Tom McLaughlin

After studying illustration at Falmouth College of Arts Tom landed a job as the political cartoonist at The Western Morning News, where he spent 9 years happily caricaturing the good, the bad and the down-right ugly of politics.

In 2006 he left the paper to become a freelance illustrator and stumbled into the world of animation when he won a bursary to direct his short animated film, The Girl With The Pink Shoes, as part of the Animated Exeter festival. Since then he has gone on to design and create a number of animated TV concepts with Honeycomb Animation, including The 99 Lives Of The Fuzzy Cat, which is being developed along with Molly Little Mysteries. Both projects have attracted interest from broadcasters at home and abroad. Tom has also worked as a designer for the animation studio Red Kite, and has devised a TV project called N.E.R.D.S with them, which is in the early stages of development. As well as creating TV shows, Tom is also working on the designs for a pre-school show which is currently in development with HIT Entertainment and Three Black Cats. 

On the books side, Tom illustrated Mark Sperring’s picture book for Puffin, Captain Buckleboots on the Naughty Step (2011) and further 'Naughty Step' titles are planned. Simon & Schuster published his picture book The Diabolical Mr Tiddles in January 2012.