Hilarious Valentine's day joke for those in love with a street cleaner/hygiene operative.

Happy Valentines Day to all my readers. Here's a cartoon that I did recently (for today) for a friend of mine who is in love with a street sweeper. The friend didn't want me to sign the card, just in case in caused confusion as to who it was from, so I didn't, but I did sign it on here so people could see that it's another original Leonard Cartoon and that it's copyrighted by me, Leonard Gubbins. I drew this in a Viz style as my friend thinks that he's the sort that might read the Viz Comic. I'll let you know if she gets anywhere, or indeed, if she is indeed sweeped off her feet (as she hopes). It would be nice if her daughter Kylie had a little sister, I think.

New Year. New Cartoons.

Well I do hope you all had a very nice Christmas (Xmas). I know that I did. Lovely time with the family, but sadly for the world of cartoons not much time to draw in-between peeling sprouts and being a busy mother of two. This led me to think about the meaning of Christmas more and more this year. What's it all for? Well apart from the wonderful gifts I received, including a lovely bumper pack of Gel pens from WHSMITHS from my partner. They are still in the wrapper with the giant Toblarone (Chocolate) bar, but I intend to put them to good use very soon.


Unsurprisingly the commissions for cartoons dried up somewhat over the Christmas season of Wintevil. At first I feared this might have something to do with the recession we keep reading so much about in the Daily Mail and other such places suchlike. But it seems those in the market for a cartoon, were also enjoying the Christmas (Xmas) holiday season too as well.


Here's a cartoon of my eldest opening his favourite Christmas (Xmas) present, which is what Christmas (Xmas) is all about really: 

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.

I have been very busy just lately and haven't been able to update this website for the same length of time that I have been busy doing other things. I don't often get the time I need to drawer cartoons, as I have to provide house keeping services to my large family of cats, and time permitting, the children. This week I had to take my cat to the vets for some injections. I was staggered by the cost of these injections. How can a tiny amount of liquid cost £49.58, I don't know. It doesn't even seem to improve the cat in anyway. But this did make me think of this hilarious cartoon, which I was able to drawer this morning as I had a few hours spare to myself this morning, inbetween doing all the laundry and scraping plates from last nights take-away dinner (too busy to cook).

Back to the cartoon. Can you imagine if these expensive injections actually did something strange to your cat, like make it grow into a super cat? (btw, don't think just because they sell food that claims such claims that it works, it doesn't. They can't fly after eating it! I should know!) I think the vet must have thought I was very strange as I let out a little giggle when I thought of this hilarious cartoon idea while the nurse was being scratched about the face by Mr Tiddleworth.

So it just goes to show that even something as expensive and mudane as a trip to the vets with a cat (or possibly even a dog) can lead to a brilliant and hilarious cartoon idea. One which hopefully will make me enough money to pay the vets bills in the future. I have sent this off to Cat World. Their office girl said that they don't take cartoons, but I've sent it anyway, as I think this is just the sort of thing to change the editors mind. Later today, when I go to the local spar, I might even buy a copy, so I can get a feel of what that magazine is all about.

Wish me luck.

Leonard x

Drawing small cartoons is no fun at all.

I've decided that it was time that I decided to launch a highly successful strip cartoon series that will get published in many newspapers all over the world. I expect it will pay very well. At least £20 per day, per newspaper. Which could soon add up to a great deal of money.

The problem I have with drawing a newspaper strip every day for vast amounts of money, is that the size of the strips in newspapers, means it's quite difficult to draw at such a small size for newspapers comic strips.

It's not the humour or the drawing skills that is the problem. Just drawing something very small, with a very big brush pen. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was some sort of conspiracy to prevent people with large brush pens from selling cartoon comic strips for newspapers, and denying them a vast income of many £20 notes from each newspaper that would take the comic strip, if only they were drawn at a bigger size.

It's quite clearly madness. But I shall continue to spend most of my time drawing at least 4,000 strips, and then I'll send them out to see what the market thinks.

Talent Free Photography Club.

I have been interesting in Photography for some time now. Having a digital camera makes it very easy to take stunning photographs like this one that I took of a swan recently when I was on holiday.

The setting I used for taking this photograph was AUTO. As you can see the swan was swimming a little too fast for my camera arm,and I just managed to avoid it's bill.

Luckily for me, as I'd spent most of my holiday money at this point. If you'd like to take a photo of this swan then I suggest you hang around the Norfolk Broads.

Making smooth images for the internet age.

I have been struggling for some time with getting the images I create to look just right on my website, or blog. No matter how low I make the resolution, or how many filters I apply, the images often look very poor quality.

