Deadline extended until this Wednesday, so get drawing kids!

Since I do not check my Facebook page often, I had missed the announcement for this neat Staedtler Mars Lumograph drawing contest that will end on Wednesday 9. So if you are up to it, sharpen those pencils and get cracking since you still have a few hours left in the day boys and girls. The Mars Lumograph pencils are the neat artist pencils that we used in our cartooning classes. This Manga Wizard was drawn on the Maruman Croquis S163 pocket sketchbook and then added to the template below.
These were my two eleventh hour entries. Hope you take this speed sketching challenge and come up with a couple of your own now that you have another day to come up with your designs.

Staedtler Lumograph Class Pack: Gearing up for Manga Cartooning classes for the summer

Just received the art supplies for the summer manga cartooning classes. Thus seemed like a good time to do some quick tests with the sketch kits contained in the Staedtler Lumograph Class Pack. The class pack yellow canister sharpener is large enough to hold a fair amount of shavings and works ok, but I find its cutting performance to be not as smooth as that of the KUM wedge sharpeners. Even when held vertically, the yellow sharpener tends to crack and snap off the sides of the wood tip.
Comparison chart of the different graphite pencils drawn on Blick White Sulphite 80 lb Drawing Paper. The HB, B, and 2B pencils lay down swatches that retain their linear quality while the 4B, 6B, and 8B pencils easily produce uniform dark tone areas. The harder pencils work well for the initial blocking and sketching of a drawing structure, and the softer pencils help define the forms and darker shadow areas in the final stages of the drawing process.

Art Materials for Manga Cartooning workshop

One optional art supply that might be often overlooked is a handy letter size clipboard to hold and support your drawing paper. Try to keep several sheets of paper on the clipboard while working to provide adequate cushioning and get the optimal performance out of your drawing tools. This set up also allows you to easily change the angle of your drawing surface, so that you can view your reference model and your drawing at the same time for improved accuracy.
A couple of readily available paper choices for a beginner's Manga cartooning short course. All the materials shown on the bottom row can be easily found at the office supplies sections of major retail stores. The Canson Manga drawing paper is a sturdy specialty paper that works well with both pencil and inks that can be found at many online art supplies retailers. Faber Castell Pitt Artist pen inks display quite nicely on this Manga paper.
Close up snapshot of the suggested minimalist sketching kit. This reference chart showcase some of the handling properties and the range of greys and dark swatches that can be rendered with a selection of Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils of different graphite grades (HB through 8B). If I had to pick a single inking pen, the Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen B with its brush nib and waterproof pigmented ink makes for a fairly versatile brush pen choice that can easily draw thin to thicker lines just by changing the drawing hand pressure on the tip. It does take a bit of practice not to prematurely damage the tip of the delicate brush nib: the broad sample strokes were drawn using the side of the brush nib by keeping the pen almost parallel to the paper while the thinner strokes were drawn using a fairly light touch. Avoid pressing the nib point directly against the paper and try holding the pen at an angle to reduce undue stress.