This puma illustration was created as part of a rebranding campaign for a high school (the Perry Panthers). I was subcontracted by a designer to create the illustrated mascot portion of the project. The designer created the full logo and ancillary design work.
The school had been using puma artwork for their mascot that was not created by them, and therefore needed to have something original created. After initially attempting to create the illustration work himself, the designer eventually realized he needed an illustrator to create this portion of the project.
This sketch was for a client that went MIA after we got started on the project. The theme was for a “USA” branded pinup style girl — the draped fabric was to be a United States flag.
I think the drapery was coming along nicely, but I know I was dreading making all the Stars & Stripes read realistically enough. Probably wouldn’t have been as hard as I imagined though.
She’s been sitting in my hard drive long enough and I liked how this was coming along so I thought I would share.
Working color vector art for a mascot character project. The ogre will be used as a mascot for a video game portal website. We needed a prop and I suggested a video game controller, the client wanted to go with an old-school Atari 2600 controller, which I think looks great. it’s such an iconic design it really reads well, which is important for smaller sizes.
This character was created for a company providing online, off-site file backup solutions. They wanted a character that would embody the idea of safe, secure and encrypted. Hence, the big key, the secure briefcase handcuffed to the character, the binary code reflected in the sunglasses “Matrix” style.
I knew from the outset that I wanted to go with a “bodyguard” or “secret service agent” look to the character, and that he needed to be big and tough to an exaggerated degree. Read on for more info on this project as well as some insight into the sketching process…
I recently created an in-depth Adobe Illustrator tutorial for the Go Media graphic design and illustration blog GoMediaZine. The tutorial covers the creation of a cartoon character mascot from sketch to final vector art. The character art is a fun Twitter blue bird cartoon character, and the vector art files as well as icons for use on your own website or blog are available as a free download as part of the tutorial.
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.
It’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog with recent work, I have been (gladly) super busy with client projects, deadlines and upcoming work that I need to make time for now. A lot of really great cartooning projects have been recently wrapped up, with lots more good stuff on the digital drawing board right now.
The image above is a quick teaser showcasing some of the recent work — both finished and in progress — including: a cartoon Marines character for a t-shirt design for a Young Marines troop, a cartoon monster character for a self-published children’s book project I was just awarded, a cartoon ogre mascot for a video game portal website, an “inventor Mom” character with her home made robot, a tough security guard/body guard mascot character for an online data storage company, a puppy dog mascot character, a surfer character for a gyro/souvlaki restaurant, a frog version of the Statue of Liberty for the Ohio Canal Corridor’s annual event t-shirt, more avatar portrait illustrations for the Cleveland, Ohio travel & visitors bureau Positively Cleveland, and a fish mascot character and logo for a niche fishing utility product.
WMMS Buzzard mascot cartoon character illustration, created by David Helton.
If you grew up in Cleveland in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s, you saw the WMMS Buzzard mascot cartoon character everywhere. Or maybe just if you were just a young art geek like myself…
The WMMS buzzard mascot and all the related artwork was a huge influence on me as a young artist. I loved the style, the line work, the attitude of the character. I found myself drawing it over and over to unlock the secrets of it’s design.
For longer than I can remember, I have been flustered with the Flatten Transparency feature in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and CS4. Very often I use the excellent Layer Targeting feature introduced into recent versions of Adobe Illustrator, however I found that when using the Flatten Transparency feature, it seemed to ignore the attributes of the Targeting, which forced me to find lengthy workarounds to solve this. Turns out there was an approach to solving this that I had overlooked…
