Pencils to Pens...

I don't know if you all realise this... but if you are an artist you know that you are special. (At least that's what my mom tells me.) they make art pencils and pens made specially for us. Sure, we can use regular pencils and pens but where's the prestige in that!? I want to share with you some of the art supplies I use when I am ready to create magic. Starting with Staedtler mars lumograph art pencils. You can find them in mostly any art store. You could buy them individually or in a pack. Pencils range from H, HB and B. H pencils are very light they are good for penciling out a light sketch of your ideas or if you just want to do some light shading and toning. HB is like your average HB pencil, I use it to flesh out my lines and bring my sketches to life. B pencils are bold and dark I use B pencils to darken lines blacken areas that need to be blackened and add a bold outline. As good as Staedtler pencils are they do tend to smudge a lot. I usually use staedtlers for sketches in my sketch book these days and not so much for panel work. For even thinner lines I like to use lead pencils for adding detail. Any lead pencil will do although, I fined that 0.5 lead pencils use finer lead oppose to the 0.7 lead pencils.

For panel work I use a black Venus col-erase pencil. It typically is a black pencil crayon with an eraser at the end of it. These pencils draw smooth lines and come in a variety of colors. To tell you the truth I don't have any real reason for using these pencils for my panels but hey, they don't smudge. No smudges equal good clean lines.

From pencils to pens, and for pens I look to staedtler once again. Staedtler pigment liner's that is. They vary from fine point tips to broader thinker tips just like the art pencils do. They range from 0.01 to 07. I really like the Staedtler mars graphic 3000 duo markers as well. It's a marker that acts like a paint brush its amazing. But Staedtler is not the only graphic pens on the market there are also Sakura pigma microns which I fined are just as good.

Now I'm not saying the pens and pencils I use are the best on the market, I just want to help new artists get a sense of what is out there. INSPIRED!
--Von