Category: Cartooning

Turkey Cartoons

andertoons

There is nothing I don’t like about Thanksgiving turkey. The crispy skin, the big hunks of meat, the cooking the stuffing in it… Just writing this is making me hungry!!

Turkeys are also way too much fun to do cartoons about. They’re fun to draw, there’s the whole impending doom thing, and they were Ben Franklin’s choice for the national bird! Jackpot!!

So, since Thanksgiving is almost here, I thought I’d share some of my favorite turkey cartoons. Gobble gobble!

I do so love drawing animals in ordinary day-to-day situations. Working in offices, sitting on the couch, but one of special favorites is the bar. Animals hunched over drinking their problems away is almost funny enough without a caption. Throw in another holiday related animal and some bitter envy and you’ve got yourself a pretty good cartoon (if I do say so myself).

Ok, I always like selling a cartoon, but sometimes just drawing the cartoon is enough. Turkey newscaster with a turkey murder chalk outline? Fun!!

This cartoon, on further reflection, probably has a little too much going on to work well. You have to see that the doctor character is a plastic surgeon, you have to see that the picture the turkey is handing over is a duck… There’s probably a simpler way to do this with a longer caption, but I couldn’t get myself to stretch it out. Sometimes the balancing act gets a little tipsy.

Mostly I draw Thanksgiving turkey cartoons where the bird is dealing with the upcoming unpleasantness, so this one where the turkey is actually dead is a bit of a departure. But once I got “leftovers” in my head I couldn’t get it out, so we get the sort of sad cartoon above. Still, leftovers is kinda funny.

This cartoon is your basic reversal. What would turkeys eat for Thanksgiving?
You’d think they shy away from the whole holiday, never mind a turkey-ish main dish, but there it is. Who knew?!

Turkey Cartoon #4209 by Andertoons

Pop-up thermometers are inherently funny. They just are. I’m not saying they’re not useful, and I have to admit they’re kind of cool, but the name “pop-up thermometer” is awesomely goofy.

We’ll, that does it for our fine feathered fun. Feel free to check out all of my turkey cartoons, and enjoy your feast, everyone!

Examples of Custom Cartoons

andertoons

Custom cartoons are a large part of my business here at Andertoons, and, of course, there’s a gallery showcasing some examples in the custom cartoon portion of the site, but I wanted to showcase a few examples of work I’ve done for clients and go a little more in depth.

We’ll start with this cartoon that I did for a client that makes software:

custom cartoons example 1

This was a few years back when the idea of cloud computing was just gaining traction. My client actually suggested something very similar and I ended up tweaking it just a bit. The end product was a calendar of software related cartoons that they gave out to their clients as a thank you.

custom cartoons example 2

I did a whole series of custom cartoons for a company that manufactured in-home intercom systems. Every month they’d include it in their newsletter which was targeted at installers and technicians.

My client was great about suggesting topics, especially since I didn’t know a lot about intercoms to begin with, and we came up with some really fun stuff that was quite popular. They had to cut the cartoons after the housing bubble burst and construction went kablooey, but it was fun while it lasted.

custom cartoons example 3

This is a cartoon I did for a company that produces a special type of hospital gown. It not only covers you up (unlike most gowns), but it attaches to a device that pumps in warm air. It’s really neat!

We did a whole series of these and I think I wrote 55 hospital gown jokes that we whittled down to a nice dozen. The color was fun to do, as was the plumber butt.

The next two cartoons are a good example of how a subtle change can make all of the difference to a client.

Take this first one:

custom cartoons example 4

This was done for an online training company. The joke is good, and the scene reads well, but the client was concerned that the person at the computer didn’t look young enough. So I made a few small changes:

custom cartoons example 5

I think they were dead on and I was happy to make the change.

custom cartoons example 6

Another one that a company used in a calendar of custom cartoons. They wanted to have some fun with project planning and flowcharts, and I must admit that, based on my days in corporate America, this rings fairly true. Especially when doughnuts were rumored.

OK, last one:

custom cartoons example 7

This cartoon was for an IT publication targeted at, you guessed it, IT people.

While I have some proficiency in the tech world, I’m certainly no expert, but I suspect that this has happened sometime, somewhere.

Hope you enjoyed a more detailed look at the process, and feel free to check out my custom cartoons section of the the site. Cartoons are great for getting your point across in a novel, fun, and engaging way, as I’m sure my clients for the above cartoons can attest.

Creating Custom Cartoons

andertoons1 Comment

Here’s a short video to show you how I create custom cartoons. Enjoy:

Video Transcript –

Hi, I’m Mark Anderson of Andertoons.com and this is a short video about how I work with clients to create custom cartoons.

We’re going to start here with an example of sort of a generic finished cartoon. I’ll read the caption here for you:

“As you can see, thanks to Product X, sales are through the roof! On a side note, the roofers will be here on Thursday.”

