#dragons

Lee’s Dragons: Arctic Dragon

It’s that time of year again! My wife had a birthday, so she got another dragon illustration!

This year’s dragon for my wife’s birthday: the Arctic (or Polar) Dragon. This clocked in at about 56 hours and 4 minutes, give or take. It’s a slight departure from the previous entries in that it’s (digital) pen and ink, rather than a fully rendered digital painting. It was my wife’s request, she prefers my ink work I guess.
I studied some images of polar bears to get an appropriate gesture as well as looked up

Happy Mother’s Day, 2020!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. It is a very weird situation to try to celebrate the people in our lives that have played such vital roles during a pandemic when we can’t, or shouldn’t, be physically close. Whether it’s my own mother, my grandmother, my wife, my sister, my aunts…all the mothers in my life and my family have had a positive impact on my life, and it’s very fair to say I wouldn’t be here in one way or another without their love and support over the years. I love you all, and thank you.

Being

Enter the (Forest) Dragon

I’m pretty proud of that title…cuz, like Bruce Lee…Enter the Dragon was a Bruce Lee movie…my wife’s name is Lee…I’m a big Bruce Lee fan…I’m a big fan of my wife…it’s allllll connected.

Anyway, it’s September, so that means it’s time once again for another annual tradition I started (this being the fourth year): drawing a dragon for my dragon-loving wife for her birthday. I do these in Procreate on my iPad Pro to take advantage of the time lapse feature, but the fact that I use it so infrequently leads to problems for me. I have to relearn how to

Happy Mother’s Day 2019!

Here it is, the 2019 Mother’s Day card for my awesome wife!

Another year, another card for my wife on Mother’s Day. The dragon/kids keep growing. It’s always a challenge to come up with a new image, as I usually try to have it reference something we’ve done of note over the past year. It’s tough when the things of note are often the same, like hikes we’ve taken. We certainly try to hike a lot, so reflecting that is fine. It’s just coming up with scenes and compositions that aren’t

Here Be LEE’s Dragons

Well, it’s a few weeks late, but I finally pulled off the next phase of my wife’s birthday giftage: custom shirts depicting the dragons I draw for her birthday. I attempted yet another new process, and I had to hide my work from her again, and life was getting in the way, but, I got it done. Right now, her shirts are the only ones. If there’s enough interest or encouragement, I may release them to the public at large as their own line of shirts: Lee’s Dragons.

Anyway, about that new process. I uploaded all the layered PSD files of

Gallery Update: Here Be Dragons!

Everyone loves dragons, right?

Of course. But few love them as much as my wife.

It’s birthday time for my wife again, which means another dragon wallpaper from me! I went back to Procreate for this one and spent over a week noodling away at it. Here’s a breakdown of how it came together.

The first step to any art I create-whether it’s digital or traditional, whether the media is pencil, ink, or paint-I start with a rough drawing. I knew I was going to draw a dragon. I even knew it would be a

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: Stuff and Things

Creative title, right? Can you tell I’m tired and worn out? It’s been a challenging few weeks since our son’s diagnosis. He’s doing fine, by the way. We are all adjusting to the new normal, though I feel like I’m struggling to get back into some kind of routine. I’m hopeful things will smooth out even more next week.

I’m currently visiting family and making good use of the new iPad Pro to finish this site update that I started earlier today before the chaos that is packing and prepping for a weekend away. I’m really loving this new device, particularly

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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