Happy New Year. We are heading fast into the beast of 2023. The January Artsnacks box arrived a few days ago and didn’t disappoint. This time of year is always very busy, so it took a little bit of time to get to unboxing this month’s box. Let’s find out what’s inside.

What’s in the Artsnacks box?

Everything is so thicc. Right off the bat, we got 2 stubby thick watercolor/wax crayon/colored pencils called the Stabilo Woody. These are new to me and were fun to use. They’re very smooth to work with and blend easily with water. I am not a fan of getting white watercolor items, but these pencils worked very well over black.
For black, we received a very thick Tombow MONO Twin Permanent Marker. A fat bullet nib on one end and a fatter chisel tip on the other. Permanent oil-based ink meant it applied and dried fast and didn’t smudge or run when I went over it with the Woody pencils or water.
The accent color in my box is a LIMITED EDITION Daniel Smith Sleeping Beauty Turquoise watercolor in a half pan. I love blue and turquoise is right there. This is no exception to the Daniel Smith brand. Being super exclusive meant that the color was extracted from the gemstones in some Sleeping Beauty Mountain in Arizona. Sounds fancy. Vibrant and brilliant watercolor. I love it. The pan came with a swatch booklet and sticker from Daniel Smith.
Last was a  Snap! 9650 Golden Synthetic Stroke 1/2” brush from Princeton. It’s a very nice brush and flexes like other Snap! brushes I’ve received in the past. I got comfortable with my water brush and didn’t end up using this brush yet.

What to draw for the #artsnackschallenge?

For my art snacks challenge drawing, I wanted to try something new and use a little bit of A.I. I fired up Stable Diffusion and typed in some prompts. Selecting the colors I received in the box, let’s go with “yellow, black, turquoise fox” in the prompt. After a few revisions and keywords added, I found the style of fox I would enjoy drawing. This new fox is primarily yellow and black with turquoise eye color. What a strange new world we’re living in. Have you tried any of the new A.I. engines available online for fun or making your life easier? I would definitely suggest trying it out.

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Thanks for reading. Keep drawing and have a great day.  

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January 2023 Artsnacks Box Items:

Stabilo Woody 3-in-1 pencil $3.04 (Artsnacks retail: $3.40 ea)  https://www.dickblick.com/products/stabilo-woody-3-in-1-pencils/ 

Daniel Smith Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Genuine Watercolor Half Pan $8.07 (Artsnacks retail: $13.44)  https://www.dickblick.com/products/daniel-smith-watercolor-half-pans/

Tombow MONO Twin Permanent Marker $4.19 (Artsnacks retail: $4.19) https://www.dickblick.com/products/tombow-mono-twin-permanent-markers/

Princeton Snap! Series 9650 Synthetic Brush, Stroke 1/2” $8.25 (Artsnacks retail: $7.65) https://www.dickblick.com/products/princeton-snap-series-9650-golden-synthetic-brushes/

The Sketchbook I use for Artsnacks Challenges:

RENDR Hardbound Sketchbook, 5.5″ x 8.5″  https://www.dickblick.com/products/crescent-rendr-no-show-thru-sketchbooks/

The post Stable Fusion A.I. told me what to draw | Artsnacks Unboxing January 2023 appeared first on Friendly Fox by Maximus Fox.

Just as the warm weather started, Artsnacks May box turned out to be an awesome collection. Sure, there’s another brush, but I would be upset to get paint or watercolor without any brush or utensil to work with. Lately, I have been on the fence about cancelling my subscription, but I’m glad I held on for this month’s box. Let’s find out what’s inside.

What’s in the Artsnacks box?

There are some repeats in this month’s box, but in new colors. The Kuretake-ZIG Clean Color pen has a great bristle brush tip that works like it’s applying watercolor. You can layer it and make a wash with water. I got a cool gray color. In the past, I have gotten a red Clean Color pen.

Second pen is the Pentel Arts Brush Tip Sign Pen, which I have 2 blue versions. The pink color worked great in shadows and I really like the flexible tip on these pens. It feels like both a standard pen you would use all the time and a pen that is unique with its flexible tip. I guess that’s the magic of Pentel Arts products.

Next, we received a KINGART Premium White Nylon 7950 Brush Size 1 in the box, which was great for fine details. This brush will work great with paint and watercolor.

What’s this funny little swatch book?

The pigment to use in this month’s box was a cool little pocket-sized flippy book with 16 watercolor swatches. It’s very well-made and has a panel in the back for mixing colors. This little book from Viviva Colors is an excellent idea and will pair well with a water brush when taking the set on the go. I love the vibrance of the colors and the variety each hue provided. Each hue’s name is below the pigment swatch with a rectangle area to make a sample swatch. This is a great little book that I plan to use many times in the future.

