Tobywan

About Tobywan

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

Seven…thousand…flippin’…Macedonians…

Well, I think I’m going to call this page done for now, other than some tweaks I’ll do when I go back through all the pages of this children’s book…

Toby-Gray-7000-Macedonians-FW Please, no more Macedonians…

I don’t even know how many hours I put into this page, but it’s got to be close to the combined total for all the preceding pages, even with all the cut and paste “cheats” Photoshop affords me. For those who don’t remember, I’m trying to illustrate a children’s book based on The Announcer’s test, partially popularized by Jerry

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Studio Stuff: Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth

Burne Hogarth reference books I keep my prized reference books well guarded at all times.

If you know me, you know I love books (and comic books/graphic novels). If you’ve been in my studio (or you’ve seen the picture of me at my desk on the About Toby page), it’s readily apparent. I’m forever running out of shelf space and daydreaming ways to add more shelving (fortunately Lee and the kids are on board for this in the rest of the house, too). I’m not a terribly materialistic person (I think), I don’t

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Coming Soon to a Torso Near You!

What?! Two updates in the same week? Is it time for that announcement?! How?! Who?! Where?! Taco?!

Okay, two reasons for two updates this week.  First, the kids are on vacation next week, so I know my studio time is going to be compromised. While I won’t have to deal with making lunches and helping with homework and getting them to and from bus stops and waking them up on time (who am I kidding, Lee picks up my slack on a lot of that too), they will be around.  Interrupting.  Fighting. Yelling. Demanding to be fed and other ridiculousness. I’ll

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Studio Stuff: Pepere’s Lamp

The truth is out there (in my studio)! The truth is out there (in my studio)!

Okay, I’m a day late in my update, there were lots of confounding variables yesterday that prevented me from sticking with my Monday update schedule. Hopefully I’ll be consistent in the future, but I’m sure I’ll slip up here and there, because life and stuff.

Anywhat, I still have some old art to go through and edit to add to the gallery, but, since I’ve missed some studio time recently due to a computer rebuild (courtesy

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The Final Piece of Revery Concept Art

It’s Monday, my monkeys, which means I’ve updated the PMD Brainism and posted a new image to the gallery.  The new image is yet another early digital drawing and the final piece of concept art I generated for Revery.  I call this one Claw Face Ambush, because the two main characters are being ambushed by Claw Faces.  Crazy, right? So, yes, the human is me.  Revery was sparked by a series of weird dreams I had many years ago, which I combined with the lifetime I’ve spent wandering imaginary worlds in my head.  The result is hopefully a tangible manifestation

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Mondays Are For Plungers

Okay, it’s update time on this snow day. I’ve decided that, for now, I’ll add a new PMD Brainism on Monday’s.  The image will stay static…but I may change that once I finish up some other odds and ends in the future. For now, be entertained by what my brain thinks is important to tell me at all hours of the day.

I added a new image to the gallery, another concept piece and early digital drawing: The Rogue Dream Squad. It’s from that graphic novel I keep referencing (but not finishing)-Revery.  The two Cobblies are Gwan and Jeeto, members of

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King of the Cobblies

I just posted a new old image to the gallery, another concept piece from Revery (which I will finish! I promise! It’s all plotted and thumb-nailed, the first 15 or so pages are drawn…I just need to get a few other projects out of the way and iron out a few work flow issues).  This is King Belain, King of the Cobblies (which is what he and Adarax are). Instead of just posting the “finished” concept art here as well as the gallery, I thought I’d post the initial rough sketch. Pencil drawing is still my favorite, I love the

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One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese…

One of the projects I’ve been working on lately is actually a children’s book based on a memory tongue-twister I learned as a Boy Scout. Myself and a few other members of my troop started performing it at any and all campfires we participated in. Once my tenure as a scout wound down, I sort of forgot about it until my own sons joined scouts. At the first campfire I was asked to have my den participate in, I dusted this little “song” off (I did another slightly easier favorite with my den). The wackiness of the “lyrics” always appealed

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Ready for my close up

So, I had said I would post some zoomed in sections of Ohrim vs the Cave Squid because I had put so much time and attention into little details, so here are 3. The trouble for me is, when I zoom in, I still see bits I want to fix, things I’m not quite happy with.  This particular piece clocked in at just about 70 hours, which is probably far too long for any one piece.  The more I do, the faster I should get, though.Toby Gray Ohrim-vs-the-cave-squid-zoom2-FW

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Making some progress…

With the constant hand holding and help from my “lovely assistant” we are making some progress getting this website together and up and running.  So many new things to learn, I’ve posted and re-posted most of the content here several times over because I forgot this or that or I screwed something up.  We aren’t out of the woods yet, but we’re getting closer. I still have lots of ideas to add here, changes to make, content to upload – it’s going to be ugly and clunky for a while.

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