#penandink

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|

Gallery Update: 80 Shades of (Toby) Gray…
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Gallery Update: 80 Shades of (Toby) Gray…

Gallery Update: 80 Shades of (Toby) Gray…

If you’ve been following me on the Book of Faces, then you know I’m still chugging away on the whole manga self-portrait thing. My style has been developing, and I’m quite pleased with several of the drawings, but I don’t think I’m producing consistent enough images yet. I’m getting a little too caught up in the abstraction of the linemaking (something I’ve always loved) and often forgetting to pay attention to the underlying anatomy. I’ll get there, though. Here are the next 32 portraits, collage-style.

#56 is NOT supposed to

Gallery Update: A Recent Exploit of Plunger Monkey
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Gallery Update: A Recent Exploit of Plunger Monkey

Gallery Update: A Recent Exploit of Plunger Monkey

Alright, time to do a little posting catch up from December-ish 2015…

As a select, special few of you know first hand, when something positive and worth celebrating happens to someone I care about, I tend to take the opportunity to craft them a custom Plunger Monkey card to commemorate the event and express my congratulations and shared joy. Graduations, weddings, births, those kinds of things just scream for Plunger Monkey’s perspective or reaction.

Back in December, my childhood friend, Aaron, tied the knot with the love of his life, Junko. They are two wonderful people and I’m very happy that they

Tags: #art, #comics, #copicmarkers, #copicmultiliners, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #influences, #macross, #manga, #mech, #penandink, #plungermonkey, #plungermonkeydynamo, #PMD, #referencebooks, #rickhunter, #robot, #robotech|

50 Shades of (Toby) Gray

Alright, just to clear the air: I have not seen the movie nor read the book, and I have ZERO intention to, but I couldn’t resist the play on words as a title for this entry. Forgive me.

Anywhat, *gasp*, right? A second post this week? I told you, I have a bunch of plans and ideas, I’m just struggling to make the time to get around to them. But, since I did pass a small milestone this week with drawing my 50th manga self portrait, I didn’t want to wait too long without doing something fun to mark the occasion.

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

Process: How to Mangafy Yourself in 6 Easy Steps
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Process: How to Mangafy Yourself in 6 Easy Steps

Process: How to Mangafy Yourself in 6 Easy Steps

Okay, I’ve been busy for a while. Life and stuff. But, since everyone is clamoring for it (well, no one is actually doing any clamoring…other than imaginary people in my head. No, that’s not sad, it’s, um, practice. For when I actually have fans and followers. Who clamor for things. Yeah. Definitely practice. Not sad…), I thought I’d throw together a quick process post for how I’ve been going about my manga self portrait exercise.

Grrrr…or, Arrrr…you decide!

First, I snap a reference photo of myself and open it in Photoshop.

Tags: #art, #ballpointpen, #comicbooks, #comics, #drawings, #illustration, #manga, #mangaselfportrait, #observationaldrawing, #penandink, #photoshop, #portrait, #selfportrait|

Inktober 2015 Recap
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Inktober 2015 Recap

Inktober 2015 Recap

Now that we’re half way through November, I’m finally getting around to doing a recap of my first Inktober. In case you missed it, Inktober is an annual challenge started by artist Jake Parker. The goal is to do one ink drawing every day for the month of October (or as many as you can manage) in order to improve your skills with ink as well as foster the good art habit of daily practice. When I decided to take up the challenge, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do a drawing every few days, much less every

A Recent Read: The Metabarons

Inktober is all wrapped up for this year. I managed 31 self portraits in 31 days. I’ll put together a big post showcasing and comparing all of the images later, but if you want to check some of them out now, go to the TOBY’SBRAIN FB page (if you love me, you’re already following it. If you’re not following it, you don’t know you love me yet.).

Anywho, in the meantime, I thought I’d share an epic graphic novel I recently read: The Metabarons.

Bonjour! I come from France!

This 536 page,

WIP: 10 Things
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WIP: 10 Things

WIP: 10 Things

Some time last week I finally dusted off the 10 Things file and got working on it again. I’m currently working on page…well, I don’t know which number it will be, I haven’t been keeping track. But, it has 1 hen, 2 ducks, 3 squawking geese, 4 limerick oysters, 5 corpulent porpoises, 6 pairs of Don Alverso’s Tweezers, and 7 THOUSAND Macedonians dressed in full battle array on it:

These last pages are getting complicated…

I have corner registration marks roughed in on a separate layer still turned on here. They just give

Tags: #10things, #1hen2ducks3squawkinggeese, #art, #ballpointpen, #digitalart, #dinerdrawing, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #penandink, #photoshop, #placematdrawing, #randomdoodleage, #sketches, #theannouncerstest, #wip, #workinprogress|

GALLERY UPDATE: Shadow of the Flute-The Return of the Cello Flute
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GALLERY UPDATE: Shadow of the Flute-The Return of the Cello Flute

GALLERY UPDATE: Shadow of the Flute-The Return of the Cello Flute

Well, here we are, almost two weeks since my previous post. Here I am, still hoping to be more consistent in the studio now that the kids are back in school. Here I am, starring down several more hectic and busy weeks. *Le sigh* (that must be read as Pepe le Pew. If you didn’t know to do that already…then either I’m old or you’re uncultured).

Anywhat, I haven’t been completely not in my studio or otherwise making art (though it sure feels like it). On the second day of school, my wife took her last vacation day of the summer

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