#toygrind

[danndesigns]

Rogue Limb

I've been a fan of Thew Adams' YouTube reviews for some time, and i really enjoy listening to his band Rogue Limb while doodling. Today I made a rogue Megatron limb combining my two key Thew interests.

[fuchsiabomb]

first time drawing a robit in awhile so i did everyone’s favorite fruits yoghourt, Yogurt! happy holidays!

[titleknown]

[nebulon-b]

Beast Wars Thewmongous.

Finally i was able to completely finish the Beast Wars @toygrind sketch i did back there. I wanted to make the background homaging the old BW toys’ packaging art style.

[speedfreak01]

so today is thew’s birthday, and i thought i’d do something special for it. so here’s a comic adaptation of the greatest fanfic to grace the internet, DROPSHOT FOUND WEPON

fun fact: this is actually my first piece of sequential art with multiple pages 

[diecastnorbz]

I said I wanted the large!! Good day!! So, how did the rest of you start this amazing day? 😉❤️ #artist #artistofinstagram #mangaartist #comicartist #penciler #creator #illustrator # coffee #coffeelovers #beahero #isaidthelarge #goodday #toygroup #toygrind #GALACTICHOOLIGAN

[fernysattic]

This Inktober day brought to you by LIGHT PIPING and my sickening love for mecha and mecha toys and my continued entertainment watching mecha toy reviewers like Thew Adams, from Toygrind

[bluejayfeathersandwillowtrees]

Midnight Missive #1

How did I become a ride or die bitch for a youtuber I’ve never met, running a channel about a subject that I honestly wasn’t interested in until I started watching his videos?

I’ll tell you.

It was a terrible day in a series of not good days. As an essential worker in a solid red state in the middle of an epidemic (I’m no hero I just stock produce at a grocery store.), I was beyond exhausted. Between the constant onslaught of customers, and the fact that far too many of them (and some coworkers, sadly) still believed the whole thing was a hoax, my stress levels were at their limit, and still straining. My anxiety and depression were starting to get solid footing in our constant battle, and I could feel myself slipping. Everyone had their own concerns and problems, and with everything going on, there wasn’t really anyone to go to that I didn’t feel like I would just be wasting their time.

Maybe it’s just me reader, but the calm that first greets me when I get home tends to betray me when it gets late at night. Suddenly that previously welcome silence settles down around me like the walls of an echo chamber, and like the plot to some ridiculous horror movie, I’m trapped with my own thoughts in a fight for survival until dawn. Depression and anxiety slither into bed beside me and whisper every single thing I never wanted to hear. That night their dreadful words found their mark, and my thoughts began to spiral.

With no means of escape, and sleep rapidly becoming an abstract concept, I knew what I needed: A distraction. I settled on YouTube because I didn’t think I had the focus for anything particularly lengthy or detailed. I was so numb at that point, I didn’t even really care about what I was going to watch. I went to the recommended videos and just started clicking whatever looked interesting. The first couple of videos were either new or old uploads of people I followed. My unwelcome companions’ voices were being diminished, but they were still loud enough to warrant more videos. I was struggling to find anything that held my attention for more than a couple of minutes, and for a time I was beginning to worry that this wasn’t going to work.

While scrolling, I saw a bright thumbnail from a channel I didn’t recognize. The loud intro got my attention, and the cheerful demeanor of the cute man that appeared onscreen managed to keep my focus. The mental chatter waned even more. I had no prior context for what he was talking about, I had never seen these things or heard their names, but I was held captive by his positivity and how much he seemed to legitimately enjoy what he was talking about. His puns and jokes were a delight.

Then it happened.

Reader, I laughed. On a day when nothing had gone right, when I could sense myself sinking in real time, and I didn’t think I could feel anything except emptiness, I laughed. On a day that the people around me couldn’t be there for me, I was rescued by a stranger who will more than likely never know I exist.  

Who was this man? I had to see more, and quickly went to his channel. I scrolled to the popular uploads, the first of which was the aforementioned video. I proceeded to watch several more. I was given an anthology of different looks, locations, camera qualities, and a cast of different characters pertaining to the theme of his channel that I mostly didn’t know. Through changes in everything from hair style to camera angles, his genuine disposition endured. So did his sense of humor. I kept laughing.

At this point I realized my unwanted guests had been hushed and sent on their way, the battle won for at least the night. The dark felt just a little bit lighter, and I finally managed to get some sleep.

I still regularly watch his content. Sometimes a balm on rough days, his voice has become as calming as he is entertaining. Except now I’m laughing and learning. It’s a whole thing I never really gave much thought after seeing a couple of the movies based off of it, but I’m enjoying the subject. I’m stating to watch the shows associated with it, and even bought a few things of my own, as there are clear favorites developing in that long list of characters. Also, some of them just look cool.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, this means very little to anyone but me, but I had to write this out. As an act of gratitude and thanks of course, but also because the urge to write was strong, and it was on my mind. You see, reader, the individual I’m writing about has referenced his own struggles on his twitter and his channel on occasion. He beats himself up quite a bit, and it breaks my heart.

I wish I felt brave enough to send him this somehow. I wish I could tell him that he is enough, that he judges himself too harshly, and I wish I could change whatever made him doubt himself in the first place.  But I don’t know how that would be received, since I don’t pretend to know him or what his life has been, and, being perfectly honest, it’s none of my business. So, for now I’ll just leave it here, a testament to how a person’s creativity can save other people and inspire them to create as well.

So, for any creatives out there questioning your worth, know that you are seen. You never know how much your art means to people, and I am sure there is at least one person out there that cares about you like I care about him.

And just in case, by some twist of fate, you are the dear man that inspired me to write all of this, I want you to read the following very carefully: You are valued, you are loved, and you are enough. You are always enough.