This was an interesting project. I was contracted to created a cartoon fish mascot character for a niche fishing tool—basically it’s an air bladder deflate gizmo for fishermen so they can sport fish deeper-sea fish and release the expanded air in the fish’s buoyancy air bladder when they arrive at the surface. this allows the fishermen to release the fish back into the water without permanently harming them.
After an initial phone discussion with the client, I was mailed the existing packaging (as I was to also re-design the packaging) as well as some rough sketches drawn by the client to give me an idea of the fish they wanted to see. Typically when clients do send rough drawings, it’s with the “it’s not the greatest” disclaimer, but I actually encourage clients to suck up the ego and send these over. The more information I have from a client about what they have envisioned for the project, the better.
Continue reading 'Bends Mender'
by George Coghill -
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This project was a blast to work on—very cool client and a fun theme How can you beat drawing a surfer dude holding a gyro/souvlaki while surfing a giant wave in front of a Greek temple?
This project came about after the client had commissioned a previous artist to illustrate the logo for “Surfin’ Souvlaki”, which was the client’s new restaurant. The results were less than satisfactory, and after finding me he knew I was the right illustrator for the job.
The final artwork was intended for use not only as the restaurant logo, but also for use on the sign on the front of the store. As the client had already purchased a large sheet of diamond-shaped steel, I needed to work up a the illustration to fit within this shape.
Continue reading 'Surfin’ Souvlaki'
by George Coghill -
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This puma illustration was created as part of a rebranding campaign for a high school (the Perry Panthers). I was subcontracted by a designer to create the illustrated mascot portion of the project. The designer created the full logo and ancillary design work.
The school had been using puma artwork for their mascot that was not created by them, and therefore needed to have something original created. After initially attempting to create the illustration work himself, the designer eventually realized he needed an illustrator to create this portion of the project.
Continue reading 'Perry Pumas Mascot Illustration'
by George Coghill -
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I recently created an in-depth Adobe Illustrator tutorial for the Go Media graphic design and illustration blog GoMediaZine. The tutorial covers the creation of a cartoon character mascot from sketch to final vector art. The character art is a fun Twitter blue bird cartoon character, and the vector art files as well as icons for use on your own website or blog are available as a free download as part of the tutorial.
Continue reading 'Tutorial: Create A Vector Art Twitter Bird Character Icon In Adobe Illustrator'
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 -
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I recently finished up this ‘Theology On Tap’ cartoon character mascot/logo project for a youth ministries client.
The client is a youth ministries minister, and his new program is focused on bringing discussions of theological matters into more casual settings to try and reach additional young people.
The artwork is intended to be used on various advertising and promotional materials, as well as a t-shirt design.
I thought it odd at first, but I suppose there’s nothing really wrong about talking about religious matters in a bar, right? And I suppose a minister knows the deal. My only concern was to create a great illustration for him and his project.
Anyways, read on for an in-depth overview of the process to create this cartoon character mascot/logo from start to finish, including unused sketches created along the way.
Continue reading 'Monk/Friar With Beer Keg – Cartoon Mascot Illustration'
by George Coghill -
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I recently completed a concert poster design featuring a fez-wearing cartoon genie mascot character for Nashville, Tennessee roots-rock jam band Vinyl Soup.
I have been working with guitarist Andrew Hooker for some time now with t-shirt designs, a logo redesign, concert posters and other promotional materials for the band.
Recent gig poster design work for Vinyl Soup had started to go down a path of design-only work. Andrew initially contacted me for a t-shirt design for the band, and his initial interest was in my cartooning/illustration work.
Starting out on concepts for this poster, I was again working on a solely design-oriented approach, and before I got too far along I dropped Andrew an email to see if going back to an illustrative style would be cool with him. It most certainly was, so I set about to work up a theme for the poster.
Continue reading 'Cartoon Genie Concert Poster'
by George Coghill -
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A rough sketch of a cartoon pinup girl with American flag & mobile phone. This was drawn for a project I am currently working on for a client, updating their existing mascot character art to be used with the company logo and other branding. It was rejected due to not being the kind of pose the client wanted for the woman.
She has potential, but there are a few things proportion-wise that I think need to be reworked, particularly with her face — the lips are a bit low on the head, and the eyes are a bit off. These are all things that would have been tweaked in the revision stage.
At this point I wanted to get the general idea over to the client for feedback before I went too far, and in this case it was the smart thing to do since I will need to start from scratch with her.
Continue reading 'Cartoon Pinup Girl With American Flag Sketch'
by George Coghill -
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“Average Joe” is a recent cartoon character mascot I created for a client. The project specs were pretty straightforward – two cartoon characters, one being “Average Joe” who would become the company mascot, and for this particular illustration he would need a sexy cartoon woman wrapped around him.
This project had a very tight deadline, so I got to work immediately on the sketches. The initial rough sketch was created to get the general idea down and to start the conversation. Being a tight deadline, I sent out a sketch that normally I would have refined a bit before sending. In this case, I needed immediate feedback on the direction so I sent this rough concept to get the client’s OK on the overall posing of the characters and the general look.
Continue reading '“Average Joe” Cartoon Mascot Guy & Sexy Woman Illustration'
by George Coghill -
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I recently finished up this cartooning project of a cartoon mascot & logo of a dog with a cigar and a hockey stick. The client had a specific vision for this character, which initially included a cowboy hat (see sketch below), but the hat was nixed before going to the final vector art.
Continue reading 'Cartoon Dog With Cigar – Mascot & Logo Illustration'
by George Coghill -
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