How much is too much?

I have often been asked how do I get into a line of business such as yours? I don't know what your line of business is, so I can't really answer that, but I assume they might mean (these people that I dream about) that what you mean is: How do you get into cartoons?


Cartoonists can charge anything they want to charge a customer. It's not like fridges. There is no Government price controls. Some charge £10 per cartoon (but they aren't very good if they are charging that much). and some charge £20 (these are usually better cartoonists). and sometimes as much as £2,000! It all depends how you want to use the cartoon. For instance, in my instance I would charge someone more money if they wanted to hang my cartoon in their through lounge, and I would charge less money if they just wanted to hang it in their downstairs lav. If they wanted a bespoke service, such as a limited run of tea-towels printing with a cartoon design of their favorite tortoise, or a much loved child for instance thus far and such like.

Hilarious Child/Tortoise Cartoon by Leonard Gubbins Design Studio Limited.

Comic Sans Criminal?

Hear's a link to a link about a thing that is now being called the comic sans criminal. Apparently if your not a cartoonist you're not supposed to use comic sans as it's designed for comics, not under takers toilet notices, or something like that.


Personally I don't see what all the fuss is about. I wish Blogger would allow comic sans. I think it would enhance this blog considerably, which means: would make this blog better!

William is going to Marry Katie

As reported in the recent press, Prince William the second is going to marry his girlfriend Katie Middletown. I think that's a lovely story. I know that the news is quite old now, and I would have drawn a lovely tribute cartoon much sooner, but I have been very busy lately with getting my iPod connected to my car stereo and sorting out a incident with a missing wheelie bin. But enough of my troubles (Roger Whittaker isn't that important). I would like to think that someone in the Royal Family will see this lovely cartoon for the tribute it indeed no doubt is, and who knows, it might even be spray painted onto the cake! That would make a lovely surprise for the Middletowns, and I've sure make a lovely day of celebration, even more lovely than it already is.


Has anyone seen what the Frankling Mint will be producing for this lovely occassion? I will be buying all the red top sunday papers to see what lovely offers are on to celebrate this lovely occassion of the celebreation of the lovely marage of the lovely day.


When is it going to be?

Choosing toys for Christmas.

This time of year many people with Children, or those that know people with Children, such as Grandparents are thinking of buying toys for children, but where to start? There's so many toys available these days for children that it can be difficult to choose something that's appropriate. If you go to a large toy department shop there are millions of toys to choose from. Where to start?


A good way to choose toys for children to give them at this time of year for Christmas is to watch what your child already plays with, and just as importantly what they don't play with. If little Jimmy never touches that 500 piece jigsaw of Whitley Bay, then it's probably not a good idea to buy little Jimmy another 500 piece jigsaw of Whitley Bay. He won't appreciate it at all! But what if he enjoys playing with his Power Rangers figures or his older brothers Roller Skates? Then, a good starting point would be some Power Rangers on roller skates perhaps?

Whatever you do, ensure that the toy gift you buy the child (or children) this year is suitable for their age. A petrol Chainsaw is not a suitable gift for an 8 year old under any circumstances, even if they do have ambitions to be a lumberjack later in life!

A Friday the 13th Caricature.

This is a cartoon portrait of my next door neighbour. I can't tell you her name, as she wishes to remain anonymous, but agreed to me posting her caricature on the internet. She has been having trouble with her neck for several years now. Various doctors and other patients in various waiting rooms have not been able to diagnose her condition. All she knows is that she gets terrible pains in her neck, especially after line dancing.

To be honest, I think she's quite depressed about it now. It's been going on for so many years. The doctors don't want to know. Even other patients have stopped listening. I thought long and hard about how I could help cheer her up a bit. I could have trimmed her front hedge for her, but I didn't have time for this, as I needed to take a faulty tin opener back to Argos that day. So after a long hard think taking several hours, I decided that I could make her smile with my cartooning skills.

She's often said about how she wishes she just didn't have a neck any more, so I came up with this hilarious caricature of her (wearing the polo neck her nan knitted for her last year before she died. In fact THE last thing her nan ever knitted. Some have suggested she was catching a bus to the wool shop when the accident occurred, but that could just be an urban legend!)

Drawing done entirely on the computer. Black HP mouse, 19" monitor, but made to look like pencil crayon hand shaded.

* Her front hedge is still a state, but at least now she's smiling!

