So I saw a Twitter post the other day where someone mentioned Bigfoot was the new Olympics mascot – I thought it was a joke. Browsing through my RSS I stumbled on an entry over at Cryptomundo where I learned that indeed, the Yeti – or precisely Sasquatch – is (one of) the mascots for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Pretty cool.

So I head on over to Google to do a search for some images, and what do I find? A Sasquatch character with boots on. What? That would be like putting wheels on a UFO, or a snorkeling mask on the Loch Ness Monster. They’ll probably make a crop circle of the Olympics logo — using a lawnmower.

OK, so it’s Sasquatch, not Bigfoot, but we all know it’s the same dude. Sure, the etymology of Sasquatch is “hairy man”, but what a fun feature to work into the character – big feet. Instead, he gets Moon Boots™ from the 1980’s. “Hairy Man” – gross; “Big Feet” – fun! (”Hairy Feet” – gross and fun?).

Overall the character is kinda cool I guess – simple, Web-2.0-y vector art character. Typical coloring-book kid-friendly approach. But I really think they could have had some fun with the feet being bare – think of the marketing and branding gimmicks they could have with footprints going everywhere and such.

I suppose the furry guy could take his boots off, but then it all just kind of gets too complicated. I guess because I am a Bigfoot fan, this hits a bit closer to home. I shouldn’t complain – it’s pretty neat that a Cryptid is getting such prominent placement in such an international event.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
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Quatchi, The Vancouver 2010 Olympics Mascot: Off On The Wrong Foot is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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It’s going to happen you you eventually — a client who doesn’t pay their bill. And unless the project was for a significant amount of money, the unfortunate truth is that many times it isn’t worth the cost of suing. The legal fees can very quickly outweigh the money you’ll get, and that’s the positive side!

Because of this, I make it a standard practice to ask for a 50% deposit for all work before starting a project. But this only covers you so far. I also do not transfer any high-resolution or vector art until the final balance is paid, but sometimes this doesn’t cover your butt — for example, the client may only want to use the art on their website, or may have no clue about proper printing resolutions and will go ahead an use the low-resolution JPEG preview images you’ve been sending them.

A very simple solution to this problem: watermark your images. A simple extra layer in Photoshop with the word “PROOF”, with the color set to 100% magenta and the opacity from 5 to 15% is all it takes. It just needs to be there enough to be readable, but not obscuring the art. Another very good reason to do this is to ensure that when the final art finally sent, the preliminary art is never used. This is the standard reason to use the “PROOF” watermark, but the great thing is that it solves two problems with one solution.

The best thing to do is just to start incorporating this technique as part of your habit when sending any files to any client — even long-standing clients. Sketches, color studies, JPEG vector art previews, layouts, PDF— you name it. As mentioned above, not only does it ensure the proper final files are used, but also protects you from unsavory types out there. By incorporating this into your standard procedure for sending files, you not only get in the habit of doing it (so you won’t forget), but also you’ll work out that naggging thought that “this client is cool, I don’t need to worry about protecting my art this time”. By doing this across the board with every single client & project, you avoid any second thoughts.

To be honest, I am not consistent with this myself, and part of the impetus behind this blog post is to get me focused. For most of your projects and clients, this will (hopefully) be unnecessary 99% of the time. It’s that 1% time that you’ll be avoiding, and those usually come up when they are least convenient — whether financially or deadline-wise. Every time the usefulness of this comes up and smacks me on the head, I always think to myself “why am I not watermarking these images?”. So, here’s to a new start.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Avoid Non-Paying Clients With Watermarks is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Lately work has become quite busy, and updating the blog has become less frequent because of this. I try to, for the most part, make sure the entries are substantial and well-linked, and that takes time. I thought that it would be preferable to slow down rather than add fluff posts just to fill my daily blog quota. Of course the occasional art or artist post will be published when I find something cool.

The automatic del.ici.ous link posts I thought would be a good way to keep the information flowing without having full posts. I am curious how the readers out there feel about the del.ici.ous link posts — should they stay or go?

