Cartoons Archives | Freelance cartoonist and illustrator

Dinosaur cartoons

Really Nick, more dinosaurs?!

I recently completed a series of 30 (yes, 30!) dinosaur cartoons as part of Jurassic June, an online celebration of all things dinosaur and what better excuse to draw a series of dinosaur cartoons? A little bit of a ‘mammoth’ task, you might say… a new dinosaur every day?!

I wanted to create a set of dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes, and hopefully all recognisable. So we’ve teeth, horns, sails, crests, four-legs, two-legs and everything in between!

I did complete a small run of cartoon dinosaurs last year for Jurassic June and have included a couple of them in this collection too.

Would you like some dinosaur cartoons?

If you’d like some dinosaurs of your own, get in touch with me!

Get yourself some dinosaurs

Ankylosaurus

Baryonyx

Brachiosaurus

Carnotaurus

Cetiosaurus

Chasmosaurus

Dilophosaurus

Euoplocephalus

Gallimimus

Hypsilophodon

Iguanodon

Jeholosaurus

Kentrosaurus

Lambeosaurus

Mamenchisaurus

Megalosaurus

Oviraptor

Pachycephalosaurus

Parasaurolophus

Polacanthus

Procompsognathus

Spinosaurus

Stegosaurus

Styracosaurus

Triceratops

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Udanoceratops

Velociraptor

Wuerhosaurus

Zuniceratops

Would you like some cartoon dinosaurs of your own?

Get in touch with me today and let’s discuss your illustration needs!

Draw me some dinosaurs!

Prehistoric animals

You’ve probably already seen my cartoon Woolly Mammoth and Sabre-tooth tiger, but have you seen any of my other recent prehistoric animals? These were great fun to do – take a look below for yourself!

Ceratogaulus

This was my first real encounter with this critter – Ceratogaulus was basically a prehistoric rodent with a pair of small horns jutting out of it’s nose.

I’m not sure on exact food he would have eaten, but the thought of him throttling a cartoon worm was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Just to complete this composition, and because he’s rather small, I chose to place him on a set of small boulders.

Glyptodon

Another childhood favourite of mine is the armadillo-like glyptodon.

A hairy mammal with a solid, egg-like shell and thick spikey tail – reminds me of a pineapple!

This particular cartoon Glyptodon has a cheeky offspring riding on his back!

I experimented a little here also with the scaley shell pattern – creating a swatch and then repeating across the shell.

Woolly Rhino

This character was immense fun to do, with all of his fur and oversized features allowed for a lot of scope as a cartoon!

I wanted a stark contrast between the body and the face/limbs, so as with the mammoth, I opted for a pale grey.

I then had fun with a custom brush to make the hair look extra shaggy.

Orohippus

Prehistoric horses were very different to those we have today. For starters, they were only about the size of your average domestic dog!

As they are only small, I thought I’d have a pair of them playing together, racing through some foliage.

The most unusual thing I think about the prehistoric horses is that they had toes instead of hooves – those came later!

Paraphysornis

You may have heard the phrase used in Jurassic Park about the Velociraptor being a six-foot turkey? Well, Paraphysornis was exactly this… and then some!

Literally a massive beak on legs, this prehistoric bird chased smaller mammals around Brazil some 23 million years ago.

This one is pictured chasing a rather terrified prehistoric horse for his dinner!

What do you think of these cartoon Prehistoric animals?

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on these cartoon critters and if you’d like some of yuor own, please get in touch!

contact me

Clownfish ahoy!

I’ve recently begun a new series of sea creature cartoon illustrations and wanted to start the series with a well known (and thanks to films like Finding Nemo) and recognisable spieces – the clownfish!

About my clownfish

Clownfish have always intregued me, even from a very young age, watching them swimming around in aquariums.

They always seemed so very small and friendly, with their little-rounded fins and cute faces. I also loved the bold and crisp white in their stripes.

With this cartoon illustration, I thought that one clownfish on his own would look a bit small and lost, and seeing as they’re quite sociable little things, I thought I needed at least two!

A crazy anemone

So as you know, the best friend of any clownfish is the sea anemone.

Now, for those of you that don’t know, sea anemones live on coral reefs and attach themselves to rocks with a strong sucker.

The mouth of the anemone is located in the centre of the stinging tentacles, but as this is a cartoon, it would only look right on the side accompanied by a pair of googly eyes!

