I got mail! Yay!
I know I’ve been a bit absent from here and Twitch streams for the last couple of weeks. This is partly because I’ve been sore (nothing new or unusual about that) and I’ve also been working on my website and coding some more random prompt generators over at RaspberrySheep.com. It’s still under construction, but it has some working parts and links, so feel free to have a look. If it’s broken, I’ve likely been trying something new.
As for the mail I received, I bought some things from eBay last fortnight, so they’re arriving slowly. First thing that arrived was my Touchfive markers.
The Touchfive markers are an alcohol based marker, like the Copic markers, but a fraction of the cost. I only bought the set of 40 markers to see how I liked them, but there’s 168 markers in the full set, which I will be buying soon. I was very pleased with the quality of these markers, considering the cheapness of them. At approximately 50 cents per marker (compared to 7 dollars for Copics,) they not only have great colours, but I’m not as worried about using up the ink. The pens are dual ended, with a chisel tip and a bullet nib, and have been said to run out of ink quicker, as the flow of ink is faster than other alcohol based markers. This is not a flaw in my opinion, as there is better coverage in the first application of colour, and with the price, you could replace the marker fourteen times to match one Copic marker.
To try out these markers, I have been drawing on label paper to make my own stickers. The bullet nib makes small pictures fairly tricky, but I have been trying out colouring before inking the image. This was mainly to avoid issues with the ink smudging, but this allows some room for correction, as you can modify the line based on how the colouring goes.
The other item I received this week was a spirograph. Most of you will recognise these, and they are returning in popularity lately in force. Unfortunately the official brand name kit is about twenty dollars, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend that much on it, so I bought a cheap one for three dollars online. As fun as it is, I am way out of practice and my spirals are inconsistent. It’s very hard to hold the large piece in place, as my hands cramp before i finish the pattern. I tried some bluetack, but it lifted and the circle snuck underneath the stencil. I found ballpoint pens to work the best, and luckily, I had a few colours to try out. These would make cool designs to put on cards and making patterned paper. I keep forgetting which holes on which circles make which designs, so hopefully I can come up with a diagram to remind me, as the kit didn’t have any helpful information. All trial and error I guess.
Now, go forth and try new things.