And while you are posting in the comments, please feel free to offer suggestions for future posts you’d like to see or topics you’d like to see covered. Lately it seems I have been overdosing on the Adobe Illustrator topic, and I would like to get more focused on cartooning and illustration in general. Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees…

I look forward to your thoughts.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Feedback: Del.ici.ous Link Posts; Blog: Post Frequency Update is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 arrived this morning, and was immediately installed on both my trusty G4 and the MacBook. Here are my very initial thoughts on the first run of the main software applications: Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.

I ran the Photoshop CS3 beta release many moons ago – for about 14 seconds on both machines – the brush cursors weren’t showing the brush size, and I can’t work without those. Anyways, I bring this up because you need to do an uninstall of the PS CS3 beta before installing the Creative Suite, and if you have any problems there’s another cleanup program you can download from Adobe.

I didn’t need to run it on the G4, but did need to do so on the MacBook, and I think because I don’t run my main accounts as Administrator accounts (for extra security), I had to actually log in to the Admin account to run the script. It just wouldn’t run under my regular non-Admin user account (”not enough permissions” blah blah blah).

Installation took a bit longer than I thought, but I did go for the CS3 Design Premium version as I wanted/needed Dreamweaver CS3 and to a lesser extent Flash CS3.

Today was not the best day to get new software (especially for a geek like me) as I had a client meeting this afternoon, and also have a bunch of projects on my plate right now. I knew I could still use the CS1 versions I had been using, so I knew it wouldn’t hurt to install.

I have not had much time to play with all of the software, but just launching the programs is significantly faster on both machines, especially the MacBook (both Macs are maxed out at 2Gb of RAM). I have not really used any of the apps at all on the MacBook, so I will hold off on that review for another post.

Of course I opened up Illustrator first on the G4, and tried out the new features I was most looking forward to – OK, I admit it; the features I was most excited about (yes, I was excited about software features). For Illustrator it was the Zooming Anchor Points and Isolation Mode. Isolation Mode kicks butt, and it’s something you immediately know the first time you use it that it will speed up workflow and make things much easier.

Isolation Mode allows you to double-click on a group (a collection of objects that have been grouped), and once you double click you enter into Isolation Mode which fades out the rest of the artwork, and then allows you to work on just the group. The killer thing here is that the objects are no longer grouped, meaning you don’t have to switch over to the Group Selection tool (white arrow with the plus sign) to select individual objects. You are in a “virtual space” inside the group. If you’ve worked with Flash at all you’ll know exactly what I mean, and I am sure Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia played a part in this. It’s awesome.

Zooming Anchor Points are a feature that I was really amped about, but it’s implementation – unless I am missing something – is just not all that great. Granted, I have yet to work seriously with Illustrator CS3, but just trying them out left me unimpressed. Still handy, but I felt they could have allowed for more customization of the size of the zoom. It’s pretty minor. I’ll hold off judgement until I have used them more though.

Photoshop CS3 I used for a while today on a drawing project that I am finishing up. Purely layers with color and line art, so I though working on a copy couldn’t hurt anything. The great thing was that I jumped into things immediately, and while I didn’t notice any major speed improvements, it also seemed just as if I picked up where I left off with CS1. That in itself is important. Everything worked fine with the Wacom tablets (which I had to reconfigure for the new software, as well as update my brushes for CS3 – I never saved the previous brushes as an actual set).

I also dipped into InDesign a bit and there are some really cool new features in there as well. I am curious how many are CS2 features I never had, since I skipped a version for the upgrade. Regardless, lots of cool and time-saving stuff in all the apps so far, and this is just a few hours for all of them combined.

All in all, things installed smoothly, I was able to use the new software with existing work and transition just fine. As I mentioned I haven’t yet grasped the full extent of all the new features – I’m actually not even aware of all them them for each program yet. But so far, a satisfying purchase, and I am really looking forward to immersing myself into CS3 and sharing all the good stuff I discover.

More to come.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Adobe Creative Suite 3: First Thoughts is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Still using that pencil you found in the couch and an old dictionary as a drawing board? Don’t feel like the biggest computer wiz when it comes to graphics software? There are plenty of inexpensive tools out there that will boost your productivity and enjoyment level when drawing, sketching or just doodling. And you don’t have to spend a ton of money to expand your tool kit in ways that are sure to make your life much easier, giving you more time to draw.

