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January 18, 200614:51:13(link) I get a fair number of hits from people who are searching for the Kaimei Brush Pen. Hi there, people. The Kaimei is nice, it's true, but the lid doesn't click on firmly; I've had the lid come off a few times when the brush pen was in a pocket or clipped to my shirt. That's bad. Let me propose a few alternatives.
Pentel GFKP This is a very expressive pen, whose tip I would rank at least half as good as the Kaimei but for one sixth the price. I think I paid twelve dollars for it. The lid clicks on firmly, and unlike the Kaimei the pen is long enough to use comfortably. Using a Kaimei, I always feel like I'm working with the brush equivalent of a pencil stub. One thing the Pentel has in common with the Kaimei is a tendency for the ink to bleed into certain kinds of paper, including many bristol boards. Using either a Kaimei or a Pentel brush pen, I recommend Strathmore 300-Series smooth bristol board (the pad with a yellow cover). I've found these pens to bleed on Canson, Bienfang, and other brands. Zebra This is a decent field replacement for a steel pen (such as the Hunt 102 or 107). It takes a much lighter touch than a steel pen, of course, but it has better dynamic range than a Rotring Sketch EF (which I've been using as my field nib pen of late). The Zebra is far less expressive and "brushy" than the Pentel (or the Kaimei) but makes a good general-purpose instrument. Ideally, I like to carry a selection of pens with me. Right now, I have Pentel and Zebra brush pens, a Rotring Sketch EF, a Rotring Rapidoliner, a Sakura Micron 08, and a Pentel Graphlet 0.9mm mechanical pencil. This is a very capable field kit; with bristol board, a ruler, a T-square and an Ames lettering guide, this is all you need to draw comics. If I had to pick one pen to carry, I'd be tempted to vote for the Zebra. Much of the linework in this short comic strip is Zebra. It's nice to have either a Rapidoliner or a Micron to rule gutters and other lines, and the Sketch EF comes in handy too. And a mechanical pencil is almost indispensible. But the Kaimei? It's in my dresser drawer, at home. I haven't used it in months. | |||||
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| January 19, 2006 - 16:39:41 Ah, Peter, ever the incorrigible tech-head. It's all good, though. I am still inclined to get the same way about guitars........ James Conrad |
| January 20, 2006 - 10:37:15 Well, it's all about finding what works. I'm not nearly a good enough guitar player to know what I'm looking for in a guitar. I have several guitars, and they all seem fine to me. However, I've been drawing comics for long enough now to really get annoyed with the characteristics of certain tools. |
| I spend a lot of my time drawing in the thick of a fully-operational household, so I have to be able to draw with a 5-year-old climbing across my shoulders, I have to be able to put down and pick up the drawing in the middle of other tasks, and I have to be able to move my whole drawing outfit on a moment's notice. It's best if I can also take it with me easily, so that I can draw in a cafe or on a trip out of town, or in the car, or wherever. These are pretty tight constraints. It's hard to find tools to meet these needs, and in any case where you're not using real ink (preferably something sticky like Speedball Super Black) you're not getting a nice, archival original. There are always compromises. |
| By the way, don't try to travel with a container of Speedball Super Black. It'll leak, because the little cardboard disk inside the lid wears out and gets crusted with half-dry ink, causing gaps where leaks occur. You're better off getting the kind of bottle that children's prescription antibiotic liquid (the pink stuff) comes in from the pharmacy, and using that as your ink bottle. I've carried one around in my backpack for weeks now, and the only time it leaked at all was when I forgot to tighten it all the way. Peter S. Conrad |
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