Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

In this video, I am sharing with you a vector path creation technique to speed up the process of creating curved paths by adding intermediate anchor points after your corners have been created. I used to create my anchor points as I was following the curve of the shape I was tracing. Instead, with this technique the anchor points are added to your vector path after your corners have been created, allowing Illustrator to approximate the length of the curve handles for you with much greater accuracy the first time around.

Continue reading 'Adobe Illustrator Video Tip: Quickly Add Smooth Transition Anchor Points'

by George Coghill -
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WMMS Buzzard mascot cartoon character illustration, created by David Helton.

If you grew up in Cleveland in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s, you saw the WMMS Buzzard mascot cartoon character everywhere. Or maybe just if you were just a young art geek like myself…

The WMMS buzzard mascot and all the related artwork was a huge influence on me as a young artist. I loved the style, the line work, the attitude of the character. I found myself drawing it over and over to unlock the secrets of it’s design.

David Helton is the illustrator/artist who created that iconic image. I was thinking about this recently and found an article by the Cleveland Plain Dealer regarding the origins of the creation of the WMMS Buzzard, an excerpt from the book The Buzzard: Inside the Glory Days of WMMS and Cleveland Rock Radio.

Continue reading 'WMMS Buzzard Logo: Mascot Character Art Origins'

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
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For longer than I can remember, I have been flustered with the Flatten Transparency feature in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and CS4. Very often I use the excellent Layer Targeting feature introduced into recent versions of Adobe Illustrator, however I found that when using the Flatten Transparency feature, it seemed to ignore the attributes of the Targeting, which forced me to find lengthy workarounds to solve this. Turns out there was an approach to solving this that I had overlooked…

Continue reading 'Flattening Transparency Properly When Using Layer Appearances in Adobe Illustrator'

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

I recently finished up the first round of a series of custom avatar illustrations for the Cleveland, Ohio convention and visitor’s bureau Positively Cleveland. The initial set of avatar illustrations were for the “web women” of Positively Cleveland — the main online team for their website.

Continue reading 'Custom Avatar Illustrations: Positively Cleveland'

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

Another brief video in my 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 keyoard shortcuts that allow you to drag-resize the size of the brushes using the mouse pointer.

Continue reading 'Video: Photoshop CS4 Drag-Resize Brush Keyboard Shortcut'

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

Cartoonist and regular MAD Magazine artist Tom Richmond just posted some insider tips on working for MAD Magazine over at his excellent blog.

Sorry to say, there’s no secret handshake or magic words, but the good news is that it’s at least easier nowadays to get your work in the mag than it was back in the 70’s & 80’s — MAD has opened up to a wider range of styles as well as a wider pool of freelancers that they work with.

And to quote Tom on the likelihood of your artwork getting seen:

Trust me when I say that anyone who sends work into MAD will get the proper attention paid to it, usually by art director Sam Viviano himself.

That’s good to hear, although Vivano’s artwork is phenomenal—it’s gotta be nerve-wracking to submit to him. I remember his work way back in my Scholastic Book Club days, in Dynamite Magazine. Now that’s going waaaay back!

Continue reading 'Working For MAD Magazine: Insider Tips'

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

Artwork created by & © Enoch Bolles

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
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via Graphic Exchange

Artwork created by & © Rubens LP

by George Coghill -
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A fun post over at Dark Roasted Blend: Ladies & Robots: a collection of 1950’s era photos and illustration of pinup-style girls with sci-fi robots! Great stuff and a must-visit link.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
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“Suburban Swami” illustration. Artwork created by & © Steve Scott.

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