Review of the Prismacolor Premier Fine Line Archival Marker Sets

These Prismacolor Premier Archival Marker Sets are bound to please if you are a fan of Japanese pens. Yup, like many top quality pens they are also made in Japan. No wonder they feel so sturdy and glide so smoothly on white card stock and on the Kolo sketchbook paper. According to the box label, they are acid free, lightfast, permanent, water resistant, premium pigmented ink with no bleed through, smear resistant when dry, nontoxic, and of archival quality. They provide similar performance to the costlier Copic Multiliner SP pens which I reserve for studio duty. It's nice to have such a reasonably priced quality set in a portable sketching kit. You can draw a variety of lines anywhere without having to worry about losing precious tools by accident.
Collection of pigment liners. So long as they are stored in cool dry places, the ink in the pens will likely retain its functional quality. The Faber Castell Pitt Artist Sanguine and Sepia 4-pens sets are both over 5-years old, and all 8 pens still work fine. The Copic SP pens have the advantage that they can be refilled and that there are replacement nibs available in case they wear down or get damaged accidentally. The Copic brush nibs tend to fray rather easily on rough papers. While many of these sets might have rather high suggested retail prices, many of them can be often found heavily discounted online after some Googling and careful shopping. As a general rule I reserve the finer sets for studio work, and take the inexpensive sets on trips for field sketching. It's best to avoid leaving any pen set inside a car in hot weather, for the extreme heat could cause them to leak or dry them out. They are quite convenient since any of the wallet sets would easily fit in a cargo pant pocket or an art backpack. The reusable packaging on the Prismacolor Premier fine line markers is particularly well-designed and a step-up from the flimsier Faber-Castell Pitt wallet. The firm clear plastic box keeps the set pens neatly organized and well-protected. The interlocking flap lid that fastens securely into the pre-cut slit over the pen caps opens and closes smoothly, a more elegant alternative to a weak sticker.
This chart shows a comparison of the marks and line widths that can be produced with each pigment liner set. All of them are waterproof and did not bleed through the sketchbook page. The Prismacolor Premier set felt quite smooth across the entire size range while the smallest Copic Multiliner pens (under 0.1 mm) felt rather delicate and "scratchy". The smallest nib size available was the 0.03 mm Copic Multiliner SP black pen.
So far, I am quite happy with the smooth performance and sturdy feel of these extra fine Prismacolor Premier pigment liners. By choosing different size nibs, its fairly simple to establish the different planes (foreground, middle ground, and background) on a drawing. On this coloring page, the 005, 01, and 05 markers were used to draw each of the main components: thinnest line for the floating fairy character, middle line for the bug rider, and thickest line for the background leaves.
The color fine line markers are ideal for creating coloring pages when a distracting black outline is not desired.

Sakura Gel Pen mini review and sample sketches

Just received this grey Sakura Ball Sign Tiara Glitter Pen prize from JetPens. This pen is super sparkly and would be a great choice for crafts and decorating greeting cards (this "glitter" quality does not photograph well, but the magnitude of the sparkles can be appreciated by the many reflective "white spots" in the areas shaded with the gel pen). The pen tip glided smoothly like any 0.4 mm Gelly Roll pen in the early test doodles.
For a second doodle test, a Faber Castell Pitt Artist pen sepia sketch was decorated with the Sakura Tiara Gray Gel Pen. Then it seemed like a good time to take out my other Sakura gel pens to make a comparison chart. First thing I discovered was that some gel pens do not retain their quality during prolonged storage. The 3 Lightning Gelly Roll pens were several years old, and the ink had lost its luster and become rather watery in the blue and purple pens.
The Tiara Gray Gel Pen laid down the most reflective sparkly marks, but it also tended to gunk up and clog periodically. Running the tip on some scrap some paper while rotating it was enough to clear the clog and restart the ink flow. While not as bright, the Sakura Gelly Roll Metallic and Lightning roller ball gel pens have a smoother consistent flow.
These few test sketches used up about one half of the gel ink reservoir of the grey Tiara pen. Not bad for an inexpensive craft pen.

Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 10B premium wooden pencil and Pencil Extenders