I imagine that the anemone would also provide shelter for other sea creatures, including my cartoon blue crab from the teeth of hungry shark!

Cartoon sea creatures

If you like the various cartoon sea creatures that you’ve seen in this post or indeed around this website, please get in touch today!

Shark Logo

I’ve recently completed the design of a shark logo for a client who runs a fishing channel, The Lawless Tide!

The brief

My brief was to create a dynamic and eye-catching shark logo for a fishing channel. The shark needed to be leaping out of the waves, pulling a fishing rod behind him – snatched from a shoreline fisherman!

Sketches and ideas

As always, my first port of call is a few quick sketches to get a feel for the piece. I’ve drawn several cartoon sharks in the past so already had a feel for how he might look.

I wanted to make sure he looked very energetic and mischievous, with lots of emphasis on his sharp teeth! I had to ensure that the fishing rod was also very easy and clear to see, being such a slender object.

There was also the requirement for some waves that the shark was ploughing through.

Experimenting with composition

Once I had a look for my shark logo and an idea of the composition, I experimented with the placement of the elements.

As this was to be used as a channel logo/avatar I also needed to ensure it would fit within a square. I also toyed with the idea of whether the waves would be contained within the circle, or spilling out.

Creating the shark logo

Once the pencil sketches and composition were approved by the client, it was time to digitise the outlines.

This was all done in Illustrator as a vector artwork – the main advantage to this being the artwork can be easily amended. It also has the advantage of being able to be scaled to any size without any loss of quality.

Once all outlines were completed, base colours were added, followed by all shading and highlights.

Shark logo text

As with the existing videos on The Lawless Tide channel, I needed a typeface that would suit the feel of the logo.

This needed to be fairly loose and relaxed, but also bold enough to be viewed at a small size. The request was that it would also need to be yellow to match the existing channel lettering.

Once I’d played with the letterforms and arranged them into a looser format, I bulked up their appearance. After that, more wave-like shapes were added behind to help give more impact to the text against the busy shark.

Cartoon Pterodactyl

As we’re rumbling through Jurassic June, I felt we needed to add some variation to our dinosaurs with a cartoon Pterodactyl.

Why choose to do a cartoon pterodactyl?

Not strictly a dinosaur, but is synonymous with what we have in mind when we think of prehistoric times. This particular pterodactyl is actually based on one of the larger species, known as Pteranodon.

Pteranodon had a wingspan of over 6 metres and due to a large toothless beak, fed on fish. They lived primarily in North America during the late Cretaceous period.

Other types of Pterosaur

There were many varieties of pterosaur that roamed the skies of the Mesozoic era. I’ve included a few more for you below!

Feilongus

Another giant of the prehistoric skies was the Feilongus.

Feilongus basically translates as ‘flying dragon’ – quite apt when you consider his appearance!

This Pterosaur had two crests on it’s skull – one long and low one in the middle of it’s snout and a second projecting from the rear of its head.

Quetzalcoatlus

With a wingspan the width of a small aircraft, Quetzalcoatlus must have been an impressive sight some 70 million years ago!

This Pterosaur had an unusually long, stiffened neck. Its name comes from the Mesoamerican feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl.

Do you need any cartoon dinosaurs or prehistoric creatures?

These are always great fun to draw and I’d be more than happy to draw some for you!

contact me

Cartoon Ankylosaurus

Talk about a living tank – this cartoon Ankylosaurus is that and then some! Even his eyelids were armoured!

What was the Ankylosaurus?

An armoured giant from the late Cretaceous period, Ankylosaurus was more than a match for even the biggest Tyrannosaur!

Its name means ‘fused lizard’ from all of the tightly fused armour plates on its body.

It was a gentle herbivore, reaching lengths of up to 7 metres and covered in bony armour plates and dozens of sharp spines.

It had a wide, low skull, with two horns pointing backwards from the back of the head, and two horns below these that pointed backwards and down.

The end of the tail was formed into an enormous bony club, which would have been swung at predators for defence.

Why a cartoon Ankylosaurus?

Ankylosaurus has always been a popular favourite, both of mine and popular culture.

This particular dinosaur was created firstly as a pencil sketch. I then fully digitised the artwork in Adobe Illustrator.

I’m particularly pleased with how the armour came out – almost like a giant, purple corn on the cob!

