#digitalillustration

2023 Year in Review

Alright, I’m notoriously bad at grasping the passage of time, but instead of being bewildered that 2023 just ended, I’m a tad surprised that I almost titled this post “2024 Year in Review”. I think that’s the first time I’ve thought more time had passed, rather than less.

Either way, growing up in the 80s and 90s, thinking ahead to anything past the year 2000 always seemed like the future. I mean, yes, literally it was, but I mean some kind of sci-fi, flying cars, robots, teleportation, and computer brain implants utopia kind of future. I suppose there are plenty of things I take

Lee’s Dragons: Elephant Dragon

It’s September, which means it’s time, once again, for this:

For my wife’s annual birthday dragon 2023, I kind of knew what I wanted to do well ahead of time. Given that the whole concept of these illustrations is that there’s a planet basically terraformed by dragons, that eventually evolve and speciate to occupy all the different biotic zones, I try to think of an environment first, then figure out what would live there. Right now, everything is heavily influenced by life and ecology on earth, but I hope to deviate from

Gallery Update: New Revery Concept Art!

Hey look! A new blog post! And a new little logo title thingamabob!

But mostly: NEW REVERY CONCEPT ART! It’s been a minute, but I finally, randomly, decided to produce a piece of concept art for the story that I will eventually get off my butt and tell. There’s a lot of work to be done, more world building, updating and editing the existing story and thumbnails, and then actually drawing the thing, but a step forward is a step closer.

This is the first piece of concept art I have done for Revery

Commission Reveal: The Warlock Series

Okay, it’s finally time to reveal the latest series of commissioned work. Back around October-ish 2022, author L.S. Gagnon-The Patron Saint of My Art-reached out to me once again about illustrating some new book covers for her. I’ve done her covers for The Witch Series and The Little Witch Series, as well as four story illustrations from The Witch Series. This time, she has a new series of books in the works (some of which are out already), the first cover of which I had illustrated a few years ago (someone else did a few of the follow ups).

PMD Xmas Card Envelopes and 2022 Year in Review…and how the heck is it 2023?!?

Another year, another…something? As cliched as it is to say, I’m baffled that another year has slipped by. On the one hand, it’s great we all made it through to be reading (or writing in my case) this here blog post. On the other hand…where did the time go? I don’t often think about how old I am, and the fact that I keep getting older (though I do think about other people getting older, strangely), but more and more these days I am aware of my age and just how many things I still haven’t managed to accomplish. It’s very

Lee’s Dragons: Bird Dragon

So, how ya doin’? It’s been a bit. Again. I haven’t been very good about updating the content on this here digital manifestation of my Brain this year. I have been keeping busy, though. Aside from basic sketching practice, the vast majority of my studio time this year has been consumed by my Inktober illustrated book Inklings. It has been a ton of work, particularly since I designed three whole fonts and embellishments just for it. I may slap together a post about it at some point. Or maybe not. If you want to catch up and continue to follow the

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

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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