I have decided that this must be because everyone else makes their jpeg images with Vector Graphics or something very technicological like that. Not knowing anything about vector graphics, I have decided to produce all my work in vector images from now on. Fortunately I don't have any commissions at the moment (that was lucky!) so I'll have time to play around with the various settings and get this right, and then advise others on how to be an expert with vector graphics.

Keep watching this space. I'm downloading http://inkscape.org/ now and hope to learn how to use this very soon. Smooth graphics are on the way soon!

How to draw anything in 1 step.

Whilst browsing the internet the other day I found this excellent article which describes how to draw anything at all, even things that you can't draw.

I thought I'd post this here, saving me the time of writing a proper post.

Enjoy, and let me know if it works for you.

http://aviary.com/blog/posts/how-to-draw-anything-in-1-step

I've been experimenting with drawing shapes to help me make faces. This is my first attempt, which I'm thinking of offering as a fully fledged commercial service as soon as I've done at least another two! I started off with the nose shape, but of course it didn't start out as a nose at all, oh no it didn't.

Thinking the colour scheme would look very good as a series of childrens books? What do you think? Would you buy your children a book that looked like this, perhaps it would have some words in it as well. In a nice plain bold typeface like this?

I should think of a story for this childrens book. It could be the next Harry Potter or something like that.

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!

I've been rejected yet again!

One of the most frustrating aspects of being a successful cartoonist is the sheer volume of rejection one has to deal with on a monthly basis. I never send anything other than unique and wonderful cartoons to various magazines and trade magazines, and yet they don't even have the decency to reply to me giving me a good enough reason why they don't want my cartoons.

When I send something off to a magazine I expect them to accept the cartoons or at the very least explain themselves when they don't want my cartoons. Those that don't reply get struck off my list of publications to send to, as quite frankly I don't wish to do business with companies that employe rude cartoon editors. I now have quite a long list of publications that simply aren't worth bothering with:

• The New Yorker
• Private Eye Magazine
• Bella
• Woman's Own
• Dudley Parish News
• The Gaurdian Newspaper
• The Lancet
• The Daily Star (rejected my strip cartoon idea about boiled eggs - idiots!)
• Razzle (how they can claim my cartoon broke certain laws I don't know - they have photos of meat!)
• Viz
• The People's Friend (perhaps the cartoon should have been coloured with watercolours?)
• The Advertiser (free newspaper)
• Furniture Salesman Monthly (inc Carpet Warehouse Times)

None of these publications will now get the chance to publish any Leonard Gubbins cartoons. The way I look at it is, either take legal action against them, or just ignore them.

I've decided to start a new feature on the website today. It's going to be called THE REJECTION SECTION. Here I will publish all the cartoons that these fools have ignored so far. There's quite a lot of them, so it should be a long long running feature.

Here's the first cartoon in the Rejection Section:

I thought Bella or Woman's Own would love this hilarious cartoon as it covers women's issues quite well, while at the same time being quite funny. Sent it to both of them - heard nothing. How very rude. Perhaps the female cartoon editor had the printers in, and wasn't in a polite mood? I don't know. What I do know is that I won't be sending them any more cartoons like this!

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.

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.

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.

Cartoons for businessmen who can't draw them themselves.

I've noticed since becoming a professional cartoonist how many businesses don't use cartoons as their main way of promoting their businesses. I find this very strange. When I'm looking through the Yellow Pages to find a plumber to unblock my outside drain hole, I'm not going to be drawn towards one that doesn't use eye catching cartoons or illustrations in their advert. Plain text, or boring lists of qualifications don't mean that the plumber is going to be any good.

And besides. If he skimps on his advert by not spending something like £20 to a cartoonist to make his advert eye catching and humourous (people need cheering up when their toilets are blocked) then what eles has he skimped on? Does he have wonky brakes on his van, therefore possibly putting your Corgi in danger has he tries to turn around in your cul-de-sac? Perhaps he bought all his tools from some dodgy bloke in the pub, and he might break your u-bend while he's trying to remove all the Tena-Man.

But there's a solution to your problems if you're a business man and you can't draw cartoons. Hire a web cartoonist to draw the cartoon for you. Most web cartoonist can draw all sorts of things (but not horses).

Here's a few of the top three web cartoonist for hire for your project.

1. Leonard Gubbins
2. L.G.
3. Mr G

I'd be happy to help you with your project of course as well I would. Please send me plenty of details about your project, starting off with how much you are prepared to pay a cartoonist for drawing something for you for your business needs.

