Surprised I couldn't find a thread for something like that here. Any kiwis here do traditional art or writing and collect supplies? I have quite a few fountain pens that I use for drawing, and they're pretty neat.
Art Supplies and Stationery - Pens, inks, papers, and the like.
- Thread starter Maya Amano
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I'm not an artist but I do a lot of design drafting on paper. I don't want to say I'm a "pen nerd" and I don't have anything exotic, but I'm picky about how they feel. Something about it that helps me think. What do you use?
Not as much of an artist as my girlfriend is, but I like sketching on resume paper with a hand sharpened 2B wood pencil. No real reason other than it feels better than printer paper or even sketchbook paper, but I've been told it's more of a preference thing than anything.
As for pens, my favorite is some decent office pen that I was given in highschool by my English teacher. I have no clue what brand it is, but it has a nice weight and refillable ink carts, so I use it for signing things and taking notes at home. It looks kinda like this, but with a different cap design.
As for pens, my favorite is some decent office pen that I was given in highschool by my English teacher. I have no clue what brand it is, but it has a nice weight and refillable ink carts, so I use it for signing things and taking notes at home. It looks kinda like this, but with a different cap design.
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- #4
The medium does not matter; the skill of the artist does.
Personally, though, I use dollar store sketchbooks and #2 pencils for doodles and warm-ups. I save the good pens, pencils, and paper for the actual art.
Personally, though, I use dollar store sketchbooks and #2 pencils for doodles and warm-ups. I save the good pens, pencils, and paper for the actual art.
pigment liners are the shit.
I should really get some dollar store sketch books again. Good for practice, though not sure how long theyll last a few years down.
Pastels are nice too. Bit messy.
Never underestimate what you can do with a number 2 pencil.
I should really get some dollar store sketch books again. Good for practice, though not sure how long theyll last a few years down.
Pastels are nice too. Bit messy.
Never underestimate what you can do with a number 2 pencil.
- Highlight
- #6
Oh, I love drafting pencils! I only have one at the monent, a Pentel GraphGear 1000, and I love how it feels in my hand. Made out of metal and has a nice weight to it. Pentel makes a lot of nice drafting pencils in general, I had an Orenz Nero but it sadly shitted out on me. For pens, I have the following:
Pilot Prera with Noodler's Turquoise
Lamy LX with Diamine Ancient Copper
TWSBI Eco with Pilot Iroshizuku Momiji
TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with SketchINK Klara
Kaweco Sport with Diamine Coral
Cross Wanderlust with Noodler's Apache Sunset
I really like my TWSBI Eco, got it two years ago and it still works fantastic. Been trying to move away from disposable pens to reusables.
This, exactly. You can make shit art with top-tier supplies, or you can literally use the bottom of the barrel and make good art. I just like how fountain pens are refillable and there's a lot of inks to choose from. It makes drawing stuff more fun.
Hell, I got a sketchbook that's "one of the best" on the market, but I disagree tbh. It's too rough for my inks, and it makes everything feel scratchy. Thought it'd be good to use since I saw a guy use ink on it, but ymmv I suppose.
My friend gave me a Mitsubishi pencil once and I really liked it, I should buy another one when I get the chance. Sakura Microns are awesome as well, but I'm on the hunt for a refillable alternative.
I tend to avoid dollar store/cheap sketchbooks because most feather/bleed like a bitch with inks, which sucks. If you're using pencil though, it should work fine.
Patriarchy
kiwifarms.net
i like the texture of plain construction paper, i end up erasing a lot so its less likely to tear or crumple up and more of the material comes off the surface
Sounds stupid but a mirror is a good art supply. Though I guess a cell phone camera works just fine. Since you are your best model for drawing. It's a good way to get fave and expression practice down. I notice a lot of people use insta modles as references or "inspiration" and you can see it with the same expressions and poses. Its strange.
So I think its a good idea to do some self portraits, maybe make strange faces to get a range of expression like the old Disney artists did.
I know I'm rambling but I feel like paper could be important. Say your using alcohol markers, your better off using marker paper so it dosnt bleed around or onto the page beneath. Same with Pastels. But if Im using pencil and ink eh its what ever I got.
Also anyone ever notice people who exclusively use alcohol markers all have the same style? Its the "tumblr" sort of disney sort of anime style. I figureifigureits because theyre all watching the same tutorials online.
So I think its a good idea to do some self portraits, maybe make strange faces to get a range of expression like the old Disney artists did.
I know I'm rambling but I feel like paper could be important. Say your using alcohol markers, your better off using marker paper so it dosnt bleed around or onto the page beneath. Same with Pastels. But if Im using pencil and ink eh its what ever I got.
Also anyone ever notice people who exclusively use alcohol markers all have the same style? Its the "tumblr" sort of disney sort of anime style. I figureifigureits because theyre all watching the same tutorials online.
I have a collection of oil paints, I don't use them too often because I do more digital art now. I really like the wooden boxes they come in with all the pretty stuff. One of them is Sennelier and the other is Winsor & Newton. I like the tubes.
