Review: J. Herbin Lie de Thé Fountain Pen Ink

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

Not long ago I started exploring brown pen options in the post Brown Pen Battle. Now I add for consideration a fountain pen option:  J. Herbin's Lie de Thé (Tea Brown) ink.

J. Herbin offers some gorgeous, brilliant, and intriguing colors, and Lie de Thé is no exception.  I found it to be a very pleasing brown tone that seems to dance between all its constituent colors so that sometimes I see more green or yellow in it and sometimes red.  The above strokes were made with a brush;  I've also loaded the ink into my Pilot Penmanship and Hero M86 Chinese Calligraphy Pen, shown here with a couple of comparison colors.

 
Of course, the J. Herbin inks are not waterproof, and therefore are not going to be ideal for all uses. Still, oh man, what a lovely color.  

My only other brown-ish ink right now is Noodler's Antietam, which is actually more of a red than a brown. It's an extremely beautiful color that I've tried to use as if it were brown but the red can easily overwhelm a drawing or clash with watercolors that get added later. This J. Herbin brown, on the other hand, is beautifully balanced.  It works great as a brown that can play nice with most other colors, adding rather than competing.  It doesn't demand the spotlight but it's willing to step up when needed. 

Here you can see that the color works gorgeously both for line and with added water. There is no watercolor used in this drawing - just the Lie de Thé and a waterbrush, along with a gray brush pen for the distant buildings (see my next review, up soon.)  

There are so many beautiful colors of ink to use, but a well-balanced brown gets special points for versatility.  This ink is gorgeous on buff paper and white, with water and without, with added colors or on its own. If you're looking for a water soluble brown ink to sketch with, that will work for a lot of subjects and a variety of styles, the Lie de Thé will not disappoint.

Review: Hero M86 Chinese Calligraphy Pen

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

Once again, my review is inspired by an Urban Sketcher.  This time, it's the wonderful Tia Boon Sim of Singapore and her use of the Hero M86 Chinese calligraphy pen.  The pen has a beautiful and solid (albeit heavy) black and silver body.  

See that bulbous cap?  It's too heavy for the pen, and doesn't post well.  Hmm.  At least it's stylish.

The only source I know of for these pens is ISellPens.com.  Scroll down towards the bottom of the linked page to find it. Right now it's selling for $12.88 plus shipping.  

This pen has a bent nib which is sometimes referred to as a "ski jump" nib.  Due to the bend the line is generally quite broad; however, when you tip your hand forward (bringing the pen into a more vertical position, up to a right angle from the page), you get a fine line.  Additionally, as also works with other fountain pens, inverting the pen results in an even finer line.

 
The first two writing samples are on Aquabee Super Deluxe paper which is fairly toothy, and shows the lines available by changing the vertical angle of the pen.   (Sorry for the blur.) The third sample is on smooth "Pen Sketcher's" paper.  Also see Tia's video demonstrating her use of the pen; it's subtle, but you can see that she changes the pen's angle to the paper quite a bit and also uses it in the inverted position for awhile.

      

I believe it's because of the strange way you need to hold this pen to achieve line variation that it has such particularly idiosyncratic results.  Tia achieves gorgeous fluidity in her sketches using this tool (this is one of my favorites of hers - so beautiful!).  That's Tia, though.  In my hand the pen produces a very different style.

The Hero M86 is so unlike other pens that it takes special attention and practice.  Luckily it's a lot of fun, as well!

As for ink, I took no chances and filled up with Noodler's Bulletproof .  Use an economical ink in any case because you can blast through it fast with this pen. 

The pen comes with a pump filler ink reservoir. This brings us to the pen's one major flaw that I've found, besides the minor annoyance of not being able to post the cap:  ink flow has been inconsistent.

