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 -
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.

I don’t own a Wacom Cintiq graphics tablet, but I have heard quite a bit of grumbling from Cintiq owners about the way the cursor is displayed: I guess it’s offset a bit with the idea that your hand would obscure the cursor so Wacom has offset it a bit, which takes some getting used to.

But those Cintiq users are in luck: there’s a utility out there that might just ease your pain.

Continue reading 'Cursorcerer: Hide Your Cintiq Cursor'

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.

It’s happened to all of us digital creatives. The dreaded day when you just cannot get one of your Adobe applications to launch. Usually there’s a deadline looming (of course). You’ve restarted your computer (three times) and still you cannot get Photoshop to launch. You’ve tried a few tips from some Google searches, but still nothing. Your geek cred is showing it’s limitations. And your deadline isn’t getting any further away.

What if I told you this could be avoided, virtually forever? And also, that you can get back to work with all your settings just the way you like them?

Continue reading 'Adobe Apps: Backup Your Prefs'

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.

Hold down the Option key when erasing using the Eraser Brush, and you’ll get a marquee that you can drag to erase a perfectly rectangular area.

Bonus Eraser Tool tip: edit the keyboard shortcuts so the Eraser uses the “E” key, and remap the Free Transform tool to Shift-E (essentially swapping the keyboard shortcuts for the two tools). Seems much more intuitive this way.

Both tips via FreeTransform

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

The current MacUpdate Promo is offering the excellent shareware tool Default Folder for only $19.95 until midnight on 10/27/2008.

I have been an extremely satisfied user since way back in the OS 9 days, and highly recommend you pick up a license while this great deal is going on. Default Folder is worth every penny of the $34.95 standard price, so at almost half off it’s a steal.

What does it do? Here’s a quick overview:

Default Folder X attaches a toolbar to the right side of the Open and Save dialogs in any OS X-native application. The toolbar gives you fast access to various folders and commands. You just click on the buttons to go to your favorite and recently used folders, manage the folders and files shown in the list, and make changes to your settings.

Continue reading 'Must-Have OS X Productivity Tool Default Folder 43% Off 10/27/2008'

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

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:

Continue reading '10 Free Adobe Illustrator Scripts'

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