I'm a mostly traditional artist, I work with all kinds of media so I have tons of supplies. Some of my favorite things in no particular order are:
-Sakura Micron pens , mostly 05, 08, and PN. The latter has a different nib that seems to last longer.
-Liquitex basics acrylic paint, acrylics are the only brand where I really have a preference. My watercolors, gouache, and oils are almost all hand-me-downs from family and other artists so there's a lot of different brands.
-Basic-ass yellow #2 pencil for most sketching, sometimes a set of Prismacolor graphite pencils, and most recently a Zebra brand mechanical pencil that I got from an Art Snacks box.
-Strathmore 9x12 recycled paper sketchbook, I am very anal about my sketchbooks though I also keep a variety of others depending on what kind of project I'm doing. Canson is also a good paper brand, I like their marker paper and comic boards. I just recently bought some Deleter brand manga boards, so it will be fun to see how that is to work on. I don't do manga per se, but I like to work small and I'm limited by the size of my scanner so I'm going to do my future comic pages on manga paper.
-Sakura Micron pens , mostly 05, 08, and PN. The latter has a different nib that seems to last longer.
-Liquitex basics acrylic paint, acrylics are the only brand where I really have a preference. My watercolors, gouache, and oils are almost all hand-me-downs from family and other artists so there's a lot of different brands.
-Basic-ass yellow #2 pencil for most sketching, sometimes a set of Prismacolor graphite pencils, and most recently a Zebra brand mechanical pencil that I got from an Art Snacks box.
-Strathmore 9x12 recycled paper sketchbook, I am very anal about my sketchbooks though I also keep a variety of others depending on what kind of project I'm doing. Canson is also a good paper brand, I like their marker paper and comic boards. I just recently bought some Deleter brand manga boards, so it will be fun to see how that is to work on. I don't do manga per se, but I like to work small and I'm limited by the size of my scanner so I'm going to do my future comic pages on manga paper.
I have some 20 year old prisma color markers that still work beautifully.
Oh yessssssssss now this is a thread I can sink my teeth into!
I mainly use mechanical pencils, fineliners, drawing ink, manga pen nibs and Copics.
Finding good art supplies in Britain is... hard. British people have the mindset of anything that isn't oil painting or watercolours is meant for children and thus the art supply market is pitifully small. The saving grace is a site called Cultpens - which has every single Copic marker you can think of at prices a little lower than Amazon. They even put some candy in their packages as a small thank you for using their services!
Uggggh tell me about it. They're always craft channels that make greeting cards or similar things too and I hate it - especially the pillow shading! Most of what I know about Copics is from trial and error.
A word of advice to anybody considering buying Copics for the first time: don't expect to be good with them from day 1. Take your time with them. Try out different types of paper to find out which ones suit your colouring style and pen pressure best. Make sheets with pen colours on them so you have a handy reference when deciding which colours to use and always have a small marker pad nearby so you can experiment with mixing colours before applying them to your piece.
Which ones? I have their paper and it can't seem to handle too much ink before it starts wrinkling.
I mainly use mechanical pencils, fineliners, drawing ink, manga pen nibs and Copics.
Finding good art supplies in Britain is... hard. British people have the mindset of anything that isn't oil painting or watercolours is meant for children and thus the art supply market is pitifully small. The saving grace is a site called Cultpens - which has every single Copic marker you can think of at prices a little lower than Amazon. They even put some candy in their packages as a small thank you for using their services!
Uggggh tell me about it. They're always craft channels that make greeting cards or similar things too and I hate it - especially the pillow shading! Most of what I know about Copics is from trial and error.
A word of advice to anybody considering buying Copics for the first time: don't expect to be good with them from day 1. Take your time with them. Try out different types of paper to find out which ones suit your colouring style and pen pressure best. Make sheets with pen colours on them so you have a handy reference when deciding which colours to use and always have a small marker pad nearby so you can experiment with mixing colours before applying them to your piece.
Which ones? I have their paper and it can't seem to handle too much ink before it starts wrinkling.
For writing my disposable ball point pen of choice were the Stabilo 308 series, and the BIC crystal and M10 pens.
I used to have retractable Zebra pens for signature reasons when working around the office. Those had a nice metal body, sadly the paint started to get off from them due to living in pockets.
My real generalists were Rotring mechanical pencils usually 0,7 mm variety with B lead and Faber Castell GRIP 2001 HB pencils. Those were great for both writing and sketching.
What I have noticed that the same graphite mark ie. HB, B etc. is really dependent on the manufacturer. Sometimes HB pencils can feel like 2B or something...
I had a lot of Stabilo point 88 fine liners and pen 68 felt tip pens. I really loved how they looked and felt like.
I used to have retractable Zebra pens for signature reasons when working around the office. Those had a nice metal body, sadly the paint started to get off from them due to living in pockets.
My real generalists were Rotring mechanical pencils usually 0,7 mm variety with B lead and Faber Castell GRIP 2001 HB pencils. Those were great for both writing and sketching.
What I have noticed that the same graphite mark ie. HB, B etc. is really dependent on the manufacturer. Sometimes HB pencils can feel like 2B or something...
I had a lot of Stabilo point 88 fine liners and pen 68 felt tip pens. I really loved how they looked and felt like.
