Tobywan

About Tobywan

My brain makes me draw stuff that isn't there, and this is where I put it.

LEE’S DRAGONS: SNAIL DRAGON

It’s September, so you know what that means!

Well, okay, maybe you’re new here (and if you are, welcome and thank you! I hope you stick around). My super awesome, supportive (and patient) wife loves dragons. She works in IT, and thus spends a great deal of time stuck in front of a computer monitor. Years ago I had the brilliant idea to start drawing dragons for her birthday that she can use as her wallpaper on her monitor, and an annual tradition was born. The general idea that has developed over the years I will eventually (I hope) turn into

American Ninja Warrior 2025: Change on the Horizon

 I haven’t given up yet.

With just a few days to spare, I continued my streak of entering the American Ninja Warrior contest, but I did it with mixed feelings. Change is an inevitable fact of life, a contest like American Ninja Warrior (ANW) is not immune. Fellow long-time fans of the show have seen the American version of the contest evolve over the last 17 seasons. Initially, a single competitor won a chance to compete on the original Japanese show, Sasuke. As the popularity of Sasuke and the ANW contest

Happy Mother’s Day 2024!

It’s already that time of year again! Time seems to whip by me with annoying speed these days. It should stop that. No matter how poor my concept of the passage of time is, I always make time for my annual Mother’s Day card for my awesome wife. In the grand scheme of things, it’s perhaps too small a gesture, but it’s still a special one from me. It’s a one of a kind, personal, unique expression from me for her, and sharing it publicly gives me an excuse to mention my love and appreciation for her. I suppose that’s

2024 Sewing Project Round-up

Obligatory “I can’t believe it’s already MARCH of 2024”. Truly, though, I can’t. It doesn’t help that our winter has been lame (but global warming isn’t real. Nope. No way), I feel like it hasn’t even started and yet the stupid trees have stupid buds. I absolutely loved every minute I spent snowboarding so far, I always do (even when conditions stink), but I want more. Also, I only managed one campout in the cold weather (on the coldest night of the year), and it didn’t even dip below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a bummer. I was looking forward

2023 Year in Review

Alright, I’m notoriously bad at grasping the passage of time, but instead of being bewildered that 2023 just ended, I’m a tad surprised that I almost titled this post “2024 Year in Review”. I think that’s the first time I’ve thought more time had passed, rather than less.

Either way, growing up in the 80s and 90s, thinking ahead to anything past the year 2000 always seemed like the future. I mean, yes, literally it was, but I mean some kind of sci-fi, flying cars, robots, teleportation, and computer brain implants utopia kind of future. I suppose there are plenty of things I take

Inktober 2023 Wrap Up

As of November 16, 2023, I finally finished Inktober 2023…only two weeks behind schedule this year. I found this year to be much more challenging, and I think it’s because I’ve been doing Inktober 52 all year long for the first time. I can’t quite classify it as burnout, but definitely a strain on the creative faculties. I struggled with ideas for many of the prompts this year, but in the end, I always managed to come up with something that met my general, self-imposed guidelines: it has to feature Plunger Monkey or something from his universe (the PMDverse?), the

Lee’s Dragons: Elephant Dragon

It’s September, which means it’s time, once again, for this:

For my wife’s annual birthday dragon 2023, I kind of knew what I wanted to do well ahead of time. Given that the whole concept of these illustrations is that there’s a planet basically terraformed by dragons, that eventually evolve and speciate to occupy all the different biotic zones, I try to think of an environment first, then figure out what would live there. Right now, everything is heavily influenced by life and ecology on earth, but I hope to deviate from

Happy Mother’s Day 2023!

I hate the cliche about how fast any given year is whipping by, but, somehow it’s already Mother’s Day 2023. I haven’t processed January yet. Unfortunately, the space-time continuum seems to be unaffected by my concept of time, and it continues to march on. For now…

Anymonkeys, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms in my life! While I think it’s important to stop and appreciate all the people that make a difference in our lives more than once a year, it’s still good to have one day set aside to force us to remember to do so (see my aforementioned bafflement

Gallery Update: New Revery Concept Art!

Hey look! A new blog post! And a new little logo title thingamabob!

But mostly: NEW REVERY CONCEPT ART! It’s been a minute, but I finally, randomly, decided to produce a piece of concept art for the story that I will eventually get off my butt and tell. There’s a lot of work to be done, more world building, updating and editing the existing story and thumbnails, and then actually drawing the thing, but a step forward is a step closer.

This is the first piece of concept art I have done for Revery

Commission Reveal: The Warlock Series

Okay, it’s finally time to reveal the latest series of commissioned work. Back around October-ish 2022, author L.S. Gagnon-The Patron Saint of My Art-reached out to me once again about illustrating some new book covers for her. I’ve done her covers for The Witch Series and The Little Witch Series, as well as four story illustrations from The Witch Series. This time, she has a new series of books in the works (some of which are out already), the first cover of which I had illustrated a few years ago (someone else did a few of the follow ups).

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