The Rejection Section

Hears the first cartoon in the new feature I thought of for this blog - The Rejection Section ©. This cartoon was sent to over 8 different publications, and yet surprisingly, despite the fact it's been specially 'hand shaded' they all rejected it. Well, I'd like to be able to say they rejected it, but the fact is - they ignored it. How very rude! That's 8 more publications that are on my shit list.

The way things appear to be going, there's only going to be Smash Hits magazine, and MotorHome Monthly left to accept my hilarious cartoons.

If you know of a publication that deserves the chance to publish my unique humourous cartoons, then please let me know. The local post office to be has quite a limited range of periodicals, and Mrs Braithwaite gets a bit upitty if I spend too long fingering her glossies.

British Televisional Soap Operas.

The wife/girlfriend is a great big fan of many of the British Soap Operas that appear on our televisional screens. She insists on whatching them, regardless of what she is also doing at the time. Thankfully they are usually broadcast in the early evening, so some things are never interuppted!

Having agreed to share living accommodation with her some time ago when our 'relationship' began (inspired partly by a very poor bus service between our each abodes at the time), I have accidentaly found myself watching these very popular televisional shows. While obviously I'm far too high brow to actually watch these televisional shows, I did find myself taking a passing interest in the bizzarre plots. It seems that they all have the same plot, with different actors and charactures playing out the same stories over and over. For instance, all of the soap operas currently have a plot about a body having being buried and it being discovered by a group of hoodies. A few months ago they all had charactures that were having babies. It's quite remarkable how similar all of these shows are, and I suspect, until Channel 5 launch a soap opera about aliens or something, it will continue to be like this.

Hilarious Crime Joke Cartoon.

I have drawed this wonderful cartoon of a criminal 'fencing' some stolen goods and then getting arrested by a policeman for 'fencing' stolen goods. I think it's hilarious, and so did the jehovis witness that I showed it to this morning. He thought it was so funny, that he needed to leave immediately to 'tell all of his friends where the cartoonist lives'. Which I thought was nice.

Crime is of course never hilarious, and I'm sorry to any readers who've had their goods fenced in this way. No offence intended. Crime is never funny. Not even when a clown is raped.

I need a fix of lemonade.

With all this hot weather we have been having I'm surprised that there isn't more Lemonade cartoons in the popular press. I cam up with the idea for this hilarious cartoon, but thinking of what type of drink would be nice in the hot weather and then thinking of how to make this into a very funny cartoon that people would love.

None of that worked, so I drew this instead.

Election selection expectation...

Well wasn't that an interesting General Election. As some of you will be aware I have been indisposed during the actual voting process, and was unable to vote myself. It was quite a surprise to come home and find that we didn't have any Government at all.

I'm quite pleased to see a sensible looking man doing a number 10, instead of that Scottish man. I don't have anything against Scottish people's as such there thus, but I don't like Scottish men who don't have a beard. Call me strange. I Think all Scottish men should have beards, like in the movies. Everything should be like in the movies, but none of these so called politicians offered that you anyone, did they?

Well I think Mr Cameron would make a great prime minister. I don't know what Mr Brown is going to do now he's been sacked from the position by the Queen. It doesn't look good on anyone's CV when you've been sacked by the Queen does it? I'm sure he'll find something to do for a living. Perhaps he could work on the Shopping Channel?

Hand it 2.

In the secone tutorial in this series of how to draw hands in your cartoons, we are looking at how to drawer a hand that is grasping something very firmly. This can often be a very useful ability to have, particularly if you are illustrating a survival skills newsletter, or a boy scout manual, for instance.

As you can see it's very easy to do once you get used to it, it'll be second nature and you'll be doing this without even thinking about it, until your tea is ready. Just be careful not to stay up all night doing this, as you'll exhaust yourself in next to no time.

Gordon Brown has an election.

It's election time, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to show you all my caricature of Mr Gordon Brown, the current prime minister of England.

I used Photoshit, a free image editor for children, and to colour it in a bit I used an optical mouse.

I find it incredibly easy to drawer carticatures of famous people who have a photograph on Google images. I think I've captured something very special about this popular public figure.

The drawing was hand shaded using the fill tool.

CASH & CHIPS.

I am often asked if it's just brilliant cartoons that I drawer. Well no, as well as ghost writing for many well known local celebrities and of course drawing brilliant cartoons which get fantastic Google rankings (therefor proof that they are brilliant) I also drawer life-likey portraits of famous people like that Scottish singer LULU. As loyal readers will know, I've already posted some of the many hundreds of portraits I have drawn over the years. Well here is a another one! Hope you like it.

