Tobywan

About Tobywan

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

Studio Stuff: Comics, Comics, Comics, Comics, Part 2-The Comics-ing

May 7th was Free Comic Book Day this year. Last year we hit up one of our favorite comic book stores after a Cub Scout event, and this year was the same (though the events were different). Apparently we shelled out enough dough last year, and on some more unique books than the standard fare, that the owner actually remembered us and had some suggestions to boot. I still have quite a few things that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, I think I just need to shut myself in my studio for a day or two

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Gallery Update: Happy Day After Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, particularly my own mother and my wife. You may recall the lengthy retrospective-type post I did last year of all my hand-drawn Mother’s Day cards that I’ve been making for my wife since our first child was born. Well, this is 2016’s:

Toby-Gray-MD-2016 Those are supposed to be stars spelling out “Happy Mother’s Day”, but I don’t think I went dark enough with the sky for it to “pop”.

All this drawing I’ve been doing since the Inktober challenge has really

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Gallery Update: It’s Tick Season…Yay.

It’s been a little while since an update. I’ve been plenty busy both in the studio and out. I’m wrapping up the camp shirt design, I think I’m done with another project for my cousin (still waiting for final word), finally finished up a gift/project for my nephew that became more involved than I originally thought (I got carried away), as well as finished up yet another project (that I can’t post about until next week…you’ll know why when you see it), all while churning away on the comic strip. Outside of the studio, there’s been a few camping trips

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Gallery Update: Baby’s Are Like Squids…

I’m finding it difficult to not spend all my studio time working on It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time!, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m making some progress towards some big goals/ambitions…but I’m completely not touching some others. Hrm. I need better time management skills, but that’s nothing new.

What is new (see what I did there?) is that my good friend and his wife are due to have their first child any time now. Obviously this called for the traditional, custom PMD card:

Toby-Gray-PMD-and-Squid-for-Aaron-and-Junko No, this

Gallery Update: Milk, A Body Good, It Does

Firstly, be sure to check out the latest installment of It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time! if you didn’t already. I think I’m going to try to post new installments on Tuesdays and Fridays, we’ll see how long that keeps up, though. If I can’t stay far enough ahead, I may drop back to once a week.

Secondly, I didn’t spend time in the studio yesterday because I was volunteering at my youngest’s elementary school for Art Day. I helped run a few different stations that saw the kids producing different types of art, filling in where ever the staff needed me.

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It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time!

I’ve been hinting at it for weeks now, but it’s finally up and running! The official It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time! comic strip! I had no idea when I embarked on the Inktober challenge last year that it would eventually lead me to something that’s been a pipe dream clattering around my brain for years. One of the many reasons I had never featured PMD in his own comic of any type was that I was having a hard time nailing down his personality and how I wanted to “use” him. I had this vague sense of who he was,

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Gallery Update: Coco

I’m really not looking to go into the business of painting portraits of people’s late pets, but in the last year I’ve found myself doing just that 3 times (so far…everyone else’s pets had better stay healthy). I finally added the first two to the gallery, Quegan and Max, which I had somehow blogged about without adding them. Anyway, this is Coco, my author friend’s beloved puppy that passed away earlier in 2016 at 15ish years old, if memory serves me right (EDIT: memory serves me wrong, she was only 6). She

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Gallery Update: Animal Totem Cards

If you’ve been following me on The Facebooks, you know that a big event in the real world happened last week: namely my middle son and his den crossed over from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts. I have very strong and fond memories of my own crossover, so as their den leader, I felt compelled to somehow connect my experience to theirs. One of the memorable parts of our Arrow of Light ceremony was that our Cub Master, dressed in full Native American regalia (which isn’t kosher these days for good reason), gave each of us an animal

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Gallery Update: Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Bird! It’s a…Well, It Is a Bird…

It’s been far too long since I’ve updated the site (I hate how much I say that…I hate how much I say “I hate how much I say that” when referencing how long it’s been since I’ve updated the site, too). As usual: life. I have something biggish planned that is slowly in the works. I was close to having it ready last week, but ran into a hiccup. I’m excited about it, but y’all will just have to be excited about my vagueness…though if you’ve been paying attention to the tobysbrain facebook page, you’ve probably already got

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Gallery Update: Plunger Monkey in the Mail

The end of February isn’t too late to talk about last xmas, is it? Or the last five xmases? I’m still catching up on blog post ideas I had but didn’t have the studio time to put together. Anyway, at some point over the last several years, I started trying to personalize a few of the annual xmas card envelopes with some PMD themed randomness. I think I started out with just 3 recipients, but now I’m up to 6 or so. If I had the time (and the ideas), I would do it for everyone I send a card

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