Too many posts to handle? If you missed out on a great post from last month, here’s a quick digest of the top posts that you may want to check out:
- Inspiration: Are Mokkelbost
Posted on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 in inspiration – Comments: (0)
- Inspiration: Understand Your User
Posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 in inspiration – Comments: (3)
This quote is in regards to software, but I think it applied to creative folks as well:There’s only one person in the world whose needs and problems you really understand and whom you know exactly how to satisfy: that would be you. So build something that you use all the time, and, unless you’re really weird and different from everyone else, you’ve got a potential winner.
- Monster Monday: Blue Beast
Posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 in cartooning – Comments: (2)
Cartoon drawing of a blue devil/demon I drew up for Monster Monday.Original sketch drawn in my sketchbook, graphite on paper, then scanned into Photoshop where the sketch cleanup and color was added using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.Original sketch was very rough, the scanned sketch was tweaked in Photoshop and then flipped to save time and keep the symmetry.
- Video: Photoshop CS4 Spring-Loaded Keys
Posted on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 in video – Comments: (1)
http://www.vimeo.com/2304626Another brief video in my instructional series introducing some great new features in Photoshop CS4 for artists, cartoonists, illustrators and anyone else who sketches or draws using Photoshop.This video features the excellent new Spring-Loaded Keys feature that allows you to access a tool temporarily by holding down the key for that tool, similar to using the Spacebar for the Hand tool – only for every tool in Photoshop now.
- WordPress Sidebar At Bottom? Div Tags Via Copy/Paste In Visual Editor
Posted on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 in resource – Comments: (2)
A non-cartooning post here, but when I run into issues with the blog and find solutions for the errors, I like to pass them along.I recently had a bizarre problem with this blog: the Sidebar was appearing way at the bottom of the home page, at the end of the last post entry. I saw some potential fixes for this on the wondeful web, and all seemed to point at an unclosed < div > tag.
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by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.
Great resource for Adobe Photoshop users — reference cards for quick overviews of Photoshop’s interface, specific and often-used tools.
Includes links to versions for Photoshop CS3 and CS4 as well as both Macintosh and Windows versions.
Some of the “cards” are actually links to Adobe’s own online help (which is where the default Help in CS4 apps now takes you). But the rest of the cards look helpful in learning or referencing common tools such as the Pen tool, the Marquee tool, and the Brush tool. Worth a look and a download for the reference cards that suit your workflow. Sure to enhance your productivity.
Continue reading 'Photoshop Cheatsheets and Reference Cards: Free Downloads'
by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.
A quick note that as of the posting date, there are a handful of plugins not yet available for the Creative Suite CS4 applications.
The list for me so far includes: all font activation plugins for Linotype’s Font Explorer X, “Select Menu” for Illustrator CS4, Canon’s Scangear CS plugin to access your scanner from within Photoshop’s Import menu, and plugins from developer Worker72a such as the ‘Zoom To Selection’ plugin for Illustrator.
Continue reading 'Creative Suite CS4 Plugin Availability'
by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.
Just a quick tip for those out there getting ready to upgrade to the new Adobe Creative Suite CS4: I discovered after the upgrade that CS3 customized keyboard shortcut files do not transition into CS4.
This is a huge bummer, as there is no easy way that I know of to display what you have changed compared to the default set. I can only speak for Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4 and InDesign CS4 as I do not use the rest of the programs in the Design Premium suite enough to customize keyboard shortcuts.
I can’t recall if this is the case with previous Creative Suite upgrades as well or if this is a CS4-only situation.
Continue reading 'Creative Suite CS4: Custom Keyboard Shortcut Woes'
by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.
Published on
October 31, 2008 in
uncategorized.
Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, art, Bezier, Creative Suite, free, graphic design, how-to, Illustration, illustrator, PDF, reference, software, technique, tips, Tutorials, vector, walkthrough.
Sharon Steuer’s free ”Zen Of The Pen” PDF is an excellent introduction to the inner mysteries of the vector pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.
The pen tool is one of those obscure graphics programs tools that everyone tries once, and then gets so confused by that they never get any further with it. And understandably. It looks like a fountain pen, but it doesn’t act like one. Click and “draw”, you get weird “handles” sprouting out from a dot. Ignore that, and some annoying rubber band line gets stuck to your pen tip, all distorted out of — not even a straight line! Right there most Illustrator users think to themselves “this program sucks”.
But they couldn’t be further from the truth…
Continue reading 'Zen Of The Pen'
by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.
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