Taking of pies reminds me of a funny story that once happened to me that was true to life as anything that could happen to me when I was younger, in my younger days.

A friend of mine (not her, the other one) once arranged to meet in outside the local fish shop. There I was, stood for what seemed like minutes outside the local Fish & Chip shop, when she walked around the corner. "Where have you been?" She said. I told her I was standing outside the local fish shop, as she had arranged. Turns out that she had been stood outside the local FISH shop, looking at the Guppies and selection of air pumps in the window! We had a good laugh about that all the way home (I can't remember why we were meeting outside any shop, but that's another hilarious story). I said to her, "If I ever become a world famous cartoonist, I can use that to make a really amusing story one day". She thought I was insane. I sued her for slander, and her marraige fell apart, but as they say - that's another story...

Which Pencil?

I am often asked which type of pencil I use to draw my wonderful cartoons. Do I use a cheap HB pencil from the post office perhaps? Do I use some expensive pencils bought from a blind monk with a dodgy knee perhaps?


Of course not. Get away from me, you lunatic. Is often my reply. Why is it so hard to get somebody sectioned these days?


But I realise that for many aspiring cartoonist that read my website looking for brilliant advice on getting on in the easy game of drawing silly little pictures for large amounts of money the choice of pencil is very important. I personally don't use pencils for my artwork, as I think it's better to draw directly onto the paper (I read that in a book). Drawing with pencil is for spineless cowards, who quite frankly don't have the skill or balls to spend 5 hours on a complex drawing directly in ink. I'm a MAN, and I draw directly in INK! So what if sometimes my pictures don't turn out quite as I intended? Remember, it's NOT the outcome that's important. If you attempt to draw a dog, and it ends up looking more like a goat - it doesn't matter! That's what the experts call, a unique style. (it's also what I call it).


It's also worth remembering that your clients are paying £20 per hour, so to spend hours and hours re-drawing cartoons to make them look perfect is going to cost your client money, and in this difficult economic climate money is a rare thing. No. It's much better to be quick. Draw what you want to draw, and be done with it. If it's not looking right, at least it's going to be cheap - and that's very important these days.

Another LULU portrait. Digitally enhanced.

LULU

Here's another LULU portrait I did some time ago. As I said yesterday, I don't really like LULU that much any more, but I have 230 wonderful lifelike portraits of her, and none of Garry Barlow. I wouldn't be surprised if LULU herself (or possibly her mum) offered me £20 for this. If you have someone in your family that looks even a little bit like LULU, get in touch (email address on sidebar) and I'll send you a life like portrait for FREE!

Lulu

I've always been a great fan of Lulu. The Shloop shloop song in particular is one of my all-time  favourites.

Here is a digitally enhanced portrait I did of her some time ago.

As you can see, it's instantly recognisable as being Lulu in her younger days, before she started messing about with Take That, and all that Benicol. I don't think I'm as much a fan of hers as I once was, but I have literally hundreds of portraits I did of her, so I might still post them for a while.

The Tortoise and the Old Woman.

Once upon a time there was an old woman who was cruel and mean. She didn't like anything or anyone, particularly slow moving creatures like tortoises. One day when she was walking back from the bingo, a mean horrible tortoise tried to steal her walking stick (I forgot to draw that bit). The old woman was very angry and so she kicked that mean horrid tortoise.

The tortoise died. It was 101 years old, but one sharp tap from a Cosy Feet soft upper support shoe had seen to it that the tortoise died straight away of a horrid death to death.

The old woman walked a different way home from the bingo for several weeks after this.

Wasn't that a wonderful nice story? Something that would be good for a comic strip I feel. Perhaps a three frame comic strip (that's a comic strip with three boxes, or 'frames'). What adventures could the old woman and the tortoise get up to next? Will she win at the bingo? Perhaps she'll have some sort of operation? I'm clean out of ideas to be honest Please leave some ideas for me in the comments box.

Cartoonist Printers.

As most of you will be aware I am having issues with my printer. It will only print black and yellow at the moment, and quite frankly I don't do that many wasp cartoons anymore. I'm looking for a new printer and I wonderered what is the best printer for a cartoonist? Do they make special cartoonist printers? I've spent most of the morning fingering the Argos catalogue, but I can't find anything suitable. I can't believe there's nothing out there. I got a really good set of gel pens from Argos once, but when it comes to printers they don't seem to have anything suitable for brilliant cartoon artists. Sort it out Argos. I don't want to go to town!