#art

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

Tags: #art, #copicmarkers, #copicmultiliners, #digitalart, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink, #penandink, #plungermonkey, #plungermonkeydynamo, #PMD, #randomdoodleage|

Gallery Update: Happy Day After Mother’s Day!
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Gallery Update: Happy Day After Mother’s Day!

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:

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

Tags: #art, #babydragons, #cards, #copicmarkers, #copicmultiliners, #dragons, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink, #mothersday, #mothersdaycards, #penandink|

Gallery Update: It’s Tick Season…Yay.
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Gallery Update: It’s Tick Season…Yay.

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

Tags: #art, #ballpointpen, #comicbooks, #comics, #conceptart, #conceptdrawings, #conceptillustration, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink, #manga, #mangaselfportrait, #penandink, #portrait, #randomdoodleage, #selfportrait, #sketchbook, #sketches|

Gallery Update: Milk, A Body Good, It Does
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Gallery Update: Milk, A Body Good, It Does

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.

Tags: #art, #ballpointpen, #cow, #darthvader, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #influences, #ink, #milk, #penandink, #prismacolor, #randomdoodleage, #starwars, #yoda|

It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time!
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It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time!

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,

Tags: #art, #comics, #copicmarkers, #copicmultiliners, #drawings, #ink, #manga, #mangaselfportrait, #penandink, #plungermonkey, #plungermonkeydynamo, #PMD, #portrait|

Gallery Update: Coco
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Gallery Update: Coco

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

Tags: #animal, #animals, #art, #digitalart, #dog, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #observationaldrawing, #petportrait, #petportraits, #photoshop|

Gallery Update: Animal Totem Cards
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Gallery Update: Animal Totem Cards

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

Tags: #animaltotem, #arrowoflight, #art, #boyscouts, #copicmarkers, #copicmultiliners, #cubscouts, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #greyscale, #illustration, #ink, #penandink, #spiritanimal|

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

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

Tags: #art, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #naturedrawing, #observationaldrawing, #owl, #randomdoodleage, #sketchbook, #sketches, #spottedowl|

Gallery Update: Plunger Monkey in the Mail
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Gallery Update: Plunger Monkey in the Mail

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

Tags: #art, #ballpointpen, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink #xmascardenvelopes, #oldart, #penandink, #plungermonkey, #plungermonkeydynamo, #PMD, #randomdoodleage|

Gallery Update: My Face x100!!!!
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Gallery Update: My Face x100!!!!

Gallery Update: My Face x100!!!!

With all the ups and downs in studio time I experience, I’m pretty happy to have pumped out the 100th cartoon self portrait. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable drawing myself without picture reference and I’m much more willing to push expressions to their extremes without crossing that undefined “realism” line. Now that I have 100 under my belt, I’ll be looking to change things up a little. I haven’t figured out how, yet, but I think this milestone is a good point for it, whatever it will be. I’ll still continue doing the daily self-portraits, they have become a

Tags: #art, #cartoonselfportrait, #comicbooks, #comics, #copicmarkers, #copicmultiliners, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #graphicnovels, #illustration, #manga, #mangaselfportrait, #observationaldrawing, #penandink, #portrait, #revery, #selfportrait, #sketchbook, #sketches|

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