"The gym changed my life." Heard it a thousand times. Said it myself. But somewhere between the fourth set and the protein shake, a question crept in — what else is out there?
I've spent over a decade as a personal trainer in East London. I've watched people transform — physically, mentally, completely. Training is real. The discipline, the community, the results — all real. But I've also watched people disappear into it. Use it as a shield. Grind so hard they forget to actually live.
That tension is where DeanTBStudio was born.
I've always drawn. Long before the PT sessions and the park bootcamps, there were sketchbooks — manga panels, street characters, fragments of the world I was moving through. Two years ago I started taking it seriously. Not as a side hustle. As a statement.
"The streets have always been a canvas. I'm just putting panels around what's already there."
— Dean Burt, DeanTBStudioThe Comic Strip Collection
"There Is More to Life Than Gym" is a manga-inspired comic-strip series that does exactly what the title says. It follows characters you'll recognise — the one who's been "cutting" for six months straight, the guy who brings a meal prep bag to a birthday dinner, the woman who genuinely cannot talk about anything else. It's satirical, it's sharp, and if you've ever been that person — you'll laugh because you recognise yourself.
The art pulls from classic manga panelling: dynamic angles, expressive close-ups, that kinetic energy that makes you feel movement on a flat page. But the world is entirely East London. The estates, the parks, the bus routes. The visual language of Japanese comics dropped into SE and E postcodes. That collision is deliberate — it creates something that feels both global and deeply local at the same time.
Each strip works as a standalone piece, but they're building into a wider world. Characters bleed from one strip into the next. There's a longer story being told. You can wear it, frame it, or just read it and feel seen.
The Caution Streetwear Line
The Caution line started with a question: why does streetwear so often look the same? The same fonts, the same washed palettes, the same energy. There's a whole visual language around us every day — road markings, signage, caution tape, the geometry of the city itself — that nobody was really using with intention.
Caution takes that raw urban visual vocabulary and turns it into something you actually want on your body. Bold graphics. Statement pieces. Nothing generic. Every design is hand-drawn, original — no stock art, no templates. Limited runs so it stays exclusive. Heavy cotton cuts that hang right.
It's wearable art. Designed to make people ask where you got it.
"There Is More to Life Than Gym"
Manga-inspired comic strips. Satire, grit, East London. Available as prints and apparel graphics.
Caution — Urban Streetwear
Hand-designed original graphics on heavyweight cuts. Limited runs. The visual language of the city, worn.
Why Now
I spent years keeping the training and the art completely separate. Two different worlds. Two different versions of the same person. What clicked for me — slowly, then all at once — is that they're the same thing. Both are about showing up, doing the work, and being honest about what you see.
The gym teaches you to build. The art teaches you to look. I needed both. And I think a lot of people in East London — who are grinding in both directions, building their bodies and their creative lives at the same time — will feel that too.
DeanTBStudio is for them. For us.
Shop the Collection
Prints, apparel, and new drops — all at the DeanTBStudio Etsy shop. Limited runs. Get it before it's gone.
🛒 Shop DeanTBStudio on Etsy →