How to Become a Cartoonist

Series Summary

Painting and drawing is the art of using a pigmented medium to create a picture of reality filtered through the imagination, the senses, emotions, and life experience. Artists the world over have multiplied the uses of painting and drawing as a vital mode of human expression, whether recording history, retelling myth and legend, expressing religious fervor, or exploring the unknown. From early history to the present, we have records of men and women making graphic representations of their world, showing their understanding and their curiosity. In this free video series on art, a professional illustrator and cartoonist discusses art career advice. Find out how to become a freelance artist, how to sell artwork and how to sell cartoons. Discover the process of coming up with a cartoon, building up a character and creating their environment. See an example of a contracted artist's invoice, and get ideas about how to self-promote. Becoming a freelance artist builds an independent career around a life-long passion.

Video Transcript

"Hi, welcome everybody. I'm Lars Erik Robinson. My company is Lars Arts. And my slogan is All Around Artainment. Today we're going to talk about how to become a cartoonist. I've always loved cartoons and something really fascinates me. I've always loved to read the cartoons and the comics. So, if I wanted to approach that market which at this time I'm more in the market of doing the caricatures for parties and actually getting studio work, which is this is one I just recently did with the color copy that I had the client actually come here to our studio today and buy from me. So, this is a version of it's kind of a mixture between a tight illustration and a cartoon, because that's how we call caricature. And if you want to become a cartoonist, you need to approach your market and look at the market that's already out there. You need to contact the syndicates, the newspapers. Try to get your work published in the local newspapers first. And just, the big thing is to research the different artists that are out there already and the different markets that you can approach it in. And just keep coming up with different ideas. And that's the advice I can give you. But just keep cartooning and keep sketching. Thank you so much."