300 post wo-hoo! Free Coloring Sheets of Manga Trading Cards Activity

To celebrate reaching this blogging milestone, I am sharing a couple colored samples (using two of the the coloring-sketch templates posted yesterday) and a 3 coloring sheets of manga-style fantasy Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) that you could use the next time a rainy day keeps the kids indoors.
Forest Guardian colored with Faber Castell Big Brush Artist pens.
Sample cartoon portrait colored with a waterbrush and Faber Castell Albrecht Durer aquarelle sticks.
Instructions: Print any of this fantasy trading card sheets on card stock and color with colored pencils or fine-tip markers. Then cut along the straight lines. Repeat and try different color combinations after reviewing your color theory.
The theme here was elemental or Magical ladies.
Bit of Egyptian inspiration in this set.

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.

Artist Trading Cards (ATC) early tests

Continuing to brainstorm material for art enrichment classes for Elementary school children next year, I am focusing on small format activities that could be accomplished in 50 minutes class periods while keeping supply requirements and clean up to a minimum for a quick turnover of the classroom. Given the popularity of Kodomo (Manga for kids) card-based games like Pokemon and more recently Bakugan, young kids (9-12 yeras old) are likely to get drawn to an activity where they could create their own Manga style trading cards. Creating Artist Trading Cards (ATC) is an ideal creative activity for kids that allow for effective experimentation with a variety of sketching and coloring tools (crayons, colored pencils, markers, pigment liners, watercolor, and even some collage) in a short time period. While cutting your own 2.5" X 3.5" cards typically used for ATCs from larger sheets is certainly a cost-saving option, they are also available in convenient packs of 20 Strathmore 300 Bristol cards (with smooth or vellum finish depending if the intended media will be India ink or graphite pencil) for when we might be a tad short on prep time.
For drawing the coloring outlines, I used a brush pen loaded with a Platinum ink cartridge, Copic multiliner SP pens, and a Staedtler Technical drawing pen since their waterproof ink would better resist smearing when coloring with alcohol and water-based media.
Always a good idea to have a larger piece of scrap paper beneath the ATC to facilitate coloring all the way to the edge.
Coloring stages.
Close up of the finished card.
First sample set of ATCs colored with Copic Sketch Markers and Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens.A few coloring cards ready for testing.
The small format allows for quick completion time with fairly satisfactory results. Nicole here looks quite pleased with the card she just colored in a few minutes.
Colored Mermaid card close up.