#observationaldrawing

Gallery Update: Coco

I’m really not looking to go into the business of painting portraits of people’s late pets, but in the last year I’ve found myself doing just that 3 times (so far…everyone else’s pets had better stay healthy). I finally added the first two to the gallery, Quegan and Max, which I had somehow blogged about without adding them. Anyway, this is Coco, my author friend’s beloved puppy that passed away earlier in 2016 at 15ish years old, if memory serves me right (EDIT: memory serves me wrong, she was only 6). She

Gallery Update: Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Bird! It’s a…Well, It Is a Bird…

It’s been far too long since I’ve updated the site (I hate how much I say that…I hate how much I say “I hate how much I say that” when referencing how long it’s been since I’ve updated the site, too). As usual: life. I have something biggish planned that is slowly in the works. I was close to having it ready last week, but ran into a hiccup. I’m excited about it, but y’all will just have to be excited about my vagueness…though if you’ve been paying attention to the tobysbrain facebook page, you’ve probably already got

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: Pet Portraits

Hey, another week, another update! Consistency!

I’m still trying to catch up on some of those blog post ideas I’ve mentioned several times now. I have a few more to go. I finished up a page in 10 Things and I was slowly trying to wrap my head around the next, very complex page when I got the go ahead to rework another project, which will tie me up for most of the week, I think. I’ve continued with the daily manga self-portraits. It’s getting tougher to come up with interesting expressions, but I’m still finding ways to have fun with

50 Shades of (Toby) Gray

Alright, just to clear the air: I have not seen the movie nor read the book, and I have ZERO intention to, but I couldn’t resist the play on words as a title for this entry. Forgive me.

Anywhat, *gasp*, right? A second post this week? I told you, I have a bunch of plans and ideas, I’m just struggling to make the time to get around to them. But, since I did pass a small milestone this week with drawing my 50th manga self portrait, I didn’t want to wait too long without doing something fun to mark the occasion.

Process: How to Mangafy Yourself in 6 Easy Steps

Okay, I’ve been busy for a while. Life and stuff. But, since everyone is clamoring for it (well, no one is actually doing any clamoring…other than imaginary people in my head. No, that’s not sad, it’s, um, practice.  For when I actually have fans and followers. Who clamor for things. Yeah. Definitely practice. Not sad…), I thought I’d throw together a quick process post for how I’ve been going about my manga self portrait exercise.

Manga-style self-portrait practice Grrrr…or, Arrrr…you decide!

First, I snap a reference photo of myself and open it in Photoshop.

Inktober 2015 Recap

Now that we’re half way through November, I’m finally getting around to doing a recap of my first Inktober. In case you missed it, Inktober is an annual challenge started by artist Jake Parker. The goal is to do one ink drawing every day for the month of October (or as many as you can manage) in order to improve your skills with ink as well as foster the good art habit of daily practice. When I decided to take up the challenge, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do a drawing every few days, much less every

GALLERY UPDATE: Shadow of the Flute-The Return of the Cello Flute

Well, here we are, almost two weeks since my previous post. Here I am, still hoping to be more consistent in the studio now that the kids are back in school. Here I am, starring down several more hectic and busy weeks. *Le sigh* (that must be read as Pepe le Pew. If you didn’t know to do that already…then either I’m old or you’re uncultured).

Anywhat, I haven’t been completely not in my studio or otherwise making art (though it sure feels like it). On the second day of school, my wife took her last vacation day of the summer

Stuff and Things

Well, this is by far the longest I’ve gone between site updates since before I started this website (think about that a moment…). Where the heck have I been? What have I been up to? Why is the typical Monday update happening on a Thursday? Why are squids?

Please, hold all your questions until the end, but since you asked:

  1. It’s been summer vacation, which means my studio time has been sporadic to non-existent whilst the kids are home, running amok.
  2. I’ve been being the stay-at-home dad, dealing with fights, bickering, complaints, etc. But we’ve also manage to have a lot of fun,
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