Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen Hard Tip Review

On my never ending quest to forcibly turn artistic use brush pens into my own personal writing and note taking pen, the Tombow Fudenosuke is the latest put to the test.

If you haven’t been paying attention, I realized a few months back with the the Kuretake Fudegokochi that some brush pens make for pretty good writing pens. As one who uses felt and plastic tip drawing pens on a daily basis to write with, the brush pen provides a unique option. It takes a very particular brush pen to work well in this scenario, starting with a very hard tip.

For a brush pen, the Fudenosuke has a hard tip, but it is not hard enough for writing notes with. It is a wonderful pen for its intended use - I can get a wide range of line widths, and the ink is great - but for general writing it is not firm enough. Artists shouldn’t hesitate to pick this one up.

Are there any brush pens that you have used that I should try out for general writing use?

Kuretake Fudegokochi Brush Pen - Super Fine Review

Continuing my suddenly recurring theme of pens I never really cared for but all of a sudden find fun and useful, the Kuretake Fudegokochi Brush Pen has worked its way into every day use. Since I don’t pretend to be an artist of any kind, I never had a use for brush pens until recently talking with one of my co-workers at JetPens. She uses super fine hard tip brush pens for taking notes and wondered if I did too.

I do now.

I honestly had never considered it before this conversation, but it makes sense. I love using drawing pens to take notes with, so why not brush pens? The tip is not quite as firm as the felt and plastic tip pens I regularly use, but it is closer than you would imagine. Not all brush pens are going to be able to do as well this Kuretake Fudegokochi though. It has a very firm tip, and you can see in the writing sample above that while there is some line width variation, it is a tight enough range to make my notes look good.

There is one big difference between this pen and a felt tip drawing pen: the drying time is much longer. I don’t have enough experience with a wide variety of brush pens to know if this is just with the Kuretake or not, but I’m sure there are many differences between the brands.

Now I am on a new hunt. What are some of the most firm, super fine tipped brush pens out there? I have used the popular Zebra Disposable before, but the tip is not as firm. Is there anything else on the market like this pen? Maybe my brush pen guru Kalina knows.

Review: Kuretake Pocket Double-Sided Brush Pen

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

The brushes on the Kuretake Disposable Pocket Double-Sided Brush Pen are felt tips that are designed to give a variable width line.  These brushes are in the same neighborhood as Tombow Fudenosuke brush pens (of which I am a great fan) in terms of line width, shape, and responsiveness.

The two tips are described as "fine" and "medium", but with a light touch, they can both achieve quite a fine line.

Neither of this pen's tips are intended for fast, lush sketching. Ink flow is quite thin.  You get a lot of control but not a lot of ink.  I'd say this is a good pen for cartoonists that are inking carefully over pencil sketches - not so good for loose sketching since you'll run out of ink if you move too fast.  The ink appears to be totally waterproof.

This pen would be a solid competitor to the Tombow Fudenosuke... if the "medium" brush were a little more reliable.  Mine hasn't been used much but it's already a little flakey, and its skimpier ink flow really becomes obvious if you try to fill an area - see the bottom of sketch on the right. 

 

Because this pen is double-sided, affordable, waterproof, and has at least one good fine brush tip on it that can achieve very good detail (that Spock drawing is quite small), it's a very decent pen to experiment with - but I would recommend giving the excellent Tombow Fudenosuke a try as well.