Want to make some cartoons of your own?

Image of Share and Bloom egg head with a hand on chin with pondering look and caption at the top saying 'How can I draw cartoons?'

Time: 15 mins upwards

Source: Wacom Intuos Pro Small + Adobe Illustrator

Buy from: Amazon + subscribe to Adobe

How to do the tool: The short answer to this question is use a Wacom Intuos Pro sketch pad and pen and do the cartoons in Adobe Illustrator on your computer. That's how I do my cartoons anyway.

But that's not how I started...

I first started doing my cartoons on my iPad. But iPad apps use mostly pixelated imagery so the image distorts the bigger the image gets. And I wanted to create images that are nice and crisp and that I could print to any size.

It was my gardener of all people who, having had a background in printing, said to me I should use software that uses vector imagery so that no matter how big the picture is printed, the image is not distorted. So I went on an Adobe Illustrator course. And on the course we used a mouse. And I said to the tutor 'but that's not how I draw, using a mouse'.

I like solutions, not problems. It was a friend that suggested I could use an electronic sketch pad.

And so I found out about Wacom. Their sketch pads, while they take a bit of getting used to, are phenomenal bits of kit. I draw on the pad while looking at the computer screen.