Canson Fanboy Comic & Manga Trading Cards Review

As I continue to try the pre-made Artist Trading Cards (ATC) blank packs available commercially, I picked up a couple of Canson Fanboy Comic & Manga Trading Cards boxes on my last visit to the Jerry's Artarama store in Miami. Each box contains 20 cards (2.5" x 3.5" 150 lb/250 gsm acid free paper) with their protective sleeves.
A two-sided instructional sheet is included in each box. One side is printed in French and the other in English. It is more of a quick primer and a bit of inspiration to get a budding manga artist started.
The front and back of each card is printed with non-repro blue grids for framing miniature art and recording the name of the artist and contact info.
Used the Prismacolor Archival Illustration Markers with a chisel, 03, and 005 nibs to ink a ninja character on the blank Canson Fanboy manga card. For a tighter cleaner image, it would be better to draw the coloring outline first with pencil, ink it, and then erase any remaining pencil marks that are still visible.
The Prismacolor 005 pen nib is quite delicate and bends rather easily under my normal drawing pressure. Thus, I had to periodically rotate the pen to bend it back to its original shape. I should probably stick to the 03 nib as my smallest regular pen nib, but all of them feature a steady ink flow and smooth performance on all the ATC stock tested. Even the bent nib retained its functionality throughout the test, but I would not expect the 005 nib pen to last as long as the larger nibs in the long run. Already decided not to get the 005 eight color set because of this experience.
Couple of finished cards drawn on Canson Fanboy manga paper. Once in its protective plastic sleeve, the card is a tad more difficult to photograph.
Not really happy with how this mermaid card turn out on the Blue Line stock. Yellow was not a particular good choice for rendering shadow areas of skin tones. Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens can be difficult to blend and apply evenly. I actually prefer the uncolored stage of this particular example.Selecting the colors more carefully and working from light to dark hues resulted in the cleaner image of this dragon sketch card drawn on smooth Strathmore 300 Bristol board.
The small size of the ATC format allows for their design and completion in a short time with very few tools almost anywhere. Managed to do a few of these sample cards while waiting at the hospital and auto shop.
Using the thickest pen nib, 08, to outline the figure and separate it from the background more clearly.
Sketching with the Prismacolor Archival Illustration Markers to create waterproof coloring outlines and coloring them with the water-based Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens is a pretty effective combination of art materials.
Finished custom manga set of ATC in their protective sleeves.
The Canson paper readily accepted H and & 7B graphite marks and erased fairly easily without damage to its surface .
A pack of Canson Fanboy Comic & Manga Trading Cards is quite a suitable addition for a field sketching kit. Its compact size and performance works well while on-the-go with a variety of drawing and coloring tools. The box of 20 cards with their sleeves is often priced quite competitively for 2-4 bucks, so it can be a pretty efficient option for when you lack the time to cut your own ATC cards.

Holiday Guide Addendum

As we get down to the wire with the holiday gift season, here is a short list for suitable gift suggestions for budding artists that might enjoy some quality watercolor sets:

1. Faber Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolor Pencils set of 12 would be a good start.
2. Caran D'Ache Supracolor II set of 18 watercolor pencils another nice option.
3. Caran D'Ache Neocolor II set or 10 or 15 watercolor crayons. A personal favorite which I carry everywhere.
4. Holbein Artists' watercolors set of twelve 5 ml tubes.
5. Winsor & Newton Artists' watercolor half pans gift set. A classic choice.
6. Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks - a couple would make a neat stocking stuffer.

Ooops forgot to mention a couple of tools to use with these sets:
Pentel Aquash or Kuretake Niji waterbrushes - make an ideal bundle with the watercolor pencils and watercolor half pan sets.
For traditional round Kolinsky sable brushes, I would suggest researching if the following might suit your needs:
- Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Round Brush, for I really like my #4 for some loose sketching.
- Escoda Kolinsky-Tajmyr Sable Pointed Round Series 1212 & 1214, a responsive brush manufactured in Spain.
- Raphael Kolinsky Red Sable Fine Pointed Round Series 8404, I still have to try one of these, but I have seen it mentioned often as a popular choice for comic book inkers.

