#comics

Inside Toby’s Brain: MediBANG!

You thought I was going to forget to update the site this week, didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU!?

Me too. But I ‘membered.

I think this may be the last of the big catching up posts. About a year ago, when my Samsung tablet still had that new tablet smell, I was looking for the “perfect” drawing app to suit my needs (I’ve got several favorites, but the search will continue). I stumbled across the free app, Medibang Paint. It looked pretty robust, and it was free, but the interface was “weird”, so I set it aside and decided to focus on the

Gallery Update: I’m Baaaack

Hello! I’m back from my two weeks in the woods wrangling Cub and Boy Scouts! It was a great experience (and with the week at Cub Scout camp being my fifth and final, it was a bit emotional), but very draining. I’m still trying to get back into the swing of things and remember what the heck I was doing before I left. In the meantime, I thought it best to catch up on some posting while my brain sorts itself out.

Waaaaaaaay back at the end of June, my youngest son finished out his last days in our little elementary

Tablet Art: Smile For The Camera

Right. So, once again, there’s been a gap in posting. There’s been a gap in studioing, too (yes, I’m making that a verb). I had to spend a week performing my civic duty by serving on a jury in a particularly disturbing trial. If not for the subject matter, the whole experience was actually kind of interesting and rewarding. I have a new found understanding of and respect for the concept of a jury of one’s peers. I’m glad to be back in the studio, though.

The first tablet drawing I did (a few weeks ago, now), after finishing up that

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,

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

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

It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time!

I’ve been hinting at it for weeks now, but it’s finally up and running! The official It’s Plunger Monkey Dynamo Time! comic strip! I had no idea when I embarked on the Inktober challenge last year that it would eventually lead me to something that’s been a pipe dream clattering around my brain for years. One of the many reasons I had never featured PMD in his own comic of any type was that I was having a hard time nailing down his personality and how I wanted to “use” him. I had this vague sense of who he was,

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

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.

Manga-style self-portrait practice #56 is NOT supposed to

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

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