Posts filed under Tombow

Tombow Mono Graph Multi 2 Color 0.5 mm Ballpoint Pen + 0.5 mm Pencil - Mono Color Review

The Japanese are known for two things around these parts: Amazing stationery and terrible naming conventions. Luckily for my sanity, the former outweighs the latter by a large margin, but sometimes I have to post the full product name solely for the humor it provides.

While the name leaves a lot to be desired, the pen does not. The Tombow Mono Graph Multi Pen - yes, I’m shortening the name - is a great choice in the 2+1 multi pen category.

What is a 2+1? I’m so glad you asked! It may not be the textbook definition of describing multi pens, but I refer to any multi pen with a pencil component as a +1. This Tombow has two ink cartridges and one pencil cartridge, therefore it is a 2+1. I like that designation because it saves me from writing “multi pen and pencil” over and over again. These are multi pens, with a pencil component.

Uni-ball, Pilot, and other Japanese brands make multi pens up to a 4+1 size, which requires a wide barrel, as you can imagine. One of them made a 1+1 in the past - I’m thinking Uni-ball or Zebra - but I don’t see it as available right now on JetPens.

When thinking about buying a multi pen, I consider barrel diameter first. How many components can I jam into one barrel and still feel comfortable writing with it? Secondly, I consider the refill choices. If the first part doesn’t satisfy my needs, the second part doesn’t matter, does it?

This Tombow multi pen fits three components in just a slightly larger diameter barrel than most standard gel ink pens. That’s a great thing, primarily for one rarely talked about reason. More components and a wider barrel lead to the refills being deployed at a less-than-vertical angle. That means the tip of the refill looks like it comes out of the front of the barrel crooked. Rotate the barrel in your hands, look at the tip, and you will see.

This isn’t always avoidable from a design perspective, but some companies do it better, and some do it worse. Another thing to keep in mind when shopping for multi pens.

In lieu of a knock mechanism, this Tombow uses a twist to engage the component you want. Rotate the clip around the barrel in any direction (there is no hard stop at any point) to line it up with the component name you wish to use. This one has black and red 0.5 mm ballpoint refills plus an 0.5 mm mechanical pencil.

Unlike other multi pens with a +1, this one has an eraser, and a killer one at that. Tombow makes some of the best quality erasers on the market, and this one has a jumbo twist eraser built right in. No dinky mechanical pencil eraser here!

From a writing perspective, I love the 0.5 mm tip sizes, but they aren’t for everyone. That is especially true for ballpoints, because an 0.5 mm tip gets you a line finer than 0.4 mm, or even finer, gel ink pens. And it’s not completely smooth due to the ink type. Know the fineness of this pen before diving into it.

I had zero issue diving into this one personally. In fact, if I worked at Tombow, this is a pen I would have designed for myself. Two extra fine refills, a fine pencil refill, a large, high quality eraser, as narrow of a barrel as I could fit it all into, and a killer paint job. All for under $10? Count me in.

I’ve been putting this one to good use over the last few weeks, and I can see myself carrying it for some time to come.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on June 11, 2018 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Tombow, Multi Pen, Pen Reviews.

Tombow Irojiten Color Dictionary Color Pencil Review

In years past, I wouldn’t have given much thought to colored pencils. Then, a little phenomenon called Adult Coloring happened, and I NEED all the colored pencils! Need is a strong term of course, but I do own more colored pencils now than I ever have, and the Tombow Irojiten Color Pencils may be the best of the bunch.

Let’s get the one negative out of the way first: They are expensive. You can buy them in two sizes, either a 30-pack Dictionary, of which there are three, for $34, or one of several 5-pack mini-sets for $9.50. Neither of those are a value by any stretch, but the 30-packs are clearly the way to go even if you just want to test them out.

And test them out I did with the Dictionary set containing the tones Pale I, Vivid I, and Deep I. Confused yet? Understandably so. Each of the three Dictionary sets comes with three 10-packs, individually boxed. The other two sets contain Pale II, Deep II, Light Grayish I, and Fluorescent, Very Pale, Dull I. These are the Copic Marker of the colored pencil world it seems.

It would be nice if each of the 30-pack Dictionaries had a name of their own for discussion and clarity purposes, but I’ll deal with it because these are flat-out the best colored pencils I have used.

I chose the set I did because it had the most variety between the three boxes contained within. Pale I is a nice spring palette with a big range of pinks, greens, and blues. Vivid I is the closest to a standard set of colors, with a rainbow of traditional leaning shades. Deep I has a great range of browns, