Tag Archive for 'tips'

ArtCast Network

Published on December 12, 2009 in updates. 0 Comments Tags: art, ArtCast Network, artist, cartoon, cartooning, Dani Jones, drawing sketching, how-to, Illustration, live, streaming, tips, tutorials, Ustream, video.

Just a quick post to let all you artists out there know about an up-and-coming new website from the amazing illustrator Dani Jones — the ArtCast Network.

Dani loves to share her extensive illustration technique knowledge via live streaming videocasts on Ustream, and decided there needed to be a website that brought together all the talented atists out there who do live streaming webcasts on Ustream or other similar sites.

I have a Ustream cartooning & illustration channel, but I am just getting started. The ArtCast website has inspired me to do much more of this, so keep an eye out for future live video stream where you can watch me sketch & draw live in Adobe Photoshop, and work on cartoon-style vector art illustrations in Adobe Illustrator. And all videos will be recorded and saved to my Ustream channel for those of you who aren’t able to watch live.

The ArtCast Network is still in the ‘under construction’ phase right now, but head on over at the link above if you are an artist and want to participate.

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

Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.

Adobe Apps: Backup Your Prefs

Published on January 15, 2009 in software and tips. 2 Comments Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, backup, Creative Suite, how-to, Mac, Mac OS X, OS X, PC, productivity, tips, troubleshooting, tutorial, Windows, Windows XP, workflow.

adobe-preferences-mac-osx-screenshot

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?

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Zen Of The Pen

Published on October 31, 2008 in productivity and resources. 2 Comments Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, art, Bezier, Creative Suite, free, graphic design, how-to, Illustration, illustrator, PDF, Photoshop, reference, software, technique, tips, tutorials, vector, walkthrough.

Sharon Steuer’s free ”Zen Of The Pen” PDF is an excellent introduction to the inner mysteries of the vector pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.

The pen tool is one of those obscure graphics programs tools that everyone tries once, and then gets so confused by that they never get any further with it. And understandably. It looks like a fountain pen, but it doesn’t act like one. Click and “draw”, you get weird “handles” sprouting out from a dot. Ignore that, and some annoying rubber band line gets stuck to your pen tip, all distorted out of — not even a straight line! Right there most Illustrator users think to themselves “this program sucks”.

But they couldn’t be further from the truth…

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10 Free Adobe Illustrator Scripts

Published on October 9, 2008 in productivity and resources. 0 Comments Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, CS3, illustrator, productivity, script, software, tips, vector.

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:

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