I am able to send you a rough draught 20 minutes after I get your briefs.

Content is king. Illustrations are like Jesters.

I am often asked what makes a successful blog, but I rarely answer that question, because I don't want just anyone to be able to replicate the Talent Free website I have created.

Well now I feel confident enough to confide in you, dear reader just what does make a successful blog. Firstly it's very important to identify your audience, but how do you do that, when you don't have an  audience, or don't know who your audience is. I would say to any blog author that there are some simple steps you can take to identify who are your audience and what do they want. This can be achieved by taking note of whole leaves comments on your blog or website and perhaps visiting their blog or website to see what sort of person they are and what sort of content you think they would like to read.


Content is very important. There's no use in providing excellent articles on something very intelligent, such as the physics of quorn, if your core readers are mud stupid for instance. Assuming that your readers are just a little intelligent (like this blog) then you can provide articles that get good Google rankings, and that real people will find interesting.


Clicking knees often prevent me from sitting at my desk for too long, so I'm going to have to leave this article there, but I think I've given you enough of a start to start writing excellent content for your blog, website or weblog.

I'm back. I'm thinking of you.

Well that was an interesting trip. I can't say where I've been because I was doing something top secret and I don't want to make all the agoraphobic visitors jealous. It involved going outside, and that's all I'm prepared to say. Indoor travelling just isn't my sort of thing.


While I was away from the website I'm pleased to see that My Paul Mahoney and Cathy whathername carried the torch for Talent Free by posting some wonderful articles. I will now burn the poloroids next weekend when I have my weekend barbaque next weekend as promised. Redvers poloroids will be posted as also promised!


When I got away from my trip I had many emails waiting for me for emails commissions for lots of exciting projects. I'm not going to be able to draw many Talent Free cartoons for a while, while I catch up with all the exciting projects, and I'm not going to be able to tell you what those exciting projects are due to client confidentiality reasons. Not even the one that wants a cartoon caricture design for their Weymouth holiday camp corportate DVD presentation or the one that wants my expert services as a prooof reader for their plumbing services web gateway portal website.


I might even have to get up early in the morning, and not watch cash in the atticc.


Onwards and upwards then with the cartoon artistic services and copyrighting business services (UK) limited.


I think that's enough for Google.

Off my shopping trolley.

I'm often asked what I know about layers and backgrounds. To be honest, very little, but I'm not going to let something like that stop me from explaining to you what they are.

Here's a picture I recently did for a childrens book illustration (due to be published within the next 2 years).

As you can see I have created a rather wonderful background for this picture with very professional looking gradients (more about them later).
Now the trick is to use layers for each element of the picture, so I can get rid of the bits of the picture which I don't want to be there with just a simple click of my moose. Thus, therefore this:

And thus there we have it. Off with the shopping trolley. I didn't have to draw the picture twice. I used the layers function of the menu to 'hide' the shopping trolley from view before saving it twice. That bit was the hardest work.

Here's the background on it's own, which you can download to place your own creations withon it. What funny ideas can you think of for such a background image? Perhaps you'd like to draw a dog, or maybe some kind of man with a large gardening implement? I'm looking forward to seeing them all. Please email them to me at the usual address (please, no more Korean spam). The one which wins the first prize will win an all expenses trip to having a link on this very website to their own website.

Smile cartoon.

I was recently asked to provide a cartoon for promotion of a local dental surgery and came up with this.

I'm still waiting to see if the dentist will chose my cartoon to go through to the next round of "smile for a cartoon" campaign he's started. Fingers cross. There's a massive discount on root canal work available. (the other local cartoonists I know about all have dentures - I believe).

How to avoid being shafted.

These days it's very difficult to know who you can trust and who is likely to shaft you at the first opportunity. Take a simple action of a transaction in a shop. How do you know that the shop assistant isn't going to short change you when you are buying something with a £20 note that costs, say, £1.43?

Many shop assistants are very low paid. They often hardly get enough money to provide their 15 children with sufficient space hoppers or socks, so the incentive for them to make a little money on the side from unsuspecting customers is quite strong.


If the shop assistant gives you two crisp £5 notes as your change, then you have definitely been shafted. Yes, two £5 notes, especially new ones that are crisp is quite a good feeling, but THIS ISN'T ENOUGH! The best way to avoid this happening is:

• Don't go shopping at all.
• Work out what your change should be BEFORE you approach the till.
• Only pay the exact amount of money each time.

Well I hope that has helped you to avoid being shafted in shop. Next week: How to avoid being shafted in a brothel.