Bit of Speed Sketching for the Evening - Trial for a new Sketching tool

While most of the students and their families decorated their holiday cards, I started taking requests for quick sketching demos. My trusted Sakura Pigma Sensei 0.6 mm pen which is my usual first choice for event sketching turned out not to be up for the task on account of being rather dry. Thus, I ended up switching to a black Copic Sketch marker outfitted with a medium round nib. This was the first actual field test for this customized sketching tool that I put together mainly for sketching cartoon portraits. Its line is much thicker than 0.6 mm, and proved quite suitable for drawing bold strokes quickly and smoothly. It is certainly a good choice for keeping up the sketching speed though it is difficult to render small details with it. Its other advantage is that Copic markers are refillable, so carrying a bottle of spare ink would ensure continuous reliable service even when the ink supply runs out halfway during an extended event.
The first sketch request for the evening was for a picture of Strawberry Shortcake.
Good thing dragons were requested often since they are one of the subjects that I can draw quite quickly. Since my family name means "Dragon" in Chinese (notice the dragon character printed on the back of my coat in the last photo of this entry), I am rather fond of them.

Demonstrating how loosely stringing a few basic geometric shapes together can quickly convey the concept of a robot city that would fit in the Transformers universe.
Since mermaids always seem to be a popular subject with Elementary and Middle School students, 2 of the available bonus sketching sheets featured them.
I think this was the third mermaid cartoon portrait request for the evening, but I have to admit I lost track of the actual number of sketches I managed to produce on this evening.

Tinkerbell was another popular request.
Trying to explain the drawing and design process while sketching as many doodles as possible can be a challenge sometimes.
Also recall doing a Sponge Bob, Patrick, Spiderman, and Winnie the Pooh quick sketches. Bit surprised nobody asked for a Batman sketch.
Kept on drawing the students' requests until the very end of the Family Night event. I think most were pleased with their sketches though I was not able to undertake all of them in the time allowed. It was quite fun and looking forward to performing in similar venues in the future.

Photo Journal of the Card Making Station at the Family Night of the Boys & Girls Club - Parkside Elementary Edition

Continuing the Family Night events for the Boys and Girls Club in cooperation with the United Arts Council, dad helped me set up the Holiday Card Making stations at Parkside Elementary on this evening.
As a bonus creative activity, we had a selection of coloring and sketching worksheets set up behind the sample cards display.

The full-size poster sleeves proved quite useful again in defining the work stations and facilitating clean up of the glitter station.
We had a pretty good attendance to for the Family Night student performances and arts and crafts activities.



Student coloring one of the dragon bonus sketching worksheets.
The microphone came in quite handy to provide instructions clearly in English and Spanish at the beginning of the card making activities.

Students and their parents working together on their holiday cards.


Students coloring their holiday cards.



The glitter station always seems to be a pretty big hit with the students, but I try to limit its use to events held in areas that are easier to clean up or contain like the cafeteria or outdoor venues. The experience of taking the card-making station down a second time in as many weeks convinced me to find a better way to store and manage the Crayola markers rather than continue to keep them separate in their original cardboard boxes. The latter is an exercise in futility, for it consumes a couple of hours just trying to reassemble the different color palettes in their respective boxes. Next event I will keep all of the markers in an extended tray or dedicated storage tub.

Photo Journal of the Card Making Station at the Family Night of the Boys & Girls Club

Along with other artists from the United Arts Council (UAC), I participated in the Family Night of the local Boys & Girls Club about a week ago, and finally got around compiling this photo journal. I set up the greeting cards making station in 3 picnic tables (2 for coloring the 4 available card templates, and one for decorating them with glitter).
Poster display sleeves came in quite handy for covering the tables, providing a evenly smooth work surface, and securely holding the colored reference sample cards and step-by-step instruction sheets.
The coloring tables were stocked with an assortment of fine and broad tip Crayola washable markers that also included a selection of skin tone colors and some bright colors to expand the expressive range of the sets of classic colors.









Several families worked together on their holiday cards.





The finishing table was stocked with plenty of Crayola glitter pens, glitter shakers, and glue sticks to add some sparkle to the colored cards.




Abby with her display of students' art works. Had the pleasure of help jury the entries a couple of days earlier.
The Beads tables were another popular self-service craft activity available on this evening.


Several families enjoyed making their own holiday twig baskets with David and Sarah.


Miss Niki ran a very popular Clay Bowl Making station.


Kim held a Snowflake Ornament Station were Petri dishes were used quite ingeniously as the support for the paper cut out snowflakes.

Towards the end of the evening, I ended up doing several cartoon portraits and speed sketches of dragons and mermaids upon request which proved fairly popular (though did not manage to take any shots of that, for I still have to figure out a way to draw and photograph myself at the same time).