What to draw for the #artsnackschallenge?

For my #artsnackschallenge using all of the supplies in the box, I drew some of the hot pepper characters that I have been working on. I plan on turning the original illustrations into vector files and coloring in Illustrator that can be produced as stickers, shirt designs, or other items. Using this month’s supplies, I redrew some of the characters in my RENDR sketchbook and outlined in black COPIC ink. Applying watercolor with the Viviva Colorsheets worked great. Each color has great vibrance and transparency. I was able to achieve small detail with the KINGART brush while also blending some of the colors.

I really liked using the Viviva Colorsheets and will be sure to take it with me when traveling.   

Thanks for reading. Keep drawing and have a great day.

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May 2022 Artsnacks Box Items:

Viviva Colorsheets Book   https://vivivacolors.com/products/original-single-set-16-colors/
KINGART Premium White Nylon 7950 Series Brush   https://www.kingartco.com/products/kingart-premium-white-nylon-7950-series-round-artist-brushes
Kuretake-ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Pen   https://www.dickblick.com/products/zig-clean-color-real-brush-pens/
Pentel Arts Brush Tip Sign Pen   https://www.dickblick.com/products/pentel-arts-brush-tip-sign-pens

The Sketchbook I use for Artsnacks Challenges:

RENDR Hardbound Sketchbook, 5.5″ x 8.5″  https://www.dickblick.com/products/crescent-rendr-no-show-thru-sketchbooks/

The post I have a rainbow flipbook to show you | Artsnacks Unboxing May 2022 appeared first on Friendly Fox by Maximus Fox.

October is over and cooler weather is in full effect. The leaves in our trees are fully changing color and summertime is becoming a distant past. This year feels like it went by faster than last because we were more accustomed to socially distancing from everyone. But 2019 still feels like decades ago. But a new box of Artsnacks is here to warm me up. Let’s open it up and see what came.

The November Artsnacks box came with a smaller selection of tools, but each felt very high quality.

What’s in the Artsnacks box?

First item in the box is a rather thick water brush. I have several water brushes already, so I was hoping this one was better. You fill up the barrel of the brush with water and squeeze it out to use with watercolor or other spreadable mediums. But this one from Derwent with its dedicated push button function and contoured barrel feels much more complete and durable than those other brushes. A $11.49 retail price point might be a little high though. I couldn’t understand if the cap was supposed to be placed on the end of the barrel or not when the brush is in use. It definitely didn’t stay on properly.

Next in the box was a pair of Faber-Castell Gelatos. I love the quality and vibrance of Gelatos, and this box came with an iridescent purple and a vibrant lime green. These pastel crayons (or whatever they are) function like a lip stick product. You twist the base of the plastic container to advance the pigment up. Using the Gelatos is a nice and creamy experience. They blend well with other colors and with water.

To pair with the purple and green is a bottle of concentrated liquid water color. Dr. Ph. Martin’s Radiant in a 53D Iris Blue is a deep purple-blue right out of the bottle and can be watered down using the water brush. The bottle itself is made of glass and comes with a rubber dropper integrated into the cap. I love when liquid supplies come with a useful cap instead of just having to pour out the ink or having to dip my brush or pen. This concentrated water color proved to dry pretty fast, so I needed to work fast to avoid any weird brush strokes in my work.

What to draw for the #artsnackschallenge?

For my #artsnackschallenge using all of the supplies in the box, I drew my fox character going fishing. Instagram posts let me know watercolor of some sort was coming and the iris blue worked perfect for the water. Blending the purple and green Gelatos for the rest of the scene worked out pretty good. I also tried to use the Iris Blue water color for line work, but the brush tip on the water brush was too flexible for thin lines. A fine liner or short brush would have been perfect for the finishing touches.

In all, I’m happy with the end result and will come back to use these products more in the future.   

Have a great day.

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November Artsnacks Box Items:

Derwent Push Button Water Brush   https://www.dickblick.com/products/derwent-push-button-waterbrushes/
Faber-Castell Gelato Pastels   https://www.dickblick.com/products/faber-castell-gelatos-sets/
Dr. Ph. Martin’s Radiant Concentrated Watercolor   https://www.dickblick.com/products/dr-ph-martins-radiant-concentrated-individual-watercolors/

The Sketchbook I use for Artsnacks Challenges:

RENDR Hardbound Sketchbook, 5.5″ x 8.5″  https://www.dickblick.com/products/crescent-rendr-no-show-thru-sketchbooks/

The post Artsnacks Unboxing November 2021 | Water is wet. appeared first on Friendly Fox by Maximus Fox.

