Guess the celebrity characterature

Can you guess who this celebrity is?

I have decided to start the new year of 2012 with a fun contest for all my readers. How the contest works is thus: I draw a cartoon caricature of a well known TV or Movie celebrity, and then people leave comments stating what they think it is.


As you can see from this first (of many I hope) contest entry I have now become an accomplished cartoon caricature artist, making instantly recognizable caricatures of celebrity faces. I can also provide YOU with an unique gift for a loved one, or someone who is retiring (and you'll no doubt never see again before they die).


Contact me if you'd like a celebrity portrait caricature. Prices start from just £20 + VAT and fees.  

Unique fantasy artwork of your children.

Delightful Fantasy Art Photo. Both these children have hay-fever and asthma!

I have decided to offer this unique service to all the loyal readers of this website. Yes you too could have your loved ones immortalized in special fantasy artwork! All you need to do is send me a photo you'd like me to skillfully convert into something totally unique and unusual. Save a fortune on travelling to Japan. I will take your photo and convert it into a unique fantasy photo art-work that you will love. This would look great on a shopping bag, or oven glove, or even a tea towel.

If you'd like me to turn your photos into something truly unique using my skills then once I have your photo I will set to work (depending on day time TV schedule) and get the image back to you within 7 days. Then you can send the image to an online printer who will print the image on a poster, tea mug - whatever you want!!! You might even want to ask the online printer to make this a canvas print, so it looks like an original oil painting (extra charge from me of £8.95 if you choose this option). 

Prices on special offer of only from: £19.99 for one person in the photo, too £49.99 for two or more people in the photo.

So don't delay. I need the money!

Leonard.gubbins@googlemail.com

Thatcher or Black?

I have been making more fun cartoons with built in hilarity of celebrities. This week I have mostly been drawing well known and instantly recognisable celebrities from the United Kingdom. I started to draw this with the intention of capturing the likeness of that wonder lady of the stage, Cilla Black, but after I finnished drawing it, I realise it might look a bit more like Margaret Thatcher, who used to be the Prime Minister of this very country. OR at least Janet Brown impressioning her in the 1980's quite badly, with a poor make up budget.

A great way to crate cartoons from photographs tutorial.

Here's a great tip to turn any photograph into a convincing and hilarious cartoon. Take a photo like this one of a boy holding a fish. Just an ordinary photo right? Wrong! It's also a cartoon!


Open the photo in photoshop or other such like photo manipulation program such as Windows Paint program.

Then you aplly one of the filters to it such as I thus did here (the fresco filter) - and hay presto you have a wonderful cartoon like image which is probably better than something a cartoonist could draw anyway.

Hilarious Computer Joke.

This is a recent joke cartoon that I did for a client to see that I could provide some jokey type cartoons for his Ye Olde Computer Shoppe business in the local high street. He wanted something that he could send out to all his customers via email or facebook (he's yet to decide). After he had given me his briefs, I set to work thinking of all the amusing things about computers that I could put into a jokey type cartoon for his computer business as previously discussed.


I did this on my computer with my Wancom Bamboo tablet. IT's a very expensive piece of professional equipment that only professional cartoonists are allowed to buy, but if you can afford one then I think you should. I have drawn this cartoon in just 7 hours, from the client brief to the finished article (no, not this article, I did it last week). I did this cartoon in the style of Bill Tidy or Larry. Check out the filing cabinet!


Next time: How to drawer cartoon filing cabinets.

I've won the lottery.

Wonderful news has just broke. Someone in the UK has won the Euromillion lottery. I haven't won this lottery, but I have won the lottery of life. However if I did win the lottery and had lots of money all of a sudden I would probably give up cartooning for a while. After all, I'm only in this game to get rich.

But if I had won the lottery, after I'd paid off all my debts to Bright-Home, The Kays Catalogue, Primark store card, and YES car credit - I would probably give the rest of the money away! Always I have been known for my generous and modest nature. All those times I've told big Dave in the chippy to "keep the penny, put it in the jar for the spastics", and other such random acts of kindness that I would never publicise myself, out of an extreme sense of modesty. I'd probably give so much away to Save The Mongolian House Butterfly and the Conservative Benevolent Fund, that there'd be none left for myself! LOL

But with the money left, I would definitely buy a Rolls Royce Album, or possibly a CD. And then give it to a children's charity for new hearing aids or something like that. I don't know what they'd use the money for. Perhaps some new balls for their ball pool? I don't know. I've never visited a children's charity.

The meaning of life, and the naked washing up club.

I have often been asked what the point of it all is. Now I am no minstrel or smartie, but I do know that it's often the right course of action to do something different from time to time to challenge the spirit of the human being into doing something different.


I am of course talking about washing up in the nip. Why would anyone want to do this? Well, if you have a dishwasher they'd be little point - but we are not all middle class. Some of us don't even have a people carrier. Washing up with clothes on can be hazardous, especially when you are on your way out for an evenings entertainment at the local arts centre. Washing up in the nip can make things much better. It's a wonderful experience for everyone who isn't within sight of your scrubbing sponge.


Then there's having a dog. It's very important when you have a dog to walk it regularly. At least 5 times per day (depending on the size of it's legs). If you have a very small dog with short legs, then it might be better to walk it just once per day. Dogs cannot walk without you helping them, as they don't understand the concept of the green cross man, or how fast a Saab 900 Turbo is travelling through your estate (see, not middle class).


Well I hope that's helped many of you with the eternal struggle with the meaning of life and other big important questions. As usual I'd welcome any comments.

Wedding Caricatures.

I've decided that just drawing cartoons for websites and missing cat posters is not lucrative enough. The landlord is due back from his extended stay in Moscow soon, and so I need to make cartooning pay even more than it already has done. I also need some new gel pens since my last lot were melted, still in the WHSmith packaging, in a tragic incident on my bathroom windowsill in this extreme heat we have been having of such lately.