1. Eyes

This can’t be emphasized enough, but the real key to all drawing – cartooning, illustration, sketching, doodling or otherwise – is seeing. Really looking at something, analyzing it, noticing proportions and relationships between parts. For the cartoonist, this is key to exaggeration, knowing which parts to play up and which to play down for the intended effect. I once had a wise drawing instructor who told us that if you spend more time looking at the paper than what you are looking at to draw, you doing it wrong. I suppose for a cartoonist, you aren’t really using an actual model, but I am always referencing my own hands, face, expressions, body poses etc. when working on a new character.

Your eyes are definitely not low-tech – they are one of the coolest parts of the human body (did you know that the optical nerve connecting your eyes to your brain actually meets in the middle when you are an infant? Half of the nerve starts from the brain, half from the eyeball, and they grow and meet, connecting gazillions of nerves together. Insane!). But as far as cost, there are free!

2. Mirror

A few mirrors are a must. I have a full body mirror and a handheld shaving mirror – nothing fancy. The full-length mirror is great for getting poses down, seeing where all the limbs go and how they are proportioned to each other. Many times I will do a quick “realistic” sketch, just to get all the parts in the right place, and then toon it up from there.

A handheld mirror that can be set on a desk and swiveled and angled so you can draw things like facial expressions, hands etc. is a must have. I use mine more for this than for shaving! They usually have a bizarre, fun-house “zoom” side to them as well, so you can really see how unattractive the pores of your skin are at 732 times actual size.

3. Light Box

Light boxes are just plain awesome. I held off on getting one of these things for so long because I kept telling myself they were too expensive for a box with some lights inside and plastic on top. This is probably the most expensive of the tools, and I suppose it’s not even cheap. It’s definitely low-tech though. However, the usefelness of a light box far outweighs the cost consideration, so if you average out how much you’ll end up using it compared to the price, it becomes almost free. I was using tracing paper before I got my beloved light box, and after about ten packs you’ve just paid for a light box. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I draw on decent quality inkjet (not copier) paper, because it scans so well into the Mac. I barely use a sketchbook any more – again, a pain to use with the lightbox. Best to have single sheets.

It’s funny, I finally broke down and got one when I had the eureka moment that using the lightbox to draw was like a low-tech version of layers in Photoshop & Illustrator. It’s a perfect way to draw an image in parts, so you can scan in and create in layers in your Adobe software. It just give so much more flexibility to do things this way. Okay, so Photoshop is not a cheap low-tech tool. There are plenty of other uses for the lightbox, the biggest being the ability to collate parts of sketchs into one über-sketch. You know the times when you draw a part of something just right, but the rest of it sucks? And you wish you could get the exact feel but start over with the rest of the art? And redrawing just doesn’t do the trick? I think you get where I am going. Believe me, this little doo-dad is worth every last penny, and the bigger the light box you can afford, the better.

4. Multiple pencil grades

A good set of drawing pencils in multiple hardnesses. Man do I forget this one all the time. This is a biggie: get to know the different pencil hardnesses (or softnesses?). You already know the old standby, 2B. Just about every common pencil out there is 2B or HB. But go to an art store, and you’ll find all sorts of new number/letter combos, from 9H to 9B (The higher the “H” number the harder the lead (and the lighter the mark it leaves), and vice versa for the “B” numbers (”B” stands for “Blackness”).

We’ve all been there – you need a big dark area for the background, so you painstakingly scribble over and over and over and over on the paper until it begins to curl up and get grooved, and in the end it’s really not as dark as you want it. We all try a few more last ditch rounds of more lead, but to no avail.

Now, if you had a 4B pencil – BAM! You’d be making wide, soft, smooth and easily blended swaths of graphite across the page with almost no effort.

And can’t get that pencil tip to stay sharp enough, long enough to get some details done right? Mr. 6H, well that’s his specialty! And this brings me to an increasingly obscure low-tech cartooning tool…

5. Mechanical Pencils & Lead Holders
Well, the mechanical pencils aren’t obscure, but lead holders (or clutch pencils as they are sometimes called) are fairly rare. They are usually lumped in with drafting supplies. Lead holders are basically mechanicals pencils without the automatic click-feed for the lead. The lead just kind of falls down when you press the release on the back end. Oh, and the leads are way thicker.

