If you aren’t familiar with cartoonist Tom Richmond, make yourself familiar. This guy’s work is absolutely amazing. Very much in the style of Mort Drucker from MAD Magazine — only taken to the extreme. Not only is his cartooning & caricature style excellent, but his color work is also phenomenal. Tom graciously has taken the time to outline exactly how he digitally colors his artwork in Photoshop in a juicily-detailed three-post tutorial/how-to series on his cartooning blog.
Continue reading 'Digital Coloring Tutorials by MAD Magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond'
by George Coghill -
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I just discovered these free PDF downloads of Inkspot, the Australian Cartoonists’ Association’s official magazine. The current issue feature über-caricaturist Mort Drucker. The publication is about 24 pages and contain interviews and news. I haven’t delved into the complete issue just yet, but looks to be a great resource.
Lots of interviews with cartoonists and other informative cartooning and cartoon industry resources in each issue.
by George Coghill -
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Primary, secondary, tertiary, complimentary, analagous, brightness, hue, value, saturation, tints, shades… do these words mean anything to you? They should.
A post by cartoonist Matt Glover points out ColorFAQ – very basic web guide to color theory. It got me poking around on the internet for some other sites with some more depth on the subject. Sometimes I forget how much I use color theory every single day, it’s just something that sometimes goes on autopilot and is an easy topic to forget to recommend to others.
Continue reading 'Color Theory Resources'
by George Coghill -
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The excellent Illustrator blog BittBox has a nice Adobe Illustrator Layer Mask tip/walkthough on how to use this highly useful, productivity-enhancing (and fairly obscure) feature of Illustrator CS and higher.
Layer Masks are basically clipping masks that apply to the entire layer (Layer masks need to be sub-layers, and the top-most one at that). The best feature is that they can be locked, and they are not tied to one specific object, or cause an entire group of unrelated objects to become “grouped” as they are when applying a clipping mask to them. This allows you to work normally with all the other objects on other sub-layers while still getting that clipping mask effect.
Head on over to BittBox and read the full post: Improve Your Illustrator Workflow with Layer Masking
by George Coghill -
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Still using that pencil you found in the couch and an old dictionary as a drawing board? Don’t feel like the biggest computer wiz when it comes to graphics software? There are plenty of inexpensive tools out there that will boost your productivity and enjoyment level when drawing, sketching or just doodling. And you don’t have to spend a ton of money to expand your tool kit in ways that are sure to make your life much easier, giving you more time to draw.
Continue reading 'Ten Essential Low-Tech (and Cheap!) Tools for Cartoonists & Illustrators'
by George Coghill -
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Creative Bits has a neat informal poll going on about readers preferences for working on concepts: do you sketch with pencil & paper, or jump straight to the computer and work on the graphics software to start?
You can read my 2¢ in the comments section regarding the gradual takeover of the Wacom tablet and my Photoshop sketching habits. I still work on paper, but I find myself more and more finishing up sketches in Photoshop due to the endless flexibility I have to tweak and refine while I am perfecting things.
by George Coghill -
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(via Creative Bits):
A neat little trick to work up original, radially symmetrical star-type shapes using multiple copies of rotated text. Good stuff!
by George Coghill -
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Quick tip over at the excellent CreativeBits on how to use Opacity Masks to create a transparent fade within Illustrator.
Why Illustrator (or InDesign for that matter) still does not have a transparent swatch that one can use with a gradient is beyond me. This tip clearly shows it’s possible, but perhaps there’s some sort of voodoo in the code that prevents this from being a built-in feature.
by George Coghill -
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