#penandink

Happy New Year (two and a half weeks ago)!

This really ought to be broken up into several different posts, but I know the way my life works and I’m already a solid month behind when some of these updates should have been made to be even remotely timely. So, you’re going to deal with a monster update and like it!

Where to start? Well, as happens to many, life got very busy the closer we got to the end of December. I stayed busy with some studio projects, but many of them were gift related so I had to keep quiet about them. At this point, I’m a little

Gallery Update: Inktober 2018 Wrap Up

We’re just over a week into November, so I guess I should finally get around to this here wrap up post about Inktober 2018. I believe (according to the art in my files) that my first foray into Inktobering was in 2015. It was a fun little challenge put out by comic artist and illustrator Jake Parker years prior. The idea was to improve one’s inking skills by doing one ink drawing a day (presumably on top of whatever other projects one might have). I don’t know if it was from the beginning or not, but at some

Gallery Update: Revenge of the Moleskin

It’s that time of year again: the annual summer camp moleskin sketchbook sketches update thingy! Of course, there’s a few things to take note of this time around.

Firstly, this was the first time I’ve had all 3 of my sons, all now in the troop that I am the scoutmaster for, at the same camp. This meant, for the first time in many years, I only had ONE week of summer camp to go to. Don’t get me wrong, I love camping, I love the outdoors, I love having these wonderful memories (as well as some frustrating ones, to be

Gallery Update: Mother’s Day 2018-The Card

Happy Mother’s Day, 2018! I couldn’t do what I do and dream what I dream without my wife by my side or my mom (and all the other women in my family) supporting, encouraging, teaching, and raising me. I love all of you and I can’t put into words my gratitude.

Time for a peak at this year’s card!

The dragon kids are a year older. I try to go through pictures from the previous year and find one that represents something special-a place, a moment, an event-and then I try to capture it in

Gallery Update: Still Catching Up…

Oooh! Three weeks in a row? Something like that? I may catch up on all the ideas for blog posts yet…

Don’t get your hopes up, though. Life is still happening.

Anywhat, before I go back a few weeks…or months…I’ll post this:

My awesome wife picked up on the fact that my favorite ballpoint pens for drawing were running out, so she did a little research and found me (and the kids) some cool pens. They’re nothing special, amazingly, just Amazon Basic 1.0. But, they work really well. They have good flow and are very

Gallery Update: A Moleskin Story

Alright, two weeks in a row of updating the website! Shall we take bets on how long the streak will last? I vote for Q, because my brain.

Speaking of spelling (I know we weren’t, but my brain and I were), am I even spelling “moleskin” correctly? I’ve noticed it autocorrects to “moleskinE”, which doesn’t make much sense to me phonetically, unless I’ve been pronouncing it wrong all these years as well. Either way, I don’t care, so let’s move on.

If you actually had the interest or patience to have read last week’s blog entry, you may recall

Gallery Update: The Moleskin Awakens!

Hi! Yes, I’m still alive. I don’t know why I need to keep reassuring everyone of that. Why is everyone expecting me to be dead? Maybe you just like the sense of elation you feel when you realize I’m still breathing and working towards my Artistic Destiny (TM)? Whatever it is, I’m still here.

Now that the kids are back in school and all on the same bus schedule (gone are the days of 3+ bus stops a day for me. I drop them off at the bus stop at 6:30am, they walk home after getting off the bus in the

Gallery Update: Let There Be Star Wars!

On December 15th, the wife and I decided to surprise the kids after school by taking them to the first pre-opening day showing of Rogue One (yes, I thought it was awesome. This is not news). For a while now, I’ve been thinking it would be fun to do some PMD illustrations outside of IPMDT to commemorate certain events or happenings. Star Wars Rogue One was the perfect event, given the overall significance of Star Wars in my creative life. I’ve always thought of Plunger Monkey as somewhat of my alter ego, a manifestation of some of the crazier parts

Insert Clever Title Here

Alright, trying to get back into some kind of productive nightly ritual and put my tablet to good use. I have several other post ideas, but I’m skipping over those to get to this one…I just can’t come up with a title…

I love working digitally, but I miss “traditional” media. It’s part of the reason I’ve been drawing It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time! exclusively the old-fashioned way, then scanning, tweaking, and formating the panels into strips. I like the feel of pencil and ink on different textures of paper. I like erasing the pencil lines to fully reveal the crisp,

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