Mascot Contest!

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As a character designer I’m fascinated with product mascots. A good mascot, when combined with a strong ad campaign, can be an enormous benefit when promoting a product or service. My favorite freelance projects are when clients hire me to design a mascot or character, either for advertising or animation.

To help illustrate the power of a mascot I thought it would be fun to have a mascot contest. A good mascot will help customers instantly recall the name of the product he/she/it represents. Can you name all twelve products/brands represented by the mascots above? (Hint: Some mascots share the same name as their product). Most are fairly well-known, but I’ve thrown in a couple of dated ones to keep it from being too easy.

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If you can correctly identify all twelve products, I’ll enter your name into a drawing for a free copy of the new book Hi-Fi Color For Comics: Digital Techniques for Professional Results by Brian and Kristy Miller. This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn some great tips and techniques for coloring your artwork digitally. Don’t let the title fool you. You don’t have to work in comic books to benefit from the authors’ expertise. The book comes with a free CD and is chock full of great info. I happen to own a spare copy, hence this contest.

Remember, to be entered in the drawing you must correctly name the products, not the mascots themselves. The contest deadline is midnight (central time) on Friday, April 11. I’ll announce the winner on Monday, April 14. Send your answers to blog@cedricstudio.com, along with your name, email address, and phone number. This is not a scheme to add you to some sort of mailing list. This is just for fun. I promise I’ll only use the info to contact you if you win, and after the contest all the names and email addresses will be deleted from my computer.

(EDIT: Please do NOT leave your answers as a posted comment. Such posts will be deleted.)

So….How many products can you name?

Just For Fun: DVD Easter Eggs

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Did you know there are Easter eggs in your DVD collection that you may not even be aware of? “Easter eggs” are hidden special features that filmmakers intentionally hide on a DVD for you to try and find. Not every DVD has them, but many do. Here’s a rather extensive collection of DVD Easter Eggs for you to try and find in your home movie collection. Enjoy!

Deadline Crunch…And A Joke

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Between meeting deadlines and getting my taxes ready for my accountant (ugh!) I’m pretty busy at the moment. Too busy to write a full post. However, there’s some great art blogs linked over to the left. I highly recommend giving them a looksee.

Also, I thought I’d pass on a joke someone sent me the other day that really made me chuckle:

Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote “The Hokie Pokey” died peacefully at
the age of 93.

The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin.

They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started.

See ya tomorrow.

DrawerGeeks: The Monster Under My Bed

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For a few years now I’ve had the privilege of being a member of DrawerGeeks, a fun website for artists. Each week a different character or topic is assigned and we each take a shot at illustrating it any way we’d like.

This week’s topic was “The Monster Under My Bed”. Ninety percent of the time I’m too busy to take part, but this week I had a few free hours to whip something up. I thought I was being clever by drawing a giant monster trying to hide under a tiny bed, but several of the other artists came up with almost the exact same concept. Oh well.

DrawerGeeks is a closed community meaning only current members can submit artwork. However, in the very near future the DrawerGeeks moderators will be letting in a few new artists. When I know more I’ll post info on how to apply.

Random Silliness And Fun

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Too many serious posts lately. Time for some fun time wasters:

Pirates’ Pet Peeves

John Cleese’s “Letter To America”

And the always classic StrongBad Emails.

For previous posts that don’t necessarily have anything to do with anything, check out the “Just For Fun” category listed over to the left.

Oh, and Doug TenNapel is back! If you miss his old blog, check out his new one. For a sampling, read 41-year-old Doug’s letter to himself as 17-year-old Doug. (Thanks to my buddy Paul Fricke for the heads-up.)

Illustration Friday: Tales and Legends

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Copyright © Cedric Hohnstadt. All rights reserved.

I would have posted this on Friday but I wanted Ask Mr. Artist Guy to be front-and-center all weekend. A big “thank you” to everyone who’s submitted questions so far.

Illustration Friday is a fun website for artists. Each week a topic is posted, and any artist who wants to (regardless of skill level) can submit a sketch or illustration created for that topic. The more creative and original you can be, the better. It’s a great way to sharpen your conceptual skills as an illustrator. (Someone who really has a lot of fun with it is Guy Francis.)

Unfortunately I usually don’t have time in my schedule to participate but this time I can squeak something in. This week’s topic is “Tales and Legends”. By coincidence I was going through some old sketches and happened upon this dragon drawing. It fits with the topic (albeit with a bizarre twist), so I thought I’d post it.

Participation in Illustration Friday is free. Just sign up on their website and each week’s topic will be automatically emailed to you.