon, and 3" above and below.
I also set the blades at 10 degrees, and this moves the VP out further than 30 degrees. This seems to restrict the space you can draw in though as seen in the photo. Draw small!An original catalog page from 1910 listing this tool.My conclusion is that this tool is far easier to use than even a ruler with the VP on your board. it is very steady and quick to use. The only drawback is that the tool must be flipped around , one blade moved and new pins inserted to draw the second VP if they are both off the board. This is a somewhat unlikely situation, but it did happen on the larger building facade sketch. the best setup would be to have 2 of these or even 3 for a 3 point perspective drawing. they would make quick work of a complicated drawing like that.
I had a talk with Jim Gurney of Dinotopia fame yesterday to see what he knew about these. He said he had heard of them, and thought of making one someday. Jim will post some of this info on his popular blog to see if we can find someone with the old instruction booklet from one of the original manufacturers. We'll see what happens!
Jim brought up an interesting question in an email to me today- what do you do if you don't want holes in your drawing board? I always used a paper clip with one end bent up or an upside down flat-headed thumbtack taped to the board or paper. this is good for balancing a ruler on for perspective points on the board or for this operation. You could also use a sheet of metal to draw on, even with a Borco cover, and Neodymium magnets about 1/2 cube size for the pins. they are so strong they won't shift...
Update
on 2010-06-23 19:47 by Craig Elliott
Jim Gurney has posted my photos of the antique drawing tool I foud at an estate sale a few months ago. Some folks on his blog requested a measured drawing, so I have scanned the parts and put measurements on them for those of you who want to make their own!
