Yeah, I know - it looks kinda weird. And what is the SmudgeGuard exactly? As you can see from the product shot, it’s kind of a glove - one that only covers the pinky finger and the meaty area of the palm below.
Originally designed for artist lefties who were always smudging their work when drawing their palms across their artwork, it’s also useful for any artist working in pencil, charcoal or related media where a hand-drag can smudge the artwork. And, interestingly enough, it’s also quite useful for Wacom graphics tablet users.
Continue reading 'SmudgeGuard - Handy Accessory For Wacom Users & Graphic Artists'
Although technically these tips apply to any graphics software, this particular tutorial over at Spoon Graphics focuses on the exact steps to set up bleeds for print design in your document within Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. The method to do so in other graphics application might be slightly different, but these walkthroughs should give you enough info to apply it to non-Adobe software.
Continue reading 'Setting Up Bleeds For Print Design In Creative Suite'
A recent Obama & McCain humorous cartoon illustration I created for Time Out NY for the “Commander In Beef” article regarding what New York City chefs would prepare for the 2008 presidential candidates. The illustration was created for the dining section, and is currently being featured on the front page of the Time Out NY website’s dining section. The featured artwork is a spot illustration companion piece to the full page illustration I created for the print article:
Continue reading 'Commander In Beef'
I didn’t know about this - and don’t ever plan to switch to Windows - but I thought it might be worth passing on the info that you can indeed switch from Windows to Mac (or Mac to Windows if that’s your desire) and take your Adobe software right along with you without paying for another software license.
Supposedly there is a misonception (and one that I had as well) that once you bought a license for either Mac or Windows, you had to buy another brand new license for the new platform you switched to.
Not so, and really it seems to make the most sense on Adobe’s part. If you paid for the software and switched, most likely if you contact Adobe about this you’re not trying to swindle them - if that was your intention, there’s plenty of options out there for those who don’t feel they have to pay for the software they use.
Continue reading 'Adobe Software: Switching From Windows To Mac (or vice versa)'
This post is a bit off-topic, but seeing as how I found a fix for an issue that seems to be affecting a lot of WordPress users, and I find many a solution to my WordPress issues on other blogs, I thought I would post.
If you are finding that activating certain plugins on your self-hosted WordPress installation is breaking the Visual Editor, this may be the fix you are looking for.
Continue reading 'Fix For WordPress Visual Editor Conflict With Certain Plugins'
Symmetries from Earthlinksoft Software is an interesting symmetrical vector object generator tool.
The control system is very intuitive, requring no knowledge of how to manipulate vector paths. While simplistic, it gives one a high level of control over exploring interesting symmetrical objects. I did find that there seemed to be a bit of a genre of shapes that were the calling card for this tool, but maybe I just didn’t play with it enough.
Symmetries does not generate tiled patterns, but rather single vector objects, which then can be pasted into the vector software of your choosing for futher editing. The demo mode doesn’t allow this, so I couldn’t test it.
Continue reading 'Symmetries - Vector Path Software Tool'
Found this neat little gallery of surfboard logos via Paul Howalt on Twitter. A huge library of surfboard logos, including multiples of some.
These logos aren’t vector art or anything ready for print (unlike the Brands Of The World vector logo library), just a reference library or perhaps a design inspiration resource.
Seems a high percentage of these are photos of the logos on actual surfboards.
Continue reading 'Surfboard Logo Library'
I stumbled across this very informative tips for freelance illustrators blog post by illustrator Nate Williams. He gives a nice overview of the process he uses not only on the business side of things, but also on the creative side.
Continue reading 'Tips For Freelance Illustrators: Nate Williams'
I just finished up a t-shirt illustration - ‘The Hairy Canary‘ - for mail-order/catalog company What On Earth for their pub t-shirts line.
The basic premise of the t-shirt designs are as follows: the artist is given a choice of bar/pub names to choose from, and from there a design is worked up to go with the name. I believe all the bars & pubs are actual places, but these aren’t officially sanctioned or anything.
From the list I was given, the name ‘Hairy Canary’ just jumped out at me and I knew it was a theme that would spark a cool illustration.
Continue reading '‘Hairy Canary’ T-Shirt Illustration'
Ever wonder if there’s a word for that cartoon symbol expletive using the ampersand, pound sign (or octothorpe), dollar sign, percent sign, ‘at’ sign and exclamation mark? You see it all the time in printed comic books and cartoon strips.
Seems there is. Over at Typography.com, there’s an entry which discusses this unique cartoon curse “word”, claiming it to be called a ‘grawlix‘.
Continue reading 'What The @#$%&!'
