Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Another cartoon drawing for the Monster Monday group sketchblog. Further experiments with painting in Photoshop using the Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.

Continue reading 'Monster Monday: Cartoon “Igor”-style Character Sketch'

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
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Cartoon ogre creature for Monster Monday group sketchblog. I’ll be posting some further info on Monster Monday in a future post, but for now it’s a new blog I started up with a weekly theme of monster art to rally myself and other participating artists to get a personal piece of artwork created at least once a week and share.

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

Wacom has updated their tablet driver software for the USB versions of all Intuos3 (PTZ), Intuos2 (XD), Intuos (GD), CintiqPartner (PTU) and Graphire2 (ET-0405A) pen tablets and the Cintiq 12WX, 20WSX, 21UX, 18SX, and 15X pen displays.

Get the Mac OS X (10.4 & 10.5) version, the Windows XP version or the Windows Vista version. Or visit the main Wacom driver download page for other operating systems.

Continue reading 'Wacom Tablet Drivers Updated'

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

If you aren’t aware, Adobe is announcing the CS4 update the their Creative Suite design software package today. Photoshop always gets the spotlight, but us vector artists want the scoop on our baby: Illustrator CS4. I guess the gag order was lifted as of midnight, because details are pouring in, and even Adobe has updated their site to feature CS4.

Illustrator guru Mordy Golding over on his Real World Illustrator blog has a nice detailed overview of the major new features and refinements in Illustrator CS4.

Continue reading 'Adobe Illustrator CS4 Details Released!'

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

Yeah, I know – it looks kinda weird. And what is the SmudgeGuard exactly? As you can see from the product shot, it’s kind of a glove – one that only covers the pinky finger and the meaty area of the palm below.

Originally designed for artist lefties who were always smudging their work when drawing their palms across their artwork, it’s also useful for any artist working in pencil, charcoal or related media where a hand-drag can smudge the artwork. And, interestingly enough, it’s also quite useful for Wacom graphics tablet users.

Continue reading 'SmudgeGuard – Handy Accessory For Wacom Users & Graphic Artists'

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

A recent Obama & McCain humorous cartoon illustration I created for Time Out NY for the “Commander In Beef” article regarding what New York City chefs would prepare for the 2008 presidential candidates. The illustration was created for the dining section, and is currently being featured on the front page of the Time Out NY website’s dining section. The featured artwork is a spot illustration companion piece to the full page illustration I created for the print article:

Continue reading 'Commander In Beef'

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

 I just finished up a t-shirt illustration – ‘The Hairy Canary‘ – for mail-order/catalog company What On Earth for their pub t-shirts line.

The basic premise of the t-shirt designs are as follows: the artist is given a choice of bar/pub names to choose from, and from there a design is worked up to go with the name. I believe all the bars & pubs are actual places, but these aren’t officially sanctioned or anything.

From the list I was given, the name ‘Hairy Canary’ just jumped out at me and I knew it was a theme that would spark a cool illustration.

Continue reading '‘Hairy Canary’ T-Shirt Illustration'

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

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 -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
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Cartoonist Mike Foran has a couple of cool number 2 pencil Photoshop brushes – free to download – that I stumbled across the other day. For some time now I have been on the casual lookout for a Photoshop brush that mimicked a regular-ol’ number 2 pencil. Seems Foran was on that line of thought as well.

Foran’s brush has a nice line quality, varied from thick to thin based on your Wacom tablet pressure, and has a slight angle similar to a flat-worn pencil tip.

The brush also has a nice light feel at light pressure, and darkens quickly with pressure added. The texture and look of the brush marks/pencil lines is perfect.

Continue reading 'Free Photoshop Brush: Stumpy Pencil'

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

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