August blogfest – day 23
by thisnorthernboy
Books and pens
I’ve become a bit of a pen nerd recently. Well, I say recently, over the last couple of years. Tiger Pens, Cult Pens, and Amazon have been seeing way too much business from me. But, pens are the way I make my living, so it’s only fair that I indulge myself a little right?
My latest purchase – a recommendation I saw on Twitter from Will Freeborn, Ian McQue and Mack Chater – is a Carbon Platinum fountain pen. It’s nothing fancy, just a lightweight, standard fountain pen. The nib is great for sketching though, not too flexible, and the Platinum ink is a proper black. As Mack mentioned on Twitter, it does make a lovely noise on paper. That noise, that feel of a pen nib on the texture of paper is probably the reason I’ve got nowhere with digital art – it just doesn’t sound or feel the same.
Carbon Platinum fountain pen
I’ve only used the Carbon Platinum fleetingly so far, but it does seem very good indeed. A pen I use all the time, and have done for a couple of years is the Copic Multiliner SP. I’ve got a whole range of nib thicknesses from 0.03mm to 0.7mm. It’s that range of line weights that allows me to add depth to my, otherwise very flat, illustrations.
Line weights of Copic Multiliners
More pens tomorrow. As I said, I’m a bit of a pen nerd.
this northern boy 
I used the copics for my technical drawings at school – because of the range of thicknesses and the fact that they dry quickly even on tracing paper. The only problem I had with them was that the ink seemed thin somehow, especially compared to the ink the others used. Not thin enough to warrant waiting hours for the ink to dry though! (As the others in the class had to).
I press too hard to get on with fountain pens.. you presumably don’t put too much pressure on them… 🙂