ScrawlrBox for April 2017
The ScrawlrBox for April has arrived and it has some very interesting items. There are some new markers that may be an economical alternative to Copic markers! There are also some Zig pens! I have included my affiliate links for Amazon and MisterArt down below if you are interested in trying these supplies for yourself.
When you open the box this is what you see. Alcohol Markers! Zig pens! And more!
The first items in the box were some Stylefile markers. These are a new brand of alcohol markers that are a Copic alternative. Their price is cheaper than Copics and they are refillable. These markers have a brush nib and a chisel nib. There are 124 colors in this brush marker series. The colors I got were Cool Grey 0, Mint Green Light, and Cool Grey 5. You can find out more about these markers at http://www.stylefilemarker.com/ The Stylefile brushmarkers come in different sets of 12, 24, 36, and 48. They retail for roughly about $3.13 a piece if you buy them in groups.
Next I received two Zig Mangaka marker pens. One pen was a Mangaka Flexible Marker pen with a fine nib and the other was a Cartoonist Mangaka pen with a 0.5 mm nib. These pens are smudge proof and waterproof. These can be found in sets on Amazon.com.
There was also a Cretacolor Monolith woodless graphite pencil. These pencils are great for making detailed graphite drawings. These pencils retail for around $1.73 a piece on dickblick.com and can be found in sets at Amazon.com.
Next there was a white Stabilo All Surface pencil. These pencils are supposed to be able to even write on glass surfaces. You can find these for usually around $1.39 or $1.12 at Misterart.com when you join their VIP club .
To go along with the markers there were two 5X7 inch sheets of Canson Bristol paper 250 gsm. You can find a 9X12 inch pad of 25 sheets of 260 gsm paper at Amazon for around $10.10
Finally there was the items list, a print from the artist of the month, and some Tango Poppin' Candy. The artist of the month was Stina Jones. Check her work out at www.stinajones.co.uk. The Scrawlr challenge this month is 'stranger worlds'. The Tango candy was good and tasted like our Pop Rocks candy that we have in the USA.
Doodlin' Time!
The Zig Mangaka pens make very fine lines and are waterproof. The Cretacolor graphite pencil is good for covering large areas with graphite. The Stylefile brushmarkers blend fairly well together. I don't think these markers blend quite as smoothly as Copics or Blick Studio markers, but they are pretty nice. I tried out the white Stabilo pencil over some black ink from the Mangaka pens and it showed up very well. The Canson Bristol paper works well with these markers although they bleed through the paper a little bit.
'Blue Rose'
by Ellie Taylor
I used the Cretacolor graphite pencil to sketch out the rose first. Then I used the markers to color the rose and the stem. I also used the Cool Grey 0 for the background. Next I used the Mangaka pens to draw in the details of the rose. I used the white Stabilo pencil to add some highlights on the rose. I think that if you are not primarily a marker artist these Stylefile markers are a good economic alternative to Copics, especially if you just make occasional marker paintings or use them for coloring books.
This was a very exciting box for me because it had some new alcohol markers for me to test and compare to other brands. I have been trying all kinds of markers lately and I really like these Stylefile markers. Also if you follow my blogs then you know I am a huge fan of Zig pens, so this was an excellent box for me! Check out the ScrawlrBox at http://scrawlrbox.uk/ They start at £15 a month with free shipping in the UK. Everyone else pays shipping costs and for the US the total cost is roughly $25 including the shipping cost.