Free cartoons for Charities and good causes, that want to have some cartoons, but can't afford a professional cartoonist.

I have recently decided that I should offer my services to charities for no charge whatsoever. After a rather uncomfortable altercation with a certain local Mothers and Toddlers Church Group over some Mural artwork (it only looked like an appendage when all the strip lights in the Church hall were switched on at the same time), I have decided to refund 10% of their fee and offer my services to Charities for free from now on.

How do I find time in my hecktic sheduale to find the time for such endevours, I hear you ask me? Well for starters I have stopped watching Cash In the Attic. The programme just isn't what it used to be. Even Aire Hunters holds little appeal to me, knowing that there's some terrible charities out there in trouble, without any cartoons.

So that's at least 1 hour per day time in my studio that I can offer this unlimited offer until the end of April. Maybe you are a baby Hedgehog sancturary that needs some unique designs to be created for you by a talented individual, but you can't afford them? Well come to Leonard instead! All my services are free of charge (excluding legitimate expenses).

Some other types of Charities that might benefit from my unique skills of drawing and colouring by using my hands are:

A mobile bloodbank Charity
Running Charity for people in coma's 
Subsidence misuse Charity for tramps?
Family Planning Charity for a Bunny Sanctuary?
Irish Underwear collection Charity for the Third World

The posibilities are endless for good causes to get some unique cartoon artwork for their use on things like phamplets, brouchures, adverts, who knows, even tea towels!

*All designs have had unique copyright applied to them, but the Charities are allowed to use them for free, with written permission.

New Celebrity Portraits for 2011

As you may know, I am a big fan of LuLu, and it's not just my love of healthy yogurt that makes me say that. He's the latest sketch I did of the pint sized, Scottish, pop star and advertiser of expensive margarine. It's obvious to anyone looking at this artisitic and unique sketch who it is they are looking at right away. If you have a favourite celebrity that you would like a professional sketch of, why not commission me to draw you one? Prices start from just £20.

Giving the client what they want.

I have often been asked how I negotiate with clients when I'm selling my services of providing cartoons to clients, and I know that this process is very interesting to many of you reading this website.

Here's a recent example of an email discussion I had with a very difficult client (names changed to protect the innocent)

Client:

Dear Susan Ledrow,

I am the managing director of an ice cream administration company, and I would like a new logo for my company vehicle. I'd like something that looks friendly, and attractive to my clientele who are usually of a young age.

Are you able to provide graphics for a vehicle? Please let me know the cost, before I decide to go ahead with this project. I have a very limited budget.

Mr W. Hippie.

Now this was an interesting project, but after doing some research on the various print on demand website sites I was obliged to reply thus such:

Dear Mrs Thurrock,

Thank you very much for your interesting email about me desiging some cartoons for your ice cream van. While I would be delighted to provide you with the service that you have requested, I am not sure how to get the cartoon designs printed directly onto your vehicle. While I now have a colour printer, sadly it is only an A4 model, and will not accomodate a vehicle of your size.

If you'd still like me to provide the designs, maybe you could find a van printer yourself? Please let me know if you'd like me to work on some rough ideas for your vehicle. Have you got a website? I could easily design something for that.

Miss Clair Moumatch.

I forgot to mention how much I was going to charge, and thought nothing more of it. Probably wouldn't hear from this client again, but 3 weeks later:

Dear Leo Gussett,

Thank you for your reply to my email. I only require the design to be produced by you. I already have a printer that will reproduce the design for me on vynal sheets which can easily be affixed to my vehicle.

If you can produce some rough designs for me, and let me know how much you would charge me, I would be most greatful. If this is not possible, then I shall just use the design I used last time, before the respray.

Sincerly,

Mrs Chris Ledyard.

I was relieved that the client had his own printing company to repro (reproduce) the design and set to work straight away on some rough ideas for the design:

Dear mr Biles,

Here is a rough ideas for the logo for your ice cream van vehicle. I forgot to mention there's no charge for rough ideas, and if you like the design, my charge will be just £20 (design will be emailled to you free of charge), or if you want it printed and posted to you I will have to charge postage and packaging charge of £2.88 + £20 design fee. This is a license to use the artwork outright with no further charges.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed.

Leonard Gubbins.

Unfortunately that was the last I heard from this client. I'd done some speclative work, in the hope of making some money with this client, but they never got back to me. Frustrating, yes, but as most professional cartoonists and illustrators will tell you, it's all part of the course. Hopefully one day I'll be able to use these designs for another client that approaches me for some work.

UPDATE: A few days later I successfully sold a missing cat poster to Mrs Stocker down the road. The cat was never found.

Worldcup 2010 England aren't in it.

England are out of the world cup and some other teams are now in it instead. I don't really follow football, but I'm sure whichever team wins it, will be the best team. This got me thinking about all the traders that have been selling England memorialbeelia for the contest. They must be very upset that England are now out of the contest - think of all those flags and tea cups that they won't be able to sell now! This got me thinking that this would make a really funny cartoon, so I drew a really funny cartoon about it this morning and posted it on my blog. I hope you like it.

This cartoon is availble for sale, for publishing on blogs, tea towels (you'll have to sort out the printing yourself) and business cards.

As always, comments welcome. Anything nasty will be reported to the police.

Stress Avoidance. Part 1

Stress is a modern disease. In the olden days, people didn't get stressed. They had very easy lives, and nothing ever went wrong for them. The most they had to worry about was finding enough food to eat, or how to wash their clothes without a washing machine.


The modern world is a stressful place, and many people suffer from stress and can get quite shouty with other people because they are stressed. Just about everything these days can be a great source of stress. How to make enough money to buy chocolate biscuits for when you have important guests visiting your home, which might have an impossibly sized mortgage on it, which is yet another source of stress.


Fortunately I have some experience of stress counselling, and in this series of articles I will be covering some of the most common sources of stress, to help you and your people cope and manage the stresses that we all have to deal with on a day to day basis.


So don't worry about not being able to pay your mortgage and being made homeless during the worst recession that this country has ever seen, while your children are forced from your grasp and placed in a grim orphanage for the Government to perform medical experiments on them until you clear all your debts and pay back the loan sharks. There is no need to stress!


Next time: How to avoid getting stressed while reading internet blogs.