Tobywan

About Tobywan

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

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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R.I.P. Mr. Sketchbook MacDougal

Alright, short on time, so just a quick-ish update. First off, in reference to the title of this post…you probably had to be there to appreciate it, but, many moons ago, my best friend Jorj and I were fresh out of college, trying to find something to do with our lives and our art. We decided to start planning the ultimate video game that mashed up all the different genres of games we loved. We were tossing around story ideas, and then characters and monsters. We were trying to come up with a list of names and sort of work

Studio Stuff: Comics, Comics, Comics, Comics, Part 2-The Comics-ing

May 7th was Free Comic Book Day this year. Last year we hit up one of our favorite comic book stores after a Cub Scout event, and this year was the same (though the events were different). Apparently we shelled out enough dough last year, and on some more unique books than the standard fare, that the owner actually remembered us and had some suggestions to boot. I still have quite a few things that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, I think I just need to shut myself in my studio for a day or two

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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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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

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Gallery Update: Baby’s Are Like Squids…

I’m finding it difficult to not spend all my studio time working on It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time!, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m making some progress towards some big goals/ambitions…but I’m completely not touching some others. Hrm. I need better time management skills, but that’s nothing new.

What is new (see what I did there?) is that my good friend and his wife are due to have their first child any time now. Obviously this called for the traditional, custom PMD card:

Toby-Gray-PMD-and-Squid-for-Aaron-and-Junko No, this

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