100th post, wo-hoo! Just got the latest addition to my stock of boxed Japanese pencils: a dozen of 10B Hi-Uni Pencils. The soft 10B lead is ideal for quick sketches since it glides effortlessly on the paper laying down dark bold lines. The fast coverage naturally wears down the pencil tip rather quickly. Lines are easily smeared and difficult to erase cleanly. This pencil would be a good choice for doodling boldly and making some transfer paper in a hurry. If used for adding the darkest shadows in the final steps of a carefully rendered drawing, a slip sheet under the drawing hand would be a sensible precaution. A coat of a good spray fixative would be advisable to protect the finished piece. Since the tip is fairly delicate and susceptible to breakage, a point protector cap is an essential accessory to make this pencil an effective field sketching tool.
I wonder why only Japanese manufacturers like Mitsubishi and Tombow seem to be the only ones to consider the humble graphite pencil worthy of ingeniously designed re-usable sturdy plastic protective cases while the rest of the world sticks to the same old flat tin box design. Might have something to do with the fact that they arguably produce the finest wooden graphite pencils in the world and are constantly innovating.
When using premium pencils than are somewhat hard to find and each costing more than a dozen of regular no. 2 pencils, there is an increased motivation to use them down to the smallest stub though they might be rather difficult to hold by then. Enter the pencil extenders or lengthener pencil holders to the rescue (click on the picture above to view the tagged Flickr photo with brand names of each holder). Funny how I had missed the protective capability of the Kutsuwa pencil extenders, until I read this Pencil Revolution blog entry. For years, I had simply used them only as pencil extenders while wondering why only the Faber Castell Perfect Pencil seemed to be the only multi-functional pencil accessory in the market that could protect a pencil point from breakage and act as a lengthener holder while featuring a pretty effective built-in sharpener. I prefer the Japanese 2-piece screw-type extenders over the more common sliding-ring type holders. With the Kutsuwa pencil holders, pencil stubs are held firmly in place by tightening the screw grip around them. A design far more effective than the sliding rings of the Koh-I-Noor and Cretacolor pencil lengtheners which tend to come loose rather easily and I find rather uncomfortable for my regular drawing grip.
The hollow barrel of the Kutsuwa pencil extender is big enough to also act as a point protector for a full-length Hi-Uni wooden pencil. It's also a good fit with Tombow Mono Professional Drawing Pencils, California Republic Palomino premium graphite pencils, and Prismacolor colored pencils. The 3 slender holders (starting from the left) are the most comfortable and unobtrusive from this selection, but the RH005 model that replaced them features a slightly wider knurled threaded grip. My searches so far have failed to turn out an online vendor for these pencil holders, but they can be found in 2-packs at Kinokuniya stationery stores.

More color sketching with the Uni-ball Signo Bit UM-201 0.18 mm light blue Gel Ink Pen

Enjoying this Uni-ball Signo Bit UM-201 0.18 mm light blue Gel Ink Pen so much that I quickly cranked out this coloring sheet of fantasy ninjas to try a slightly different coloring approach using watercolor pencils. For most of it, colors were applied dry and then blended with a waterbrush.
Waiting for a couple of hours at the mall food court seemed like a good opportunity to color this second waterproof sketch with my canvas wrap set of Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils.
To give more interest to the colored sketch, typically 2 or 3 colors were picked to grant the illusion of volume to each section of the drawing. Light yellow glaze and Cadmium yellow were used on the fins and belly of the Dragon Mace. Dark phthalo green, Cobalt turquoise, and Mauve defined the shapes and shadows of the dragon scales.
The set of weapons and first two ninjas, Plasma Flyer and Masked Grunt, were completely colored with the watercolor pencils before adding any water with the waterbrush.
Color layers were gently blended with a the Kuretake large waterbrush.
The Kuretake large waterbrush was also used to lay down some Winsor yellow watercolor washes on the final character.
This last ninja, Solar Boss, was colored exclusively with the 12 half pans set of Winsor & Newton Artists' watercolors.
Finished color sketch.

Uni-ball Signo Bit UM-201 light blue 0.18 mm Gel Ink Pen review and demo sketch

Just received my latest prize from JetPens, a light blue 0.18 mm Uni-ball Signo Bit UM-201 Gel Ink Pen, so I figured it was time for another mini photo review and application demo. Unlike many extra-fine pens I've tried before, this 0.18 mm pen was fairly smooth when sketching on white card stock. It produced waterproof outlines that did not smear when a wet waterbrush was run repeatedly over them and allowed the writing of really tiny characters on the first try. The UM-201 pen's grip is wider and more comfortable than the Pentel Slicci gel pens, but not as comfortable as the larger 0.38 mm Uni-ball Signo DX UM-151 Gel Ink Pen.
A collection of fine pens with nibs ranging from 0.38 mm all the way down to 0.03 mm. I tend not to use anything smaller than 0.3 mm most of the time, for they feel too delicate for my regular drawing hand pressure and their narrow tips tend to scratch and rip the surface of many papers. Although they all behaved quite well on this smooth Georgia Pacific 110 lbs white card stock, but I was quite mindful of not pressing too hard with the smallest nibs since they felt rather delicate and scratchy at times..
I just had to test the claim that this pen was fine enough to write on rice grains, so I drew the happy face and shark head on a couple of Sushi polished rice grains while holding them firmly in place with Copic tweezers. Well the claim proved to be true, but the pen didn't seem to be writing as smoothly as before right afterward. After running the tip clean on scrap card stock for a few seconds, it was performing again like new. Yet it would be best to avoid the rice test and any abrasive surfaces that might clog or damage the fine 0.18 mm tip.
A waterproof outline was drawn with the light blue 0.18 mm Uni-ball Signo Bit UM-201 Gel Ink Pen which blended more harmoniously with the following coloring steps. The higher contrast of a black and white outline would have given the finished sketch a look closer to that of an average children's coloring book.
In the first coloring step, Winsor & Newton Artist watercolor washes were applied with a large Kuretake waterbrush to quickly lay down the base colors of the mermaid, friends, and background.
In the final coloring step, Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils were used dry to further define the shapes, shadows, and texture of the watercolor washes.