Often I need to open up the pen and manually push the slider to force ink towards the nib, being careful not to push too far, which would flood ink onto my hands and paper. I haven't heard of others encountering this problem with the Hero, so it may depend on how you hold the pen or it could be a manufacturing issue.  Tia recommends moving the ink pump very quickly in order to reduce air bubbles.  Following that advice reduced but did not eliminate my ink flow problems.  See her discussion here; note that my ink reservoir is the one she states is newer, printed with "Hero" rather than "Made in England".

Like most other fountain pens and brush pens, this pen doesn't do well in a Moleskine sketchbook or, indeed, on any paper that has a non-absorbent coating.  The copious ink just pools up.  Toothy watercolor or mixed media paper has a strong effect on the line, but it takes the ink well.  In general, an artist may need to be a little more selective about paper when using this pen than they would when using a standard fountain pen like a Lamy Safari.  My accounting ledger paper resisted the ink a little bit which resulted in some smudging and a greyer tone, but other than that the effects were nice.

This is an exciting pen for artists.  I highly recommend the Hero M86 for anyone who desires great variety of line and loves to discover new possibilities in their tools... as long as they are willing to spend some time getting to know the pen and don't mind working around the unpostable cap and potentially unreliable ink flow.

Thanks to Tia for showing her gorgeous sketches made with this pen at last year's Urban Sketchers Symposium... and to my partner Mike for putting the Hero M86 under our Christmas tree!

Review: Copic Wine Multiliner and Brush Pen SP

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

I became interested in Copic's wine colored pens when Urban Sketcher Correspondent Matthew Brehm joined the Portland Urban Sketchers for a sketchcrawl and made this beautiful and very long drawing.  The purple segment really stands out to my eyes, and it was made with the Copic Multiliner in wine.

The Brush Pen in wine is much darker than the Multiliner - no matter how much I layered the Multiliner's strokes, the ink never got as dark as is generated in one quick stroke by the Brush Pen though it did layer nicely.

Copic's brush pens aren't actual brushes.  Like the popular Faber-Pitt Artist Brush Pens and most other brush pen options out there, they have a molded tip that mimics brush behavior by allowing a lot of line variation.  In some ways this style of pen is easier to use than an actual brush with a bunch of separate hairs that can get damaged or in disarray.  I find it easier with Copic's faux brushes to keep the line at a medium weight without unintentionally turning the brush the wrong way and ending up with a really thick line where I didn't want one.

However, there are some big drawbacks to these brush-mimic tips as well.  You can see in the sample above that using the full potential width of the brush resulted in a strange uneven shape at the end of the stroke.  You don't get that problem with the brush pens that have actual bristles  (such as the Pentel Pocket Brush and the Kuretake Hair Brush).   Also, it was a challenge to get a fine line with the Copic brush.

I love that Copic is so focused on making permanent tools.  Since I can order wine ink refills online and the brush tips and Multiliner tips are available at my local art store ($2.50), both the brush pen and the multiliner pen with their sleek silver bodies could potentially stay in my collection forever.

But will they?  

The Multiliner will.  It's got good waterproof ink, it's a lovely color that can layer to a darker tone, a good line, replaceable nib.  I'll use this pen again, and look forward to experimenting to adding watercolors in tones to complement the wine color.

As for the brush pen, I'm not so sure.  Actual hair brush pens make a nicer line, and the Kuretake can be refilled with any fountain pen ink.  The Copic's advantage then becomes that their ink is waterproof and replacement nibs are cheaper. Here's a drawing using the Copic brush pen with watercolors - I have no other purple ink that could take watercolors without running.

I also tried using the multiliner and the brush together in one drawing.  It would work better if I could get a finer minimum line width with the brush.  

 This was supposed to be Benedict Cumberbatch, star of Steven Moffat's new BBC Sherlock Holmes remake, Sherlock.  Note how it's very clear whether each line was made with the brush pen or the multiliner!  Ah well, I'll keep the Multiliner in my travel bag but the Brush Pen will probably get relegated to the "occasional use" pile, only because there are some phenomenal brush options out there if you go through the bother to track them down.

Thanks to Copic for generously providing these sample products!