The Potatomatic 2000
kiwifarms.net
Ehhh, I would add "as long as it suits your needs". There is no meaning spending more time fighting your tools than actually doing art. Some cheap supplies can work amazingly, but I think it's smartest to evaluate what you do and how you do it and decide what tools you need based on that.
That said, I got some absolute no name, cheap colourful lead for mechanical pencils from someone. I enjoy it more than I do the expensive, artist brand ones I got.
I hate worrying about paper, though, so I splurge there.
Amber the Hedgehog
kiwifarms.net
I'm doing alot color pencil work over last two years. My go to color pencils are Stabilo Aguacolor, especially this 24 pen set.
I carry my sketchbook and pencil case everywhere and so regardless if I use them that traveling will damage pencils eventually. So having a cheap pens that easy to replace is a huge plus but they also very decent quality. It's very easy to get intensive color out and blend well so they work perfectly for both fast sketching and actual full color work. Actually nowadays I highly prefer to do sketching with color pencils over normal lead pencils. I still carry one mechanical pencils but use so little that I haven't had to fill it over a yaer.
I carry my sketchbook and pencil case everywhere and so regardless if I use them that traveling will damage pencils eventually. So having a cheap pens that easy to replace is a huge plus but they also very decent quality. It's very easy to get intensive color out and blend well so they work perfectly for both fast sketching and actual full color work. Actually nowadays I highly prefer to do sketching with color pencils over normal lead pencils. I still carry one mechanical pencils but use so little that I haven't had to fill it over a yaer.
Color pencils are magic, would be cool to learn to use them.
Amber the Hedgehog
kiwifarms.net
Easiest way is just use them but I actually got my start with adult coloring book app on my ipad. It had pretty nice and easy to use shading tools that mimiced color pencils and watercolors. I downloaded it just to color one picture because I was bored but ended up using it for months until it had complete overhaul how the app functioned. By that time I had come really enjoy coloring so I started ty try it IRL and have gotten pretty good at it.
This. I collect, hoard and compare art supplies as much as the next autist, but what does it count for if you refuse to improve your own hand and eye? I see sketchers rave about fountain pens for pen-and-ink drawing, but the stiff steel nibs of modern pens give you such a straight, dead line, your work would be just as impressive if you used a cheap micron. I see youtubers who could swatch watercolor paints all day and all night, and gush about how much they granulate or whatever, but when they make a painting turn it into mud. I see colored pencil groups latch onto the latest polychromos or inktense, and spend days layering and burnishing them, to present the most skewed-proportion accidental-Picasso drawing of their friends bichon frise painstakingly copied from a fisheyed cellphone photo. I get the impression that too many artists are more about the tool they use, or the pretty effect a particular ink or paint creates, than about how they use it.
It's the one advantage of an unmodified fountain pen.
For simple refilling: Copic Multiliner SP. For refilling with different inks: I don't know about fineliners but there are refillable rollerballs and fibre-tipped pens out there. I think Rotring rapidographs are refilled with pigmented ink. I don't know if they take FP ink.
Yes. Complete with sameface, and hands that are either crude mittens, or with fingers in the process of sliding off the knuckles into the seventh dimension.
There’s a store over here in the UK called Cass Art that I frequent often to get my markers. They do price matching with other places too.Oh yessssssssss now this is a thread I can sink my teeth into!
I mainly use mechanical pencils, fineliners, drawing ink, manga pen nibs and Copics.
Finding good art supplies in Britain is... hard. British people have the mindset of anything that isn't oil painting or watercolours is meant for children and thus the art supply market is pitifully small. The saving grace is a site called Cultpens - which has every single Copic marker you can think of at prices a little lower than Amazon. They even put some candy in their packages as a small thank you for using their services!
Uggggh tell me about it. They're always craft channels that make greeting cards or similar things too and I hate it - especially the pillow shading! Most of what I know about Copics is from trial and error.
A word of advice to anybody considering buying Copics for the first time: don't expect to be good with them from day 1. Take your time with them. Try out different types of paper to find out which ones suit your colouring style and pen pressure best. Make sheets with pen colours on them so you have a handy reference when deciding which colours to use and always have a small marker pad nearby so you can experiment with mixing colours before applying them to your piece.
Which ones? I have their paper and it can't seem to handle too much ink before it starts wrinkling.
Personally, I prefer ProMarkers to Copics if/when I choose to do marker based art, but if I’m painting I have a Winsor and Newton cotman palette of watercolours.
I use Bristol board and hobbycraft’s own brand watercolour paper. For any Brit artists on a budget, the store Tiger does really good markers for £3 a set (each set has 3 markers in it). And the Poundland art card isn’t the worst in the world.
I got the ruler A format in 135kg thickness, it feels pretty similar to the bristol board that I sometimes do watercolor on so hopefully it will hold up as well. With the comic I'm using it for I've been just inking traditionally and doing digital colors, so it wont need to handle as much ink/pigment as other papers I use for painting. But one thing I do for watercolors is use drafting tape to secure my paper to my work surface to prevent warping.Which ones? I have their paper and it can't seem to handle too much ink before it starts wrinkling.
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