Manga and comic book character art materials now in stock at Skills Stony Stratford

The wait is over as the sought after Faber Castell Manga pitt pens are now back in stock, along with our popular manga & comic tutorial book.  The manga pen set has 8 shades of grey for effective monochrome character illustration.  All the shades of Faber Castell Pitt Pen sets are now available to buy individually, give you your dream palette.  These include primary basic, skin tones, bright shades, landscape shades and sepias.

Also available at Skills is the versatile Letraset ProMarker set.  The inks are alcohol based, which gives incredible tonal range, blending ability with a blender pen included.  These pens can be applied to a diverse range of materials, not just paper; apply to paper, card, acetate, glass, plastic, wood, etc .
The book ‘The art of drawing manga & comic book characters’ gives detailed analysis of character drawing for fine art and digital illustration.  This includes 21 engaging projects by talented artists Bob Berry and Jeannie Lee, who also share their professional tips and hints.

For ideal presentation and portfolio display their are two illustration pads we have with top notch paper quality for pen and markers, with the Bristol pad including a layout comic border for storyboards.  We also stock ink transfer medium should you want to diversify and experiment with your manga designs onto furniture or wood panels.  The possibilities are endless!

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What is so special about Unison Soft Pastels?

Skills are the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire stockist for the top quality Unison soft pastel range.  Why do artists choose these particular pastels over other varities on the market?  The reason why they were created in the first place is due to creator John Hersey’s experience as a pastel artist.  He was dissatisfied with manufactured pastels available – which had poor colour vibrancy, inconsistent colour texture, and often crumbling and breaking soon after purchase.
John Hersey was born in 1925. He was a student at the Byam Shaw School of art in London where he won a Rome scholarship and lived in Italy for several years. On returning to London, he continued to paint and ran a business making fine art colour slides.

With his experience using pastels, John had a vision for the quality of pastel he would like to use for his artwork.  For several years he worked on methods of production, colour sequences and the texture of his pigment mixtures. In 1987 he decided to offer the results to fellow pastallists, with immediate interest.  Eventually sales expanded in the USA and now the Unison brand is known as a sought after artists quality pastel range.  Find out how the unison pastels are made.

Unison pastels are available to purchase at Skills individually in a pick n mix purchase and a special offer for 6.  Attractive boxed sets, including starter, bright, dark, portrait, and landscape are also available for a special Christmas gift.

Click on the wheel to view the complete range.

Skills Christmas Window

If you haven't time to window shop in Stony Stratford then here is Skill's window to browse at your leisure.  The previous window was the Alice in Wonderland theme to join the fantastic windows in  Stony Stratford High Street for the lantern parade two weeks ago.  As Skills houses such fantastic Christmas gift ideas, this window shows off our fab adult colouring books, artist faber Castell quality marker pens - including a pack called 'Shades of Grey' though 6 rather than 50!  Our brand new zentangle range now in stock, along with art doodle books for the budding artist to try their hand at a Picasso or Degas.  The window easel displays our artist of the week Stony Stratfords own Derek Daniells.  This gorgeous framed acrylic painting of Stony Stratford under Snow delicately captures a scene of the High Street from the Old Stratford bridge, making a stunning winter centrepiece in our display.