What’s so special about these you ask? I think sometimes there is a bias to drawing tools, that they need to be “Art Supplies”, not drafting pencils or anything with the word “mechanical” in them.

Me, I love never having to sharpen them. I’ll keep a couple of lead holders around with HB & 4B lead in either one, and them a mechanical pencil or two with .7mm & .5mm lead. Most mechanical pencil lead seems to be HB grade.

6. Kneaded Eraser
What the heck is a kneaded eraser? Well, only just the coolest eraser that has walked the face of the earth. And why is this so-called “kneaded eraser” so cool? Well, to start with they are pliable, a bit of a mix between Silly Putty and Play-Doh. This means you can shape them to the most appropriate shape for what you need to erase. No more of that ham-fisted, one size-fits-all approach with those other erasers. No sir.

Another awesome feature of the kneaded eraser is again in it’s pliability: you can twist it up and clean it up. Great for finding a good clean spot so you aren’t smudging things (if you don;t want to smudge that is). Kneaded erasers also have this quality of breaking apart more easily than gum erasers, so your drawing surface doesn;t get all chewed up, and retains it’s surface, or “tooth“.

And of course the final benefit of the kneaded eraser is that it can be a fun toy/stress reliever on your desk. Pretty much like Silly Putty except it will have the opposite effect on the funny pages.

7. Leaning Bridge

Artist’s leaning bridges are very cool tools. They let you get a firm rest over you drawing without leaning on the actual paper. The stiff plastic of the leaning bridge lays over and around your artwork/drawing surface, allowing you to rest your hands almost as close as if you were resting them right on the drawing surface itself.

Allows one to keep the hand steady for more detailed work, and the clear plastic lets you see what you are doing. Simple, yet ingenious.

I used to tape a couple of rolls of drafting tape to the bottom of my big metal T-Square, but not the ideal solution.

This is probably the distant cousin of the mahlstick, a related tool for you painters out there.

8. Drafting Tape
Drafting tape is great for when you are using your lightbox to trace. Keeping the layers of paper aligned by hand just isn’t worth the hassle. You want to focus on drawing. Drafting tape looks like masking tape, but it’s a very light adhesive which means you can tape things down, then pull the tape off later and not rip the paper. Of course, you can always do what i used to do and just stick some masking tape to the carpet before you use it, but that’s not really the elegant solution, is it? And what if you have hardwood floors?

9. Pocket Moleskines & Space Pen

Moleskine journals are stylish and perfectly sized journals that are great to use as sketchbooks. Great writing/drawing surface on the paper, a small pocket on the inside back cover, a built-in cloth book mark and an attached cloth elastic band to keep the covers closed.

These are known as classic artist’s journals, supposedly Van Gogh and other artsy fartsy types from the past were into these journals, and I can see why. They are super durable and will hold up to being used and abused on a regular basis.

I also like the softbound Moleskine Cahier Notebooks but the hardbound are the most popular.

The Fisher Bullet Space Pen does write in space, yes. But the allure here is a properly weighted compact ink pen that goes “full size” when you attach the cap to the back end when using it. They fit right in your pocket and draw like a dream. A very cool little pen.

10. Drawing Board

Portable drawing boards are great tools for those of you with limited space, or those like me who have their computer monitors, keyboard and Wacom tablet on their drawing table!

I actually use something far more simpler than the pictured item, but I just couldn’t find any online so I went with the upgraded model. You should be able to find the bare bones version at your local crafts or art supplies store for under ten bucks. They are more designed with portability in mind, but they are also cheap and that’s really the criteria for this post.

And if it’s not clear from the photo, this more fancy model is actually designed to sit on another table – it’s not a drawing table in itself. So you can turn any old table into a drawing table with these. The nicer version usually have a smooth surface that you can count on to be free from potholes and such so your pencil doesn’t zig-zag all over the wood grain or from random blemishes on the drawing surface.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Ten Essential Low-Tech (and Cheap!) Tools for Cartoonists & Illustrators is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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There’s an interesting entry over at the excellent blog Drawn regarding a study done on copyright term lengths by a Cambridge economics PhD. He argues that 14 years is the optimal amount of time, due to production and other economic factors.

