Tobywan

About Tobywan

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

Gallery Update: It’s Plunger Monkey Xmas Time!

Just because it’s February doesn’t mean we can’t still talk about last xmas, right? Well, tough, I’m doing it anyway.

At some point, several years ago, my siblings and I declared that we didn’t want to exchange gifts around xmas time anymore, being that we were all self-sufficient adults and all, but we’d still give gifts to each other’s kids. This was supposed to extend across to our parents not giving us anything anymore (which they completely ignored) while we secretly got things for them. Eventually, we “kids” started coordinating on a group gift for mom and dad. We’ve sent them to

Gallery Update: Ivy (and other goings-on)

Yet another catch-up post (not ketchup…that would be messy) from before xmas. As I’ve stated in other posts, I’ve developed this habit of digitally painting portraits of people’s pets (Mr. Flangheddy, the best freshmen and junior year high school English teacher, would be proud of my alliteration). This time around, it was for my cousin and his wife’s dog, Ivy. She was the first dog they had as a couple, and her passing was really tough for both of them. I had planned to do my usual painting and surprise them with it. However, after I had already started working

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Gallery Update: Merry Plunger-mas!

The first month of 2o17 is almost in the books, but it’s not too late to post about xmas, right? I hope not, because I have several posts coming up somewhat related to that. I’ve been trying to finish up the book cover for the fourth Thea: The Little Witch series. I’m currently awaiting approval. I still have a handful of illustrations, plus a book cover for another author, awaiting me, but, I don’t want to fall too far behind on postings. I haven’t had the time to work on IPMDT while working on the cover, but I hope to

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Gallery Update: I Haven’t Posted Since Last Year! And Other Hilarious Jokes…

Alright, that title was the only joke, and not much of one at that. Unless you consider me or this site a joke (or the fact that I first posted this blog post in the gallery instead of on my blog…)…but at least you’re here…

Anywhat, I thought the tail end of 2016 was crazy, project-wise, but the start of 2017 is looking even more packed, with some actual paid illustration work mixed in there! As far as the last projects of last year, I’ll be posting about each of them in the coming weeks (that’t the plan, anyway), but they

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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

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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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Life Lately and Happy Turkeys!

(Given the date, I should stick a link in here to Turkey Man, my Thanksgiving Super Hero drawing from a long, long, long time ago to start this post. I also ought to do a current version of him at some point…)

So, as I was checking in on my almost non-existent site stats, I realized it’s been over a month since my last post! That’s a bit too long. I do more frequent posting/updates to the Face Book page and my Instagram account, but I do want to stay more active here. But, as I’ve said before,

Tablet Art: Making Technological Frustrations Mobile!

Okay, a couple of things right off the bat. First, dang it’s been a long time since I’ve posted! There’s been lots of “life” stuff going on, plus, it’s Inktober! I’ve been trying to spend my evening hours pumping out It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time! panels rather than trying to update this place. Given a choice, I’m usually going to chose to draw, which is good, I guess, though if I don’t put myself and my work “out there” via this place and FB and Instagram etc, then my theme park dreams are going to be hard to realize…Anywhat, most

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Gallery Update: We’re Off to See the Witches…

Well, it’s been quite a while since my last post, so much for the tablet making things easier! Actually, I’ve just been opting to draw in the evenings (on the tablet) rather than make updates. I should probably just set aside one particular evening or something and be consistent with it. I was actually in the middle of a post last night, but the tablet dipped below 60% battery life, which is when it flakes out and reboots itself. I was hopeful that a draft had been autosaved before that happened, but apparently not. Grumble grumble.

Anywhat, while I haven’t been

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Life and Stuff…

Wow, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? There are lots of reasons for that. Summer vacation started, which means my studio hours get seriously truncated and interrupted. Two of my sons decided to have medical problems that required some surgery (one of them an emergency case, but both are fine and back to driving each other nuts). I finally got the help I needed to do some serious repairs to my barn. Basically: life. It’s a struggle not to get swept up in the frustration of not having enough studio time, let alone time to keep this website up

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