Tom Gauld

This is my first ever post so i thought i'd get the ball rolling with my current favourite artist, Tom Gauld. He lives in London and describes hiself as an illustrator and a cartoonist. I like his little critters but it's the dashed textures that really tickle my fancy. This example is from his own website http://www.tomgauld.com/ called 'Lake Monster'. I emailed him a few questions about his work and the way he works, i tried to ask questions that would apply to me like things i struggle with:

Hi Gabby,

here are my answers, I hope they're helpful
cheers
Tom

...

1) When you first started out in the business, how did you go about getting your name known? And do you still go searching for commissions or do they come looking for you?
I made a portfolio of about 20 images I liked (not perfect ones but nothing I didn't like, as a tutor told me: 'only show work you'd like to do more of') and a couple of comic books and a postcard I could give away: these days you'd need a website but this was 9 years ago.
Then I got a handful of names of Art Directors from friends and tutors, and a few more names by looking at the credits in magazines I though might use me. I called them all (I hated doing cold calls but I think you just have to) and asked if I could come by and show my folio. When a few of them resulted in meetings I made sure I asked them if they knew of anyone else who might be worth showing my work to. In this way I had about 6 months worth of people to see, which kept me busy until eventually some work came out of it.
Some of my work also came from people buying my self-published comics and getting in touch.
These days I have an agent (www.heartagency.com) who find much of my work. A bit also comes to me, from people who know my cartoons, comics and illustrations. I don't do any cold calling anymore but I try to keep putting work out there to attract people and I might occasionally send a book or email to somebody who I'd like to work with.


2) Have you always drawn in this style or has it developed over the years?
It has developed, and I hope it's still developing, but in quite a slow way. I haven't made any major changes. I can see things in common between the way I draw now and the way I drew when I was 12.

3) Do you ever get overwhelmed with work? If so, how do you handle it?
Not that often. I tend to over estimate how long it'll take me to do things so it's more common for me to turn something down as I think I already have enough to do then find out later that I've finished everything else so could have done it after all.
My images don't take that long to actually draw so if I have too much work to do it'll probably be that the ideas aren't as good/funny as I will have less time to mull things over.

4) When you're making your cartoons, how do you know when enough is enough? I have trouble stopping myself and end up making it look worse sometimes.
Actually I sort of have the opposite problem. I like minimalist work so I try and edit out as much as I can while still keeping the sense. Sometimes I realize (too late) I've got carried away editing things out and made it worse.

Tom Gauld
Top Floor
100 de Beauvoir Road
London
N1 4EN
please visit www.tomgauld.com