Still not ready for the PMD themed post (I won’t say retrospective again…wait…), still too much editing and still hoping to get a few pictures or scans of some PMD cards I’ve sent out over the years. In the meantime I’m edging closer to getting my shirt designs uploaded, which is inching me closer to opening the “shop”. I’m also designing some shirts for my oldest son’s Boy Scout troop and trying to source a local print shop to handle the job.

Anywhat, I thought I’d add some more random art to the gallery. The Vampire Banana featured above was an out-of-the-blue drawing I did at our local library. It was near Halloween, and I believe my kids (and perhaps one or two of their friends) wanted me to do some kind of Halloween, scary drawing. Apparently this is what my brain thinks is scary-The Vampire Banana.

Toby-Gray-turkey-man

Gobble…gobble…

Sticking with the absurd, here’s Turkey Man. Easter has The Easter Bunny, Christmas has Santa, teeth have The Tooth Fairy…so I decided Thanks Giving should have Turkey Man. It was an excuse to play around with some new Prismacolor markers several years ago…not quite sure why I actually drew this. I don’t even think it was November. But, that’s just how my brain works.

Toby-Gray-octoparapus

He’s part squid, part parrot, but ALL METAL!!!!!!! \m/

So far we have a blood-sucking ghoul-fruit and a spandex-clad, poultry-based superhero…why not toss in…this? I’m struggling to remember the specifics of where this guy came from (back in 2002, in case you can’t read…but that would make no sense right now…). I definitely drew him on a place mat at a restaurant, but I can’t remember if I was with my then-girlfriend (now wife) or one of my best friends, author Bill Gauthier. The reason I can’t remember who I was with is because my brain is amazing at remembering things that don’t make sense, but struggles with some basic things. My wife and I had been together a little less than a year at this point, but I was still making pilgrimages to visit my friends to do silly things. At some point Bill had talked about wanting to try writing a story based on a random piece of art I did, so I think this is what I came up with. But I can’t remember if I was with him when I drew it, since I’m pretty sure I emailed him the drawing at some point. My wife and I have macaws, and I’ve always like cephalopods, so she may have planted a seed for this. I just don’t remember. Bill has a better memory for those kinds of details, so he might remember. Plus, he did write a short story about this…thing.

Anysquid, the blog title mentions a “reveal”, so here’s another peak at a shirt design that you will eventually be able to adorn your beautiful torsos with:

Toby-Gray-box-wave-shirt-design-FW

It’s a box o’ waves!

Heavily inspired by the very famous Under the Wave, off Kanagawa (also known as The Great Wave) by Hokusai. Some of the shirts I’ve been working on are experiments with this sort of graphic style. I quite like it, I’ll definitely continue to explore this style.