Tobywan

About Tobywan

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

Happy Mother’s Day 2022!

Happy Mother’s Day 2022 to all the moms out there, but especially my wife and my own mother. It’s been a little while since I’ve updated my website or posted a blog, but fear not, I have been busy in the studio. You can get near daily updates on what I’m working on by following me on Facebook or Instagram, but to sum things up, I’ve been working on a book project…but before I get into that, it’s time to debut this year’s Mother’s Day card for my wonderful, talented, hard-working, patient, understanding wife! I rely on her for so

The Gi Coat 2.0: The Beast Coat

I. Am. Tired. BUT, at long last, my latest wool coat creation is complete (except for maybe some random adjustments that come up after wearing it around a while)!

It’s built off of one of the first sewing projects I did several years ago: my “Gi Coat”. I’ve been a martial artist since 1995, and I have a great appreciation for martial arts related fashion (and Asian fashion in general). I’ve always liked the simplicity of my karate gi, overlap one side on the other and fasten with a couple of ties. That

PMD Xmas Card Envelopes 2021

Somehow, here we are in 2022. I intend to do a year in review style post about 2021, which should be…interesting. I didn’t post here as much as I intended, and I dropped the ball on a lot of goals I had set at the start of the year. But, I think I did accomplish a lot, some of which wasn’t on that goal list (at least initially).

Before that post, though, I have to do the annual sharing of the xmas card envelopes. For anyone new here (which, given my stats and how little time I have to spend trying

Inktober 2021 Wrap Up

Here we are, another year, another Inktober infused with plungers and monkeys (everyone’s favorite plunger-wearing monkey, specifically). I’ve taken to doing these recaps/wrap ups at the end of the challenge, but this one will be a bit of a general “what’s been going on?” as well, since I’ve barely posted anything here this year.

If you follow me on my other social media thingies, then you know I’ve been staying busy. I’ll do an end of year/year in review post like I usually do, but just in general, I’m a bit off of the goals I set for myself this year.

Lee’s Dragons: Cat Dragon

‘Sup. It’s been awhile…Since June 18, according to my last blog post. Life has been, well, nuts. I’ve made art over the last 3 months, but not as much as I’d like. If you follow the Toby’s Brain FB page, you’re pretty aware of all the “real life” things that have been getting in my way. My last blog post here was about an illustration I drew for my oldest son’s high school graduation. Since then, he was scrambling to get his Eagle Project and paperwork done and submitted before he turned 18 (which he did. Mostly. Thankfully he

I Have A High School Graduate?!?

Yeah, that title is accurate. Somehow or another, my oldest son suddenly became high school graduate age. At the same time, my youngest just graduated 8th grade and is on to high school. It’s been a whirlwind busy week of graduation related “stuff”, and none of it has completely sunk in. I may be actively denying that reality in my head, though. I’m not quite ready for any of them to be grown up. There are so many things I feel like I missed out on with them, things I wish I had done with them, lessons I think I

New Shirt Alert: A New…Plunger?

Well, here we are in May (?!), and I’m finally getting around to releasing a new shirt (and if you want to skip my rambling and go straight to decorating your torso, and you missed the other links, you can go get yourself the new PMD Wars shirt here). This one was almost ready to go, much like the Blade of the Monkey shirt from the end of 2020, but I got hung up on the final look. I’m still not 100% sure (not that I ever am about anything) that this one is “done”, it’s one of those that

Happy Mother’s Day 2021!

It’s that time of year again, when we collectively pause to appreciate the people that either brought us into this world, raised us, or brought our own children into this world. It’s been a challenging year-which is almost becoming a new cliched thing to say, unfortunately-but while I’m sad to have not been able to spend more time with my family, I am extremely grateful that I didn’t lose anyone close to me to the pandemic (though last year in general was a tough one for losing important people in my life: my grandmother, a close family friend, a young

Gallery (and Stuff) Update: Insert Witty and Creative Title Here

I told you my hot streak of blog posts at the start of the year wouldn’t last. It’s been a month or more since my last post here, but, as is usually the case, I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve been working on Inside Toby’s Brain a lot, as well as focusing on my latest sewing project for more than a month now, I think. Somewhere along the way, I also did another book cover for L.S. Gagnon:

Thea The Little Witch: The Search for Coco is the sixth book in

Who’s Got the Best Smile?

Four weeks into 2021, four new blog posts?! Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that. I can tell you right now I already don’t have a plan for next week, so my streak likely ends right here. It was good while it lasted, at least, though, right?

These posts also have been taking a considerable amount of time between editing/prepping files to upload, captioning them, waiting for sluggish load times, and getting into fights with technology in general. I have spent four hours so far (as of…this word) putting this all together, which is fine. I still count it as

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