Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

For all you Photoshop brush junkies out there, here’s a Mac OS X Quick Look plugin to preview Photoshop Brush Files (.abr) in the Finder.

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

iPhone Photo Keys is an interesting iPhone/iPod Touch Photoshop helper application available on the iTunes App Store.

Photo Keys turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a Photoshop companion tool by putting the entire Photoshop toolbar, as well as many useful shortcuts right at your fingertips. If your iPhone or iPod Touch is nearby that is.

After downloading the iPhone app from the Apple app store, you also must install a server app on your computer so that the Photo Keys app can connect to it via wi-fi. The main toolbar screen contains all the tools in the Photoshop toolbar palette. Simple click any tool to select it in Photoshop. For tools that contain multiple tools, such as the Rectangular Marquee tool, you can cycle through the tools by clicking the same tool multiple times.

Continue reading 'Photo Keys: Photoshop Toolbars On Your iPhone'

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

Here’s a freebie for all my loyal readers: a free Photoshop action I created myself to eliminate repetitive tasks I (used to) go through each time I scanned in a new sketch for further work in Photoshop. Boost your productivity with this free Photoshop download.

My custom Sketch Prep action — as you can see from the screenshot — simply resets your color swatches back to the default black/white, does a Select All on the background layer, cuts the image to a new layer (leaving you with a flat white background layer) and then bumps the opacity of the newly-created layer down to 20%. It then adds a fresh new blank layer for you to start drawing in.

Continue reading 'Scanned Sketch Prep — Free Photoshop Action'

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

Here are a few handy keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop for those of you out there like me who spend an inordinate amount of time in the Creative Suite primarily using Illustrator. These are not keyboard shortcuts that you can use in Illustrator, but rather are keyboard shortcuts providing methods of doing things in Photoshop that you are used to doing in Illustrator that at first it might seem isn’t possible, like click directly on an object to select it, drag to a new layer, etc.

Continue reading '6 Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts For Illustrator Users'

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.

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.

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.

Cap’n Clobber is my robot gorilla pirate creation for this week’s Monster Monday illustration.

Continue reading 'Cap’n Clobber'

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.

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 mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.