So I've decided that a good way to make some serious money is to give the gift of caricatures are people's weddings. I think I could charge much more than £20 per cartoon for this, and I don't imagine people at a wedding want to sit around too long to have their picture drawn, so I can probably draw 20 caricatures in an hour, therefore thus earning about £500 per hour!

I do find drawing ugly people, freaks if you like, much easier, so I might have to decline drawing normal or plain people and just concentrate on those people who have weird glasses or other interesting facial features. People who look like cartoon characters already would be good. I  just need to find a way to advertise to people having freak weddings, and I'm quids in.


Don't worry, I won't get above myself and stop this invaluable resource on the internet. Talent Free is here to stay!!!


Well, it's good to be back after a short break. I do apologise for the lack of posts over the last week or so. My fellow bloggers have been far too busy to assist with the running of this valuable resource, what with various court cases and assisting police with their enquiries, community service and subscription kidnap attempt theme weekends. All very interesting, but sadly not conducsive to running a successful website. I do hope no one's cartooning career has been adversely affected by lack of Talent Free advice.

Mr Brightside.

Here's the very first entry in how to draw a constable contest (no material prize available). What a wonderful start to the contest, from Mr Steve Bright. He's neglected to tell us his age, but I imagine from the outstanding quality of his drawing (he hasn't gone over a single line) he must have left school at least 10 years ago. Well done you!

Steve has clearly taken the advice I gave in the tutorial and has drawn the policemen in funny 'police' hats and uniforms so you can tell they are policemen. If he'd drawn them without any clothes on for instance, it would have been very hard to tell what they were supposed to be, so well done again.

It's a super drawing, and I think it deserves at least 4. points out of 5, 5 points for effort and 3.9554 for not going over the lines.

Please send your entries in for this contest soon, as I have literally several that I need to assess. Come on folks. I know you can do better than Steve.

Welcome Paul Mahoney, our latest Talent Free Author.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome our latest Talent Free author, Mr Paul Mahoney. He's very kindly agreed to provide this blog with his expert insight into all things concerning rodent contraception, the best plumbers based in the Northwest, Gel Pen techniques, and of course how to make millions of pounds from drawing cartoons.


I'm sure Paul will be providing some really really good articles that will outshine our current Talent Free authors by a large margin. He has promised to publish some Talent Free cartoons, up to 50 times per day, which means that Cathy will be able to take that long promised caravan holiday at long last.


*Photo is not of Mr Mahoney.

What your feet should wear to where?

I am often asked when I go on holiday, after I've been asked where I'm going on holiday, what type of foot shoe my feet will be wearing. Now this might not sound like something the average person would think about that much, and you'd be right. How often have you turned up to a wonderfully exotic holiday destination like Skegnes or Cleethorpes, only to find a fellow travellor wearing a pair of these:

This can really spoil a holiday, there's no doubt about that. What I like to remember when chosing my holiday destination is thinking about what other people who have travelled there before me might be wearing at that destination, at the approximate time that I may arrive at that destination (or similar time the previous year or season). Wellies may be quite suitable for wearing in Winter in Cleethorpes, but you'll stand out like an angry farmer in the height of summer wearing something like that in the height of the summer season.

Hedge Trimmers Trim Hedges!

I have often been asked how I keep my hedge so neat and tidy all year around. Well I use a hedge trimmer of course. I used to have a huge pair of rusty shears, but I found that these didn't use electricity at all, so I invested in a Bosch hedge trimmer (not the one in the picture - I couldn't find a photo of my own trimmer). So now I own a Bosch hedge trimmer, which trimmer should you buy? Firstly you need to find out how far away from your house your hedge is. If it is 100 metres away then you might need a very long cable to reach your hedge. So you need to buy a hedge trimmer with a very long cable (or wire). Next you need to work out just how much of a weed you are. It's no use buying a great big heavy one, if it makes your wrists ache after a few minutes. I suggest you go into a shop and feel them all for weight, then when you've made your decision to buy, pop home and get onto the internet and buy one from there (it will be cheaper).

Here's some more hedge trimmer pictures.

Enjoy your trimming.

SEO Marketing specialist.

Have you ever wonderered how come this website is on page 34,990 on Google for SEO Marketing Specialist? That's because it's been optimised for usage of Google. And I can do this for your website too! Yes, for just £20 per key word (a key word is like a word that has something to do with your website or business that Google will hopefully find and then associate that word with your business or website) I will enter your site, and insert something very special and will get you high up.

*I'm very sorry, but I cannot offer this service to those living in West Yorkshire.

THE CORGI

I've been commissioned to drawer a picture of a corgi for a royal fan of corgis, or a fan of royality. I'm not sure, I can't rememeber much since I passed out through sniffing that marker pen earlier today. Now some might say it's not a very realistic looking corgi, but that's how I see them in my own unique style. Some people like to draw things to make them look like the thing they are drawing, but I think that's wrong. Quite quite wrong. If you don't draw what's in your mind (marker pen fumes or not) who will?

Anyway. I can't remember who requested this art work, so if it was you can you send me the £20 and I'll email the picture to you as soon as the funds clear.

The Queen Mum

I was commissioned to do this excellent caricature of the Queen mother buy one of my neighbours. As you can see caricature is just one more of my many talents. If you would like me to draw you one of your most favourite royals then please email me, enclosing a £20 note and I'll send you within 30 minutes a masterpiece like this. You could use it for a birthday card, or just hang it on your wall. Sorry, but I can't print any of these pictures off at the moment, as my printer is playing up and will only print black and yellow. I can send a very high quality email direct to your email inbox.