This cartoon sketch of a cute indie rock/alternative rocker girl is one of a series of cartoon characters I am working on for a current project. She went through quite a bit of revisions in look, dress and age - but the final came out perfect.
Earlier version had her a little too old and road-weary - I thought we were going for a more ‘edgy’ character but the client wanted a younger, cuter version. The iPod, chain wallet and Chuck Taylor sneakers were a must.
Continue reading 'Cute Cartoon Indie Rock/Alternative Rock Girl Sketch'
by George Coghill -
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Sketch of a cartoon man’s head with an evil grin. this was sketched out on a newspaper using a ball-point pen. Drew this the other night while having some beers with friends down at Ray’s Place in Kent, Ohio.
If a large, blank(ish) piece of paper and a pen is around, I can’t help but draw.
My friend Preeti snapped the photo for me.
by George Coghill -
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Months ago a fan emailed me to get the OK to use one of my sketches as a tattoo. I usually give the go-ahead on any not-for-profit use of my personal art (that said, unless I actually do give the OK, it’s not officially OK). In this case since it was a personal sketch I had done I was cool with it.
I have a few tattoos myself (all done by the venerable Eric Starr over at Arkham Tattoo in Akron, Ohio). I can sympathize with someone who finds the right art for a tattoo - I had Eric ink over a bunch of early stuff that I became less than enthralled with - and now have a huge Japanes-style koi fish shoulder piece in addition to my original Mayan God/Ancient Astronaut glyph.
Continue reading 'Cartoon ‘Teeth Creature’ Sketch Tattoo Art'
by George Coghill -
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Recently sketched up some cartoon Frankenstein drawings for a current project.
Client wanted more forehead on these but I thought they came out pretty cool for what they were. I have to agree they don’t have the classic Frankenstein look to them, but I was kinda going for something different anyways.
Continue reading 'Frankenstein cartoon sketches'
by George Coghill -
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This Goth Girl cartoon character sketch is one of a series of characters I am currently developing as a series for a client. The entire set will include all sorts of cartoon characters with different personalities, lifestyles & looks. More details on this project as we get closer to completion…
The goal here was to find the look and keep her cute. The original incarnations of the little goth came out a bit too old and also a bit too punk/heavy metal, but since the Goth will have an “older sister” Rocker Chick for the group, I’ll be able to use those initial rough sketches for the Rocker Girl. The Rocker Girl will probably be more along the line of a Suicide Girl — with clothes on!
Once I had the face & head down, I moved on to getting the clothing right; the obligatory striped stockings, skull t-shirt, spiked wristbands, black rubber bracelets and combat boots completed the look. I especially like how the long pigtails came out for the hair.
An interesting aspect of this project, developing 12 characters in a family, is keeping consistency. I have found that some characters have lent themselves to more wild exaggeration than others, and I have had to tone down the look of some of the characters which I would have otherwise gone a bit more wild with. In order to keep the overall look of the group I have had to sacrifice some stylistic choices.
It’s a great experience and process as I have been coming up with variations of characters that I might not have other otherwise pursued.
Continue reading 'Cute Goth Girl Cartoon Character Sketch'
by George Coghill -
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This drawing of a surfer dude cartoon character was sketched for a current project. He came out pretty cool and I thought I would share as the final will most likely be tweaked in response to client input. The other characters in the series are leaning towards a different body/head ratio as well, so he’ll have to be adjusted. Sometimes what works for one character doesn’t work well across multiple characters.
Continue reading 'Surfer Dude Cartoon Character Sketch'
by George Coghill -
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I just finished up this fun Pink Panther cartoon character illustration for the current Sugar Frosted Goodness contest “Saturday Morning Cartoons“.
As I mentioned on the post at SFG, the Pink Panther was always one of my favorite cartoons as a kid. There was just something unique about the art direction and style that just made an impression on me back then.
I also liked the fact that the Pink Panther didn’t speak. There’s something that just cool about having the guts to do that with your main character.
Continue reading 'Pink Panther'
by George Coghill -
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A new image editor snuck in under the radar a few days back: Acorn. It’s a pretty nice lightweight alternative to Photoshop for either users who don’t need all the bells and whistles the Adobe juggernaut has to offer, or would like to have a companion app for those times when you just need to do some quick edits and don’t want to fire up Photoshop just for an annotated screenshot.
If Adobe has Photoshop Elements, you could call Acorn “Photoshop Molecule”.
Continue reading 'Acorn: Handy Lightweight Pixel-Based Image Editor'
by George Coghill -
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I recently updated the “Girl in the Moon” artwork (while drinking some Miller High Life beers, of course). I had initially created a version of her a few years back, and while I thought it was good at the time, lately I have been wanting to update her as she was my first attempt at a pinup style illustration. I have been working towards a certain look/style for the pinup girls, including some devil girl pinup art and others and felt I was getting closer to that vision as of late.
I thought it only fair to go back and update the original. A request to get that original art in t-shirt format prompted me to start work on the new version.
Continue reading 'The Girl In The Moon'
by George Coghill -
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I touched on the awesomeness of using multiple pencil grades in a previous post on essential cartoonist tools before, but there’s a great overview specifically on pencil grades by cartoonist Matt Glover. There’s some decent additional pencil grade classification information over at Wikipedia as well.
Find out what those cryptic “2B”, “HB”, “6H” and the rest really mean. Knowing the difference, having a full set of pencils with all the grades in the range is a must. This is the way to lay down very thick, dark blacks in your drawings as well as fine, light grays. It’s all in the blackness and hardness my friends.
Continue reading 'Pencil Grades: An Overview'
by George Coghill -
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