How to be a successful cartoonist part 4.

I have been drawing cartoons for pleasure and also for business purposes for over 18 months now, and it has been an extraordinary experience learning all about the talent required and how to market my unique creations with the online community. I have drawn tea towels and also roadworks and everything in between.


Most people I speak to about my unique creations assume that some artistic skill is required in producing the type of cartoons that people want to buy and give away to friends and family as unique gifts and suchlike. I've managed to keep families together with my off-beat humorous creations. Stave off divorce (sadly not my own, but that's another story), and have also helped online companies increase their sales targets, therefore I have also saved the small business economy and several jobs in the print on demand tea towel industry! 


PANTS.


I have also helped companies to develop a new range of underwear, based my my humorous designs and unique take on art and design. Quite frankly, I'm brilliant. And I'd like to share my unique techniques with my dear readership on this very blog.

FAQ.

• How do I get ideas for drawing cartoons? I can draw people wearing trousers quite well, but I can't draw a halibut to save my life.
• This is one of the most frequent, frequently asked question I get asked, as a question, and I'd like to answer it like this: Where to get ideas from? Put simply everywhere! All good cartoonists always carry a notebook with them. Whenever you get an idea you must write it down immediately, and make sure your notebook is always fully charged. All good cartoonist, therefore never stray too far from a friendly electrical socket!
• Here's a list of subjects that might give you an idea or two (remember if you sell a cartoon from one of your ideas that you get from this blog, I would like a credit within the cartoon!)
• Cowboys, Indians, cuttlefish, old women weeing themselves in a small post office branch, cavemen doing something like we might do, but in caveman type way (think, Flintstones!), car mechanics ripping off customers, dental nurses loosing patient records, Magazine subscription that never arrives, vomiting cats, shoppers realizing they've left that important voucher at home!, someone listening to the radio, with a poorly budgie!

Well I hope that's given you some starting points and gives you an idea of how to be a successful cartoonist. If you become I successful cartoonist because of these articles, I would love to hear from you. Please write to: leonard.gubbins@gmail.com Many thanks.

Doing business on the internet.

If only I'd discovered the wonders of gel pens when I was younger. Perhaps I'd have chosen to be a cartoonist much earlier in life when I was younger? As it was I didn't decide to be a cartoonist until February this year. At first I thought it might be difficult, but then I joined a cartoonist forum and after giving some advice to the other cartoonists on there, I decided to give up my job at the drop in centre and devote my life to making wonderful cartoons and making people smile, with my dynamic and unique cartoons, always remembering that those that criticise are just jealous of my natural abilities to make people laugh. Everyone who has seen one of my cartoons has laughed at me - and there's no better endorsement of brilliant talent then that!  


Here's a quick look back at some of those cartoons.

Well that wasn't very impressive.

Why is it that whenever men drink alcohol they promise to cut the lawn the following weekend, and then spew up in the toilet before leaving the house to find a kebab house, even though you live in a small village that doesn't even have a chip shop?

And then don't cut (or mow) the lawn the following weekend (because they are having an operation or something stupid like that?)

*still image from future projected animation short for children's TV (Channel 5?)

But I digress.

Over at the cartoonist forum they have a contest every week that sets a caption and all the cartoonists (the ones that charge way more than £20 per cartoon, btw) and they all post a cartoon and then they vote for the one that they like the best.

I tried to do something similar on here once, but only 1 person replied and it didn't really work out as I hoped it would. That's the trouble with original ideas that I have. Someone else has always done it better and bigger than me. The cartoonist cartel over at the cartoonist forum don't take favourably to unique talent such as mine. They call it horrible things, like "it's rubbish", or that I have no "talent". Clearly they feel threatened, otherwise they wouldn't have any need to write such hurtful things. They can see my uniqueness could ruin their business.

And it's that which inspires me to continue with my one woman campaign against anything that isn't talented and free. and unique. Google is my friend. Google loves me and my many links.

This week I've drawn a cartoon based on the idea over at the cartoonist forum, but with a twist. Not for me, something "oh so clever" and smart. Oh no. I've gone for something crude and uniuqe. I was told it was too late to enter the contest, but I know the real reason is that it's simply so good, it puts all their efforts to shame.

So here is my hand shaded goodness for your enjoyment:

but I digress.

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.