• 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)

  Click here to view the embedded video.

  Another 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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Best posts on Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration from Nov 2008 is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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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.

The “17″ in the page title is a bit of a misnomer as the author is including both the Mac and Windows versions in the count total.

17 Productive Photoshop Cheatsheets and Reference Cards to Download for Free via Speckyboy

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Photoshop Cheatsheets and Reference Cards: Free Downloads is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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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.

In my haste in upgrading, I forgot to check for the availability of these, and thought I would pass the info along to others in case you rely heavily on any of these. I am sure the updates are on their way, but for now you are out of luck.

Another reason I like to keep previous versions installed alongside and Adobe upgrades.

UPDATE: I just found this over at the Layers Magazine message board regarding the release of the FontExplorer X plugins for CS4:

We are working on a solution and we hope to release a new product in Q1 and
more information will be coming as it is available.

Let’s hope it’s early Q1. At least it’s being worked on, that’s good to know. I have emails in to plugin developers Worker 72a and Rick Johnson (Graffix) on CS4 ETAs for their plugins as well, will update this post as I know more.

by George Coghill -
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Creative Suite CS4 Plugin Availability is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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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.

To add insult to injury, when upgrading to CS4 (from CS3), Adobe also moved some of my customized files that weren’t compatible with CS3 into a new “Adobe CS3 leftovers” folder in the Application folder on my Mac (I have no idea how this all is handled on Windows systems).

I suppose I should be glad they didn’t just throw them all away, but imagine the surprise I would have gotten launching a CS3 app and discovering lost functionality. The weird thing is that not all the plugins/settings were moved to this “leftovers” folder. I could see no rhyme or reason to it all.

Just a warning to anyone upgrading so you have time to plan to set up all your custom keyboard shortcuts.

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

Creative Suite CS4: Custom Keyboard Shortcut Woes is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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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…

The vector Pen Tool — once harnessed — is one of the most powerful resources in your digital illustration graphics software arsenal, and not just in Illustrator (think: clipping paths in Photoshop). But in no way is it intuitive. For starters, just forget what the icon looks like — it’s not a “pen” in the sense you know one, and nothing like the fountain pen the icon is based on.

A super-quick tutorial to learn Illustrator’s vector Pen Tool: figure out how to draw the letter “S” freehand with the Pen Tool. The letter “S” has pretty much every variation of vector paths and anchor points you’ll use the majority of the time, all combined into one shape.

For a more in-depth exploration and step-by-step walkthrough of all the functionality of the Pen Tool however, I direct you to Sharon Steuer’s “Zen Of The Pen” (PDF link). I first encountered Steuer’s “Zen Of The Pen” in the Adobe Illustrator 8 WOW book (a how-to book on Illustrator going past the basics and more in depth on vector image creation techniques and effects). Finding it available for free online was a nice surprise that I thought I would share.

“Zen Of The Pen” will walk you through exercises on the creation of increasingly complex vector paths and shapes. Once you’ve gone through the exercises, you should have a solid understanding of how the vector Pen Tool functions and be well on your way to vector path enlightenment. Ommmmmmmm…

by George Coghill -
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Zen Of The Pen is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Vectips has a post with 10 Free and Extremely Useful Illustrator Scripts.

Illustrator supports scripting from AppleScript, Visual Basic, JavaScript, and ExtendScript. What’s a script you ask? We’ll they’re kind of like plug-ins, kind of like Actions. Basically they are small chunks of software that you can invoke to perform functions.

You don’t need to know anything about programming, coding or anything like that. It’s as simple as downloading the files and placing them in the  Adobe Illustrator CS3/Presets/Scripts folder. After doing so you’ll find them in the Scripts menu (under the File menu).

Lots of great scripts. Here’s what you’ll find:

• Close All Paths / Close All Selected Paths: Speaks for itself
• Divide Text Frame: Divide multi-line text fields into separate text frame objects.
• Join Text Frames: Joins text frames or selected text frames. 
• Fleurify: This script will create flowery shapes from basic shapes.
• Metaball: This script will create connecting arcs from shapes you have drawn.
• CMYK to Pantone v.2: Gives you the closet match of a PMS color from a selected CMYK color.
• Vary Hues / Randomize Colors: Randomizes and varies hues for a selected color.
• Save File With Timestamps v.3: This script will rename the current open file, save the  file, close and re-open the file with a new timestamped name.
• Circle: This script will create a ellipse with a specified amount of anchor points. Illustrator has a function where you can add more anchor point to an object, but you can’t specify how many extra point you want to add.
• Swap Objects: This script will swap the positing and size of two selected objects.

Some of these add functionality not found in Illustrator, others extend the tools and functions in Adobe Illustrator. Worth checking out and downloading.

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

10 Free Adobe Illustrator Scripts is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Adobe Illustrator Automator Action Pack from Automated Workflows allows extended use of Mac OS X’s Automator in Leopard with 20 actions for use with Adobe Illustrator.

For years I have been trying to wrap my head around Automator in OS X; it seems like a super handy tool, but I can never seem to get it to do exactly what I want. But don’t let my ineptitude stop you — lots of users swear by Automator and if you are in need of additional Actions for Automator for use with Adobe Illustrator, these look like they could be really useful.

The full list of the Adobe Illustrator Automator Actions:

• Close Illustrator Documents
• Delete Empty Text Frames from Illustrator Documents
• Filter Illustrator Documents by Color Mode
• Get All Opened Illustrator Documents
• Get Front Illustrator Document
• Get Names of Illustrator Documents
• Get Paths of Illustrator Documents
• Make New Ellipse in Illustrator Documents
• Make New Line in Illustrator Documents
• Make New Rectangle in Illustrator Documents
• New Illustrator Document
• Open Documents in Illustrator
• Place Images in Illustrator Documents
• Place Text in Illustrator Documents
• Print Illustrator Documents
• Save Illustrator Documents
• Save Illustrator Documents as EPS
• Save Illustrator Documents as PDF
• Set Ruler Origin of Documents
• Trigger Illustrator Action

via MacUpdate

by George Coghill -
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Automator Action Pack For Adobe Illustrator is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Texture King looks to be a great free resource for photographic texture images for your design projects. I downloaded a random file and found it to be 300 PDI @ 3″ x 5″, so the files are of a decent size to use in your print projects, and perfect for web usage.

via Creattica

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Free Photgraphic Textures: Texture King is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Mordy Golding has a nice interview with the product manager of Adobe Illustrator, David Macy, over at the Real World Illustrator blog. Vector geeks, go check it out.

by George Coghill -
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Interview With Adobe Illustrator Product Manager David Macy is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Bittbox is working on a cool new project — Conglomerfont. The idea is that creatives send in hand-created letters, and the final result will be collated into one schizophrenic, ransom-note looking über-font from everyone’s submissions. The final font will be freely available and evry paerticipating artist will get credit for their contribution.

There’s still a handful of letters — uppercase & lowercase — as well as numbers left. Head over and drop Bittbox a line about the letter you’d like to create and join the community typeface project.

I created the uppercase “G”.

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

Conglomerfont is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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