Assembling a custom watercolor full pans set box

Had a few empty watercolor full pans in my Artbin tool box, so finally decided to put together a full pan set using my old watercolor tubes and an empty Winsor & Newton Deluxe Studio 24 half-pans set box that can comfortably hold up to 18 full pans. Click on the photo link below for brand and pigment descriptions.
Most of the paints from the tubes were in pretty good condition. Only the Quinacridone Pink paint had grown mold inside the tube which I had to squeeze out before filling its pan. A few felt rather thick and a tad dry, so I added a few drops of glycerine and gum arabic to improve their elasticity and texture. Hope that will prevent the watercolor paints from cracking as they shrink and dry in their pans. I might have overdone it a bit with the Cobalt Green since I accidentally spilled too much plasticizer in it. After a few hours the Cobalt Green pan remained liquid showing no sign of firming up, so I poured half of its contents into another empty pan and added some more fresh tube paint to both. Hopefully they will set nicely like the rest of them. Left this newly filled box partially covered on a bookshelf to dry for the next few days. Since this box kit is rather bulky and its removable palettes tend to fall off while on the move, it was clearly designed for studio work. I intend to use it mostly for coloring at my drafting table. Once the pans are ready, I will post some sketch samples and color chart.
UPDATE: After drying the full pan set for 4 weeks, several remained moist and rather tacky especially some of the Maimeri Blu and Daniel Smith paints.

The full pan format allows for quick pick up and delivery of generous washes of color with larger flat brushes.

Kolo sketchbook doodles and brush pen giveaway

Heads up kids! The Pen Addict is running a Giveaway: Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pen - 5 Autumn Color Set. Make sure to post a comment on that thread, if you want a chance to try out those fine artists' brush pens.
Tested some of my sketching tools on a small Kolo sketchbook journal while waiting in the clinic waiting room.
The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen responsive nylon brush tip easily creates bold lines on the Kolo sketchbook paper. No bleed through.
The Kuretake Pocket Color Brush blue and scarlet red pens show nicely on the light off-white pages of the Kolo sketchbook without bleeding through the paper.
Practice strokes with Faber Castell Pitt Artist pen and Kuretake #8 fountain brush pen on Kolo paper. The latter affords great control over changing the line width gracefully, and neither bleeds through the sketchbook paper.
The Zebra Disposable Brush Sign Pen with a medium nib produces nice dark lines of varying width and does not bleed through the Kolo paper.
These couple of graphite doodles showed that the Mitsubishi Uni F 2 mm leadholder and the Pentel GraphGear 1000 2B 0.9 mm mechanical pencil work well on the Kolo sketchbook paper without damaging it like some harder leads and 0.3 mm leads that tend to snag on the paper fibers and pierce its sheets.
After using the Dixon Markette bullet pen for a page of sketches, "ghosts" images showed through a couple of pages before and after the page with the actual drawings in both the Kolo and Moleskine (not shown) sketchbooks. Thus given the nature of its ink solvent, the Markette pen should really be used on a single thick sheet of paper with adequate ventilation and perhaps a blotting layer underneath.

Creative Mark 5.6 mm leadholder

I had neglected to blog about a couple of the latest additions to my drawing accessories tool box. The full range of Intus pastel holders (#8, #10, and #123) is useful for holding messy dry media like round and square pastels of various sizes as well as artists' wax crayons that would melt in warm hands during long drawing sessions. The Creative Mark 5.6 mm leadholder kit is a value priced alternative to Cretacolor leadholders in the same size range.
Creative Mark leadholder disassembled into its 3 component parts. It features a rubberized metal casing with lead hardness degree indicator. The pencil comes with a 3.5" 4B graphite lead and a box with 6 additional 4B leads that measure 4 7/8"each and that smudge rather easily. This pencil is a comfortable lightweight introductory sketching tool suitable for bold mark making and larger scale drawing. Made in China.

Bit sleepless, so took out the new 5.6 mm leadholder for some doodling.

Caran D'Ache graphite doodles

A few pencil doodles done while waiting in the car with my sketchbook and tin of Caran D'Ache graphite pencils and 2 mm leadholder. Obviously inspired by Japanese folklore with a Hellboy II masked nun sneaking in the background (Hellboy II: The Art of the Movie is an inspiring collection of conceptual art btw).