Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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
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.

I recently ran across a link to the London-based Association Of Illustrators AOI Report: Illustration Fees and Standards of Pricing (2007). To sum up what this AOI Report is all about, I’ll quote from them directly:

The information presented in the various tables in this document indicate examples of fees charged in relation to particular jobs or services, based on the AOI’s research and recent survey of the industry. The tables provide information about the variables in costs and gives examples of what factors should be considered as illustrators and clients negotiate fees. It should also be borne in mind that illustrators and clients have agreed fees outside the ranges surveyed here.

There’s a lot of great info here (and be sure to adjust the numbers in your head to your local currency — the pricing on the AOI Report is in UK pounds). It’s always helpful to get an idea of what others in your field are charging for their services to determine of you are charginot too little or too much.

Continue reading 'AOI Report: Illustration Fees and Standards of Pricing'

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

The “Oblong Ogre” is my most recent entry for the weekly Monster Monday monster art sketchblog.

Continue reading 'Oblong Ogre'

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

So much good stuff on this guy’s site, I just went with Spidey since he’s my favorite. Be sure to check out his blog for tons of awesome character design.

Spider-Man illustration by artist Sean Galloway. Art created by & © Sean Galloway.

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

Illustrator & cartoonist Bob Ostrom mentioned me — George Coghill — on his new freelancing podcast Creative Independence in regards to getting help from other creatives on the addictive social networking service Twitter.

Bob was stuck trying to figure out how to accomplish a technique with Adobe Illustrator, and sent out a plea for help. I dropped a line and we hooked up via iChat to work through his issue.

Bob mentions in the podcast how he was instantly sold on Twitter after the experience. Twitter is a great resource if you follow other illustrators and socialize with them – tapping the collective creative community can be a great resource if you are stuck on how to do something with your software.

Continue reading 'Twitter: The Creative Collective'

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 created this pinup Santa girl illustration for a local company that produces home-brewing beer kits. The client was developing a special holiday/Christmas blend, and wanted to also include an incentive in the package — in this case it was to be an empty 24 oz. beer bottle with a pinup Santa girl silkscreened on to the bottle.

Continue reading 'Santa’s Helper'

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 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.

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

“Basket Case” is a new t-shirt illustration design I created featuring a wild-eyed disc golfer cartoon character in the Kustom Kulture/Odd Rods/Ed “Big Daddy” Roth style — complete with veined eyes bulging out of the head, a wild and crazy grin with an exaggerated, wagging tongue dragging out of the mouth.

Available for purchase — and customization — over at Zazzle. Click here to get yours now!

Continue reading 'Basket Case'

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