I thought I'd give a little peek behind the curtain, so-to-speak, of the tools I use to hand-letter and draw out the graphics used on my cards + prints. I use a mixture of pencils, pens, brush pens, and then ink or gouache with paintbrushes, but there are 3 that I reach for more than the others. My most favorite pen of all that I use daily is my Tombow Dual Brush Pen. I love the look and strokes I get with the brush tip and the fine tip on the other side is great for detail or thin line work. It doesn't bleed through my sketchbook pages and there is no messy clean up. The only downside is that I use it so much that the brush tip eventually starts to fray and I don't get the tightness at the ends of my strokes that I like. I buy a lot of these so that I always have back up! My second favorite pen for drawing is my Sakura Pigma Graphic 1 Pen. I love the tapered full felt tip and that it is not too thin or thick. The Sakura pen's tip is more tapered than the Tombow fine tip end, so If I need to draw smaller letters or finer detail, this is usually the one I reach for. It glides smoothly and doesn't feather or bleed. Lastly, when I am drawing out lettering or images and I want that lose 'wet' look, I will reach for a paintbrush and some good old trusty Higgins Drawing Ink. I used to only use black gouache, but found that drawing ink tends to last longer on my brush and is easier to dilute for achieving various shades of gray.
So there you have it! Naturally, I will use more pens including Sharpies and a few different sized Mircon pens, but for the majority of the work I do these are the three that are in constant rotation. If you have any favorites, share them in the comments below!
-SKF
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