Head on over to the post at Drawn.ca for some interesting discussion in the comments, and also a link to the original article at Ars Tecnica which has a link to a PDF of the actual paper.

Copyright is a very interesting concept, especially coming from the creative/creator side of things. Part of me wants to own and control everything I create for infinity, but the other side of me can understand the need to stimulate creativity in society. However, patent holders only have 20 years to capitalize on their work. There seems to be a dichotomy there, but perhaps there are finer points which separate the two.

In the meantime however, make sure you always drop a © (that’s the “C in the Circle” symbol, which is Option-G on your Mac) on your artwork. You can include the date and/or your name, but don’t have to. You don’t even have to officially register the art to use the Copyright symbol (although it’s recommended for added protection).

Here’s a quick overview of Copyrights at the USPTO (United States Patent & Trademark Office).

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Copyright Laws – 14 Years The Optimal Limit? is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Fun list over at BittBox for all us designer/illustrator freaks out there. One of my faves:

23: You can’t go to a restaurant without secretly critiquing the menu design.

Be sure to browse around for some great tips and free stuff for Adobe Illustrator while you’re there.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

25 Reasons You Might Be A Hardcore Graphic/Web Designer [Link] is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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If you haven’t heard, Adobe announced the imminent relase of Creative Suite 3. Since I spend most of my time in Adobe Illustrator, obviously it’s the software package I am looking forward to most. To be honest I really haven’t dug into the fine details of all the new features in Illustrator CS3, and most of what I know I got from Mordy Golding’s video podcast on the new Illustrator CS3 features over at his Real World Illustrator blog. But there are a few I know about, and boy are they sounding cool. One, in particular, has been a recent pet peeve of mine that has finally been addressed.
The new color selection system looks awesome (and a bit daunting), and there are lots of cool new things coming our way. But man am I jonesing for the zooming anchor points! With all these new highfalutin’, high-resolution monitors out nowadays, man do those anchor point get small. Some days I think I spend half my time just trying to click on the one I want – without having to zoom in just to do so.

Well, Adobe has come to my rescue and Illustrator CS3 will have zooming/pop-up anchor points when you mouse over them! Yay!

I guess I am also pretty stoked about the customizable template library (ahem – “Document Profiles”), the improved screen redraw, and the “isolation mode” they stole from Flash. Oh, wait, they own Flash now. Isolation mode, for those unfamiliar, is a feature where grouped objects are set off from the rest of the artwork in a mystical transparent layer via double-clicking the grouped objects. You cna then edit as you wish, in isloation, without having to lock down other objects, layers etc. Man, this one might be better than the zooming anchor points…

I am also really curious as to the performance increases, especially on Intel machines, since they are now natively supporrting Intel chips, and from what I understand (I could be wrong) all the CS3 apps got rebuilt from the ground up, as opposed to earlier versions for OS X that we kind of duct-taped upgrades from the OS 9 versions. To be honest, CS1 runs pretty good on Intel machines with enough RAM. These new versions must just be incredible.

Wow, I just looked at the calendar – if the rumors are correct (or has this been confirmed?) CS3 will be available on April 20, 2007. Just checked Amazon’s listing for the Creative Suite CS3 Design Premium package, they are saying it releases & ships April 20. Only ten days away from the time of this post. Very, very awesome.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Adobe Illustrator CS3: The Feature I Am Looking Forward To Most is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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…intimidating, but exciting.

So what’s this all about? Well, it seems you almost HAVE to have a blog nowadays, at least for the next few months before something else gets popular. I guess it better than having to have a MySpace account. Can’t hurt in Google ranking either.

I’ll be posting some random artwork, mostly stuff not found on my cartoon illustration portfolio site, and hopefully this will contain all new artwork & sketches, like this cool zombie I need to finish:

I’m just setting this up, so that’s all for now.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

It’s like a new sketchbook… is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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