The contrast between the light and dark shades of purple also work well and helps to distinguish him from my other dinosaur cartoons.

Fun fact…

The fused plates that make up the Ankylosaur’s armour are called ‘Osteoderms’. These are only found in extinct animals, as well as crocodiles and some amphibians.

Mark Hussey classical guitar album

A very exciting commission came my way recently in the form of a classical guitar album cover with a little cartoon personality on the front.

This was a cartoon design for classical guitarist, Mark Hussey, who wanted to inject a little humour into his next classical guitar album.

The title of the album was ‘Laid Back’ and contains many classical songs played in Mark’s unique style.

So with a brief and a few quirky ideas in my head, I set about getting started.

The classical guitar album front

Having seen several of my cartoon artworks, Mark approached me to capture a version of himself, playing live on stage, in my own quirky cartoon style.

He wanted to reproduce his stage environment, with a backdrop of a red curtain and a single spotlight above him.

I created a sketch of Mark first, propped up on a stool with classical guitar in hand.

My first concept had a ‘concentrating’ face, but looked a little too serious, and given the name of the album he needed to look more ‘laid back’.

I suggested that we could also include a crowd of people watching him, but not simply the backs of their heads and there should be a range of expressions and moods.

The classical guitar album back

There was also the requirement for a back cover of the album too. This initially started out as a plain coloured background, with the list of tracks presented to the side.

I felt there was something missing, and seeing as I have a love for cartoon rats I suggested to

Mark that we include an additional cartoon on the reverse in the shape of a team of rats, scurrying off with one of his prized guitars!

Development

Mark also queries with the idea of possibly including an artwork on the disc itself, to continue the theme across the whole project.

This added another nice dimension to the project, as I was able to simply take the existing artwork of Mark and add his to the side of the disk.

Obvious themes like typefaces were carried across and also chose a nice, rich shade of blue to work alongside the red used in the curtains on the front (red, white and blue – see what I did there folks?)

There was also a small space remaining on the front of the disc, and seeing as the rats went down so well with Mark, he requested that we add another cheeky little chap in.

Outcome

In all, a very fun artwork piece to be involved in and one that I feel came out really well. The colours printed nice and strong and being that it was all produced as a vector file, the linework was very crisp and vivid.

Why not pop over to my portfolio and view the final album sleeve artwork?

Client Feedback

I recently challenged Nick to come up with a design for my recent solo classical guitar album ‘Laid Back’. Nick listened to my requirements, was thoughtful, timely and produced exactly what I had been hoping for, a great album cover. I could not recommend Nick more highly for his artwork and design skills. A very talented man indeed.

More cartoon monsters…

I’ve been having a lot of fun recently creating some new and creepy cartoon monsters for my portfolio!

But why cartoon monsters Nick?

Good question! Simply because cartoon monsters have always made me laugh and enjoy making them look as warped as possible and you can have great fun exaggerating all of the features and expressions!

Carnivorous Plant

I’ve been wanting to draw a giant, man-eating plant for some time now and having recently watched the movie ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ recently, I had the perfect incentive to get sketching.

I wanted to put a lot of emphasis on the giant mouth full of teeth, balanced atop a rather scrawny stem.

The other great thing about creating this cartoon monster is that I could go mad with the vines and leaves all around the base.

Just to complete him, I’ve placed him in a cracked plant pot, with roots sticking out, akin to the depiction at the exciting climax of the film.

If you’d like to see the final version of my carnivorous plant, he can be viewed in my portfolio.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Another favourite of mine from a bygone age is the Creature from the Black Lagoon, based on the classic B-Movie of the same name.

This one was especially fun to do, with all of his overlapping scales and trying to achieve a feeling of depth in them.

My original plan was to create him carrying a scantily-clad young lady as per the original poster artwork, but sadly I ran out of time – might be something to revisit at another time!

Edward Scissorhands

No series of cartoon monsters would be complete without the inclusion of something from the imagination of the great Tim Burton!

Edward Scissorhands was always a favourite childhood movie of mine, with his vacant expression and complete sense of innocence.

I also felt that his costume would be an interesting challenge, with all of the straps and buckle detailing.

I thought I’d add an additional slice of my humour by giving his moon belt-buckle one of my usual zany grins!

The finished version of my cartoon Edward Scissorhands can also be viewed in my cartoon portfolio.