Review: Zig CocoIro LetterPen

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

The Zig CocoIro LetterPen is a fairly new product at JetPens, and I was immediately seduced by the brilliant color barrels and excited to see a variety of refill colors.  However, each color was moving to "sold out" as I watched!  In the end, what I received were this pretty, curvy yellow barrel with ink refills in black and royal blue.  

(The pen bodies and refills appear to be mostly back in stock as of my writing.)

This pen has an unusual design.  The refill is almost a pen in itself, with a solid cap that can be placed back on the refill allowing you to switch back and forth between in-use colors.  The refill is not in itself very comfortable to hold, so it does needs the casing.  When you insert the refill into the casing, the end sticks out the back so you can easily tell which color is currently in the pen.

I like the idea of this pen.  It's in the style of the Tombow Fudenosuke and various fine-tipped Kuretake pens, in that it provides a very fine tip that offers some line variability.

However, while the body is cute and the refill color options alluring, this pen is not as strong as the Fudenosuke.  The greatest fault is that the tip doesn't spring back after writing, so when you rotate the pen the next lines you draw are unpredictable.  You might almost be able to see the slight bend in the uncapped tip in the above photo.

It's possible one could get used to the tip and take advantage of its variability - much in the way that you can cheat a finer line out of a fountain pen by turning the nib upside down.  I ended up using the pen in this way for this drawing of a Victorian woman, but felt timid with it since whenever I rotated the pen to get a thinner line, it wasn't certain what kind of line would result.

It may take a close look, but you can see in this example that some of the lines came out weak or scratchy, or have a little glitch at the beginning as the tip bent into its new angle.

Subsequent water tests demonstrate that the ink is not even remotely waterproof.

A test with the royal blue refill yielded nothing special; the color is a bit ho-hum and the lines are not very smooth.  The tip on this refill actually feels very dry.

While I like the physical appearance of the pen and was able to tease a couple of ok drawings out of it, there's simply nothing but appearance and some alternative ink colors to recommend it over the Tombow Fudenosuke which leaves a more pleasant, reliable, and waterproof mark.

Review: Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at Geminica.com.

The Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens (Hard and Soft) initially caught my interest when I discovered they are a favorite tool of the wonderful comics artist Dylan Horrocks.  Horrocks states he has drawn "almost everything" in recent years using these pens.  Well, alright! That was good enough for me.

These really are good pens.  They fill one specific niche perfectly, and it's one that makes them understandably attractive to comics artists/cartoonists: they provide a fine, consistent line that is capable of variation when you want it.     

The comparison below demonstrates that these pens don't behave much like brushes when you don't want them to - when writing with them, they seem as (or more?) consistent than the Lamy Safari EF! And on the right is what you get if you apply a little more pressure with the soft pen and make purposeful use of its variability.

I can't provide a new drawing from the Fudenosuke hard pen, since mine is running dry and is just barely dark enough now to make letters. But here's a panel from the 16-page comic I made that used up all that ink. 

from my first (and very silly) pulp adventure comic about rival coffee buyers, Dangerous Aromas, which was drawn with the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen (Hard).

That leads me to the pens' only major drawback -  they don't have a vast amount of ink in them. Well, if I'm going to love a disposable pen that runs out of ink quickly, at least it's comforting to know that they were made using recycled plastic.

After drawing the Victorian gentleman at the top of this post, I wanted to try the soft pen with a more brushy style.  Cue the hippopotamus.

 

Normally for this kind of brush work, I would go back to a "real" brush pen (one with separate bristles) since that lets you really paint your ink on - but this pen does have a nice quality to it and is capable of handling the job.  

The internet seems divided over whether this pen is waterproof or not.  I am happy to report that they ARE in fact waterproof.  Presumably on certain paper (perhaps heavily sized?) or in certain environments (more humid?) - and certainly if you apply water immediately after drawing - the ink is less waterproof... but I was impressed.  I am not including a picture of my test since it shows absolutely no effect from adding water, only one minute after laying down the ink.

As for differences between the hard and soft pens -  the hard pen is a little better at lettering, word bubbles, and anything that benefits from a less variable line, while the soft pen's stronger ink flow and increased variability make it better for long strokes, quick strokes, and anything artsy.  

If you are a cartoonist, an illustrator, or just like to doodle silly characters during meetings, I heartily recommend both of these pens. But I may be leaning towards the soft pen.

Now for an Obsessive Addendum: Refilling the Non-Refillable Pen.

Someone online reported having refilled their Tombow Fudenosuke pen with fountain pen ink by prying off the end cap and inserting ink using an eyedropper.  Since my hard pen has in fact gone dry, I decided to experiment in this direction. I don't recommend it.  First off, the recycled plastic is very malleable, so when I pried the end cap off, it got very damaged.  Secondly after I dropped the Noodler's Bulletproof into the ink receptacle in the pen, when I took the lid off it leaked out a bunch of that ink.  Maybe I missed?  Or maybe I put in too much?  In any case, I suggest accepting the disposable nature of these pens.  They are great for what they are!

Review: Pilot Pocket Brush Pen - Hard

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at Geminica.com.

 Another Victorian, posing with the Pilot Pocket Brush Pen (Hard) in Strathmore's smooth bristol Visual Journal.  Can you tell I didn't like how her face turned out?

A frequent complaint for brush pen users is that the ink doesn't flow freely enough, resulting in a dry brush effect where you really didn't want one.  You'll get that effect if you use toothy paper or if you go fast enough, no matter what brush is used - see the right side of the above drawing - but the greatest strength of the Pilot Pocket Brush -Hard  is that it really wants to lay down an easy lush sloppy black line, packed with ink.   

You can see here that by comparison, the Pilot brush makes the lines from the Pentel Pocket and the Kuretake No. 8 Hair Brush look grey.  They were stocked with good black ink, so this difference is probably entirely due to the difference in ink flow. 

Unfortunately, while the Pilot does lay down a nice black line, it is also a  very thick line.  I found it a struggle to control this pen.  Here are some loose comics I made using the Pilot hard brush which is maybe a better direction for this particular tool.

 

With a wetter application comes more smudging. I recently spent a few minutes sketching at Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square and couldn't avoid getting my hand in the ink (smudges are visible on the main figure's backpack). This drawing also demonstrates that the ink is not waterproof.  It holds up okay if you touch it with some watercolors on a just barely moist brush, but if too much water gets into the paper it bleeds in an ugly, feathery way (see around the bird).

In the end, I feel fond of the Pilot Pocket Brush for its lushness but it isn't really a good match to my needs. I recommend this brush pen if you want something very affordable, prefer a strong ink flow, intend to draw fairly loosely, and aren't planning to add water colors.  It could serve that purpose quite well. Otherwise - your perfect brush pen is elsewhere.

Confession: This review was originally going to cover both the hard and soft brushes, but I lost the soft brush while out sketching!  I was surprised to find that despite having totally different tip shapes, they produced a similar line.  The soft brush might make it easier to avoid the dry brush effect simply because the tip is so much larger, but I preferred the hard brush because it was easier to predict its movement.