#ink

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

Tags: #art, #copicmarkers, #dragons, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink, #mothersday, #mothersday 2021, #mothersdaycards, #penandink|

Who’s Got the Best Smile?
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Who’s Got the Best Smile?

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

Xmas Card Envelopes 2020, and Some Stuff

I think at this point it’s safe to assume all of the xmas card envelopes I illustrated are in their respective intended hands, so I’m going to go ahead and share them all here. As I mentioned…somewhere, I returned to the theme I stumbled onto last year: Totally Reasonable Uses for a Plunger. It proved fun in 2019, it was equally fun in 2020, and I’m much more confident about the potential of turning the idea into a picture book of some type. I’m building a list of “uses” to illustrate, and the envelope art will serve as some highly

Tags: #art, #comics, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink, #penandink, #plungermonkey, #plungermonkeydynamo, #PMD, #xmascardenvelopes|

Inktober 2020 Recap
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Inktober 2020 Recap

Inktober 2020 Recap

Just a few months late with this one. I intended to do the annual Inktober recap right after I wrapped up, which was a week or so into November. But, life sidetracked me between October and November, and the crunch of getting the Xmas cards done (which probably still haven’t all been received yet) and trying at least to hit my 2020 goal of six new shirt designs all threw me off my game completely. If you want to know a bit more about that, or anything else from Toby’s Brain in 2020, you can read my year-in-review post from

Tags: #art, #drawings, #illustration, #ink, #inktober #inktober2020, #penandink, #plungermonkey, #plungermonkeydynamo, #PMD|

Lee’s Dragons: Arctic Dragon
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Lee’s Dragons: Arctic Dragon

Lee’s Dragons: Arctic Dragon

It’s that time of year again! My wife had a birthday, so she got another dragon illustration!

This year’s dragon for my wife’s birthday: the Arctic (or Polar) Dragon. This clocked in at about 56 hours and 4 minutes, give or take. It’s a slight departure from the previous entries in that it’s (digital) pen and ink, rather than a fully rendered digital painting. It was my wife’s request, she prefers my ink work I guess.
I studied some images of polar bears to get an appropriate gesture as well as looked up

Tags: #applepencil, #arcticdragon, #art, #conceptart, #conceptdrawings, #conceptillustration, #digitalart, #digitalillustration, #dragon, #dragons, #fantasy, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink, #ipad, #ipadpro, #leesdragons, #penandink|

Happy Mother’s Day, 2020!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. It is a very weird situation to try to celebrate the people in our lives that have played such vital roles during a pandemic when we can’t, or shouldn’t, be physically close. Whether it’s my own mother, my grandmother, my wife, my sister, my aunts…all the mothers in my life and my family have had a positive impact on my life, and it’s very fair to say I wouldn’t be here in one way or another without their love and support over the years. I love you all, and thank you.

Being

Tags: #art, #comics, #copic, #copicmarkers, #dragons, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink, #mothersday, #mothersdaycard, #penandink|

Inktober 2019: Now With 100% More Plungers!
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Inktober 2019: Now With 100% More Plungers!

Inktober 2019: Now With 100% More Plungers!

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do Inktober at all this year. I’ve had too many other things on my mind, too many other projects and outside “real life” stuff vying for my attention. I figured I had to at least give it a shot, though, and if I was going to bother, I needed to come up with something to make it even more interesting for myself. That’s when I decided to incorporate PMD. I fell way behind right out of the gate, but the first several prompts inspired some pretty clear images for

Tags: #art, #comicbooks, #comics, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #graphicnovels, #illustration, #ink, #inktober, #inktober2019, #penandink, #plungermonkey, #plungermonkeydynamo, #PMD, #sketchbook|

STOP! Moleskin Time.
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STOP! Moleskin Time.

STOP! Moleskin Time.

Hey, look at that. I posted last week and said I would post this week, and here I am doing what I said I was going to do. Time to post the annual summer camp moleskin sketches.

As I mentioned last week, summer camp this year was an emotionally challenging one for me. It is the first year since I became a leader and started attending summer camp that my middle son did not camp. My oldest son has always been more on the extroverted side with plenty of self-confidence when it’s needed. He was the one who wanted to join

Tags: #art, #ballpointpen, #boyscouts, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #gsr, #hiddenvalley, #illustration, #ink, #naturedrawing, #observationaldrawing, #penandink, #scoutsbsa, #sketchbook, #sketches, #summercamp|

Happy Mother’s Day 2019!

Here it is, the 2019 Mother’s Day card for my awesome wife!

Another year, another card for my wife on Mother’s Day. The dragon/kids keep growing. It’s always a challenge to come up with a new image, as I usually try to have it reference something we’ve done of note over the past year. It’s tough when the things of note are often the same, like hikes we’ve taken. We certainly try to hike a lot, so reflecting that is fine. It’s just coming up with scenes and compositions that aren’t

Tags: #art, #copicmarkers, #copicmultiliners, #dragons, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #illustration, #ink, #mothersday, #mothersday2019, #mothersdaycard, #penandink|

NEW SHIRT FRIDAY: Bang Your Head!
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NEW SHIRT FRIDAY: Bang Your Head!

NEW SHIRT FRIDAY: Bang Your Head!

Look! A consistent posting pattern! How long will it last?

I can’t answer that, so enjoy it while it lasts.

In case the title wasn’t obvious enough, I’ve decided Friday is going to be New Shirt Friday. At least until I make it through the various new shirt ideas I’ve got. This week’s offering targets a particular nitch. Well, I guess you could say all my shirts target specific nitches of one kind or another (like fans of monkeys with plungers on their heads. That’s pretty specific). I am a self-proclaimed metal head. I’m not a die-hard concert goer (because people. I’ve

Tags: #art, #ballpointpen, #digitalart, #digitalillustration, #drawings, #galleryupdate, #heavymetal, #heavymetalfan, #illustration, #ink, #metal, #naturedrawing, #observationaldrawing, #penandink, #photoshop, #sketchbook, #sketches, #tshirts|

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