Happy Inktober. It’s time to draw something every day following a prompt, and share to social media. And we got ink in this month’s Artsnacks box. I wouldn’t expect anything less. Should I use it for my Inktober daily illustrations or not?

What’s in the box?

The red Liquitex Professional Acrylic ink is very fluid and is easy to build up. The glass bottle holds 30 ml and has a built-in dropper. I love this ink. But I wanted to keep my Inktober posts in all black. So I’ll have to find other projects to use this ink.

The other color to pair with it comes a product name that I butcher. The Kuretake-ZIG Higashiyama Manga Liner works like a gel pen but has the form of a paint marker. The metallic green I got is a nice color, but I wish the nib had a little bit of flex in it. In hindsight, I probably should have did some water brushing this ink to see what kind of results I could get. It’s a great color with lots of sheen.

We got another brush in this box, a Winsor-Newton Professional Watercolour Synthetic Sable brush, and my size 0 was good for the small details. Otherwise, I was using the ink bottle dropper to spread the ink around.

The last item in the box was another pencil. I’m surprised to find out that Mitsubishi makes pencils, or any art supply, and this pencil will leave an impression on me like a Fast and Furious fanboy loving Eclipses. (From a commenter on Youtube, I later found out that Mitsubishi makes the Uni- line of art and writing products. I have so many POSCA markers, but never looked at the tiny writing on the barrel of the pens! You learn something new every day.)

What to draw?

So it’s football season, and we got a guy running with the old pigskin. Does he score? Probably.. because I didn’t draw anyone else in the picture to take him down. Happy Inktober or whatever. So this is my #artsnackschallenge submission for the month of October.

Have a great day.

The post Artsnacks Unboxing October 2021 for Inktober. First Down and Ten to Go appeared first on Friendly Fox by Maximus Fox.

Fine Liners, brush tip markers, and a paint marker. What could be better? Maybe more than one color on the paint marker.

I love blue, but was expecting some red or orange color this month to match the fancy fox I drew before opening the box. Ah well.. he’s going to be an arctic fox I guess. I’m not really sure what style of clothing he’s wearing. It’s more of a mishmash of different stuff. His own style. So coloring this gentleman was fun.

I watered down some of the blue acrylic paint from the Montana paint marker and used a brush from a previous art snacks box to give this dude his blue fur. Everything else became black or a medium gray.

The Derwent Line Makers are excellent fineliners and rank as high as some of my favorite fineliners. I just wish the selection came with a very, very fine, a medium, and a really thick instead of 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 that was included. Permanent and professional quality, I will be using these a lot in the future.

The Tombow Fudenosuke Twin Tip brush pen is an old favorite. I had one of these from a previous box, and it performs excellent until someone in the house decides to press too hard on the brush tip ends. Fail. So I will be sure to hide this one and keep it to myself. A new favorite to keep in my supply bag.

The KUM magnesium Long Point pencil sharpener is a great size for portability. So far, it sharpens as expected, and the long point tip it creates is an advantage. This will be good to travel with instead of the cube-shaped triple-sharpener that artsnacks sent in the past.

Lastly, the ShinHan Art Touch Drawing pencil feels very solid and comfortable to work with. I’m happy to have a wood pencil, but a colored pencil would have been better in this box.   

A Fancy fox for the September #artsnackschallenge

Have a great day.

The post Finelines. Artsnacks Unboxing September 2021 appeared first on Friendly Fox by Maximus Fox.

Well, it’s August and nearing the end of summer. But Artsnacks has arrived and it’s time to discover something new. These boxes come with all kinds of new products… and some that are repeats.

Let’s see… we have COPIC and KINGART brush markers in the same box? Awesome. Everyone knows COPIC. KINGART isn’t as widely known, but they lay down a decent color. Speaking of colors, the combination in this box could be better. I love both of these products.

Alcohol-based COPIC and water-based KINGART worked together on a piece of Stonehenge Warm White Paper. I found this pad of paper at the local Blick art store for cheap on the clearance rack.. SCORE!

Next in the box was the Stabilo Point 88 fineliner. This is a great pen for any use, even if I got a muted purple in this box. I have a whole set of these Point 88 fineliners. And while they’re cheap, they are reliable and come in a wide range of colors. Just be careful with the tip.

Last, the gimmicky Uni Kurutoga pencil doesn’t hold any value for me and will be a decent gift for someone else. I don’t have much to say about the pencil. Self-sharpening by rotating felt more like the point was always flat.

All in all, this is a decent box and the colors went well together. For my #artsnackschallenge , I started with a geometric shape and created a guy reading within the space. Looks like a comfortable spot to read up some pages, right?

Have a great day.

The post So Many Markers. Artsnacks Unboxing August 20 appeared first on Friendly Fox by Maximus Fox.