681 – Gift Advice…
This week, I’m on vacation from my regular day job and as such, I got to “play” a full time cartoonist by running a bunch of errands, seeing a few old friends for lunch and then doing some Christmas shopping with my daughter yesterday.
In one of those many stops, I visited my local art store (if you consider 30 minutes away to be “local”) and, while I was there, I went browsed through the pen aisle. Now, if you have ever talked to me or seen my set up at a convention, you all know that I am a notorious and self-admitted “pen whore”. I love testing and trying out new and different pens. Well, yesterday was no different.
I picked up a new pen that I actually lettered today’s strip with – what do you all think? Do you like it? Can you tell a difference? The pen I usually letter the strip with is a rather hard to find COPIC pen that I have to order from a website called www.otakufuel.com that specializes in anime costumes and art supplies.
For a COPIC pen, they are reasonably priced but the problem is that they are still very hard to find. Also, as a web designer by day, it’s important to me that the lettering be readable and recognizable to people who might not have the best eye sight. For that reason, I prefer the pen width to be rather thick. I also need a pen that is easy to write with. Thus far, the only pen that has been able to meet my standards has been the 0.8 COPIC Multiliner pen.
But yesterday, I picked up a Pilot Bravo pen that is cheaper and appears to have all the same qualities as the COPIC pen. Its line thickness is nearly identical, it writes very smoothly and the ink doesn’t fade when I erase my pencil lettering guides. I’m going to keep using this pen for a while now to see how it holds up to rigorous cartooning work.
But for now, I’m curious to hear what you guys think… I can’t tell as difference between this new Pilot pen and the COPIC one. Can you?
