Adobe Illustrator

The Girl In The Moon

| George Coghill

Sexy pinup Girl in the Moon cartoon illustrationI recently updated the “Girl in the Moon” artwork (while drinking some Miller High Life beers, of course). I had initially created a version of her a few years back, and while I thought it was good at the time, lately I have been wanting to update her as she was my first attempt at a pinup style illustration. I have been working towards a certain look/style for the pinup girls, including some devil girl pinup art and others and felt I was getting closer to that vision as of late.

I thought it only fair to go back and update the original. A request to get that original art in t-shirt format prompted me to start work on the new version.

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Digital Coloring Tutorials by MAD Magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond

| George Coghill

MAD Magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond digital coloring tutorial screenshotIf 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.

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Tip: Increase Productivity Using Adobe Illustrator’s Layer Masks

| George Coghill

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

Adobe Pen Tool Cheatsheet: Free Download

| George Coghill

Adobe Pen Tool 3×5 index card Cheatsheet preview imageHere’s a cool little idea from the geniuses at CreativeTechs.com: “cheatsheets” for Adobe software that are designed to print on a 3×5 index card, complete with space reserved to punch holes for a binder. Designed with the GTD/Hipster PDA crowd in mind. And they’re free!

This link is to the PDF cheatsheet for the Adobe pen tool, since most (or all) of it’s features work the same across the Creative Suite. A real cool visual reference guide, and just one in a series of cheatsheets for Adobe apps as well as other computer and Mac related info that you just sometimes need at your fingertips.

Looks like they are just starting out with these, so be sure to subcribe to the RSS feed and collect ’em all!

5 Obscure Illustrator Keyboard Shortcuts That Shouldn’t Be Obscure

| George Coghill

Apple Command Key symbolSo I was digging around in Illustrator’s Keyboard Shortcut preferences, and discovered some interesting commands available that I was totally unaware of, as well as some commands I had been wishing were available.

Some of these are my own fault for not exploring Illustrator’s menus properly, but others are just locked away in limbo, hidden from all but us intrepid (and geeky) explorers. And some of the commands are available, but with no default keyboard shortcut assigned to them, but they are available for you to add your own.

These are sure to be productivity boosters once you get the muscle-memory flowing for them. I know just coming back here to finish up this post after working in Illustrator I had already forgotten most of these. It’s weird how you get used to working within the limitations of the software even when you know a better way. I am just now getting used to using my fancy-schmancy new “Zoom to Selection” Illustrator plugin after having it installed for over a month and using Illustrator just about every day since then.

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Annotated Keyboard Graphic With Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

| George Coghill

annotated keyboard for photoshop shortcutsHere’s a pretty handy little reference graphic: an annotated keyboard with Photoshop’s keyboard shortcuts. And even an extended text-based shortcut chart on the bottom!

This makes me think that not only could it use a bit of spicing up in the visual sense, but also that this would be pretty handy for Illustrator users as well… maybe even incorporating Modifier key shortcuts to boot.

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Free Printable Keyboard Shortcut Cards for Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop & More

| George Coghill

Computer Arts illustrator shortcuts preview 02A set of free, printable keyboard shortcuts cards for Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and more are available for download over at ComputerArts.co.uk.

The set includes keyboard shortcut cards for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator CS, Macromedia Freehand, Cinema 4D and 3D Studio Max. These are CS1 versions, but from what I can gather the shorcuts should be pretty much the same for the newer versions. Not too sure about the Macromedia apps (which are now Adobe apps) as I have never used any of them.

As anyone who has read this blog can tell, I am a huge keyboard shortcut junkie, and you should be one as well. I cannot even begin to emphasize how much knowing these will enhance not only your pleasure on using graphics software (and software in general), but how much of a marked increase in productivity you’ll see.

I cringe in geek pain when I see a fellow Photoshop or Illustrator user laboriously hauling their mouse over to the Tools palette, or even to the menubar for anything but the most arcane of Menu items.

Download. Print. Learn. Kick massive butt.

See also:
• Annotated Keyboard Graphic With Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

• Keyboard Protective Cover With Photoshop Shortcuts