Now I’m going to show you how this cartoon was created in three easy steps: writing, sketches, and of course the final art. Let’s begin with writing.

Writing

The way I start is by asking a client for a few ideas to work with. This can be some words or phrases, perhaps a product or attributes of that product, the company, or perhaps the entire industry.

From there I’ll brainstorm a number of ideas and whittle that down to what I think are the three best, and I will email them over.

From here a client will pick one and often there is a little bit of tweaking to be done here or there. Of course we’re going to work until we get the caption exactly right and exactly what you want, that’s no problem at all.

Once we have that we move on to the sketches.

Sketches

Now for the purpose of this short video I’m just going to show you one pencil sketch to sort of give you the idea of what you would be receiving.

Often I get what the client is looking for on the first try, but if I don’t that’s not a problem, we can go back and fix and change things until you’re happy.

This is the time to make larger changes to the cartoon. So if you want to change a character, or the background, or anything else in the art of the cartoon, this is the time to do it.

We’ll keep working on it until we get it exactly right, and then we’ll move on to the final art.

Final Art

This is where I take our original pencil sketch, and turn it into this, the final cartoon.

As you can see the caption is typeset, the art has been inked and it’s crisp and clear, and we can either do a traditional sophisticated gray ink wash like this, or of course we can do it in color.

Once the final cartoon is approved I will email it over as a large JPEG. It will be 300 DPI.

You can use this in advertising, in your newsletter, in your presentation; lots of great ways to use these cartoons.

So to recap you can get your own custom cartoon in just three easy steps: the writing, the sketch, and the final art. And you end up with a great cartoon customized to your needs that’s engaging, memorable, and, of course, easy to share.

Thanks so much for watching this, and feel free to contact me at Andertoons.com for a reasonable quote on your very own custom cartoon.

My Cartoon Process

andertoons3 Comments

Today I’m finishing up my new batch of cartoons for July. And this morning while scanning I discovered that for one cartoon I had a very clear visual progression of my process from beginning to end, so I thought I’d share.

Here’s the sheet where the idea is. It’s kind of hiding in amongst the doodles:

cartoon process 1

Here it is:

cartoon process 2

To be honest I wasn’t sure if it was even funny, so I ran it past my wife who chuckled (although, like me, she couldn’t quite figure out why) and then I sketched it up:

cartoon process 3

The thing about a sketch is you never really capture that initial vibe again. For me this is the best this cartoon will ever communicate visually, but unfortunately it’s not something anyone would publish.

I draw that box there to frame the image and let me know what I need to include, and what I can leave out.

Now on to ink:

cartoon process 4

This is a rejected ink. The look on their faces is off and that lamp on the side is waaaay too big.

Normally I’d fix it in Photoshop, but there’s enough here that I don’t like that I decide it would be more efficient to just start over.

Here’s the final ink for the cartoon:

cartoon process 5

I feel like I got the vibe as close to the sketch as I could. Also at this point I’m considering putting “this” in italics in the final. You’d be surprised how little tiny writing changes like that can make a difference.

cartoon process 6

Here’s the final version of the cartoon with the caption typeset (no italics BTW) and the shading.

I chose not to shade anything else in the room to keep the focus on the dog and cat. (Also, I don’t like shading large areas because there’s so many opportunities for problems to creep in.)

So that’s it! Hope you enjoyed this little glance at how I write and draw cartoons.

Custom Cartoons – New Pages

andertoons

Custom cartoons are a not insubstantial part of my cartooning business, so I’m always looking for ways to better explain the features and benefits of a custom cartoon, how the process works, and, of course, better my exposure.

So I’ve just made some changes to my custom cartoons section that I hope will do just that!

Custom Cartoons – Introduction

custom cartoon 1

This page has stayed more or less the same, but I’ve added some clearer navigation at the top, and removed the old dropdown menu from the site’s main nav bar.

Custom Cartoons – Gallery

custom cartoon 2

The old gallery page had only a couple of smallish samples, but this new page has a nice slideshow you can browse to see more examples in less space.

I’ve also added some quotes from previous clients, and a form to contact me directly from this page.

It should makes things much clearer, easier, and more fun.

Custom Cartoons – How It Works

custom cartoon 3

I went back and forth and back and forth on how best to illustrate how a custom cartoon is created, but in the end the clearest solution was a short video showing the process from beginning to end.

Again, contacting me for a quote is easy and readily available.

Custom Cartoons – Pricing

custom cartoon 4

Like the intro page, the pricing page didn’t change much either. But everything you need is there to plan your budget and drop me a line.

So there they are, the new pages on the block. Hope you enjoy them, and if you’re interested in a custom cartoon, drop me a line!