April ScrawlrBox

A few weeks ago the April ScrawlrBox popped through my door (ScrawlrBox is a UK based art supply subscription – every month I get new lots of lovely new arty surprises by post!)! Here’s what treats this month’s box contained:

• Featured Artist card (April’s artist is manga illustrator Mina Petrovia aka Mistiqarts), ScrawlrBox sticker, card with information on all the included products and details of the ScrawlrBox challenge: “Manga Yourself”
• Sakura Pigma Brush Pen
• Graphmaster Dual Marker pens in black and cool greys 3, 6 and 9
• Sukara Gelly Roll pen in white
• Graphmaster Permanent Liners (M, F and S)
• Koh-I-Noor 10H pencil
• A couple of sheets of unnamed smooth paper and a Polo mint!

This selection of supplies is very similar to my usual way of drawing, with the exception of the extremely hard pencil – I did end up swapping that for a softer one! I use fine liners, brush pens and alcohol markers often in the creation of my doodles so this box wasn’t as much of a departure from my usual process as last month’s was! However, drawing in a manga style I found to be very very difficult! Here’s my first attempt as a manga me (a 12 year old manga me who received their letter from Dumbledore and got to go to Hogwarts!):

There was a hint of manga about the drawing but I knew that I hadn’t got it quite right, so a few days later I had another go and was happier with the proportions this time round. Here’s my manga-mini-me take two:

As well as trying to master a manga style, working only in monochrome was quite a challenge for me too, I do love lots and lots of colour! So, I brought out my coloured pencils and made a colour version of my Hogwarts girl to satisfy that neeeeeed for colour.

It was a fun challenge and I’m glad to have tried something new with some familiar supplies. I’m going to persevere with the manga drawings and see if I can improve! I am really enjoying receiving these boxes every month and the push they give me to try something different, both in terms of new materials and techniques and also new drawing styles.

You an read more about the featured artist and the supplies in this month’s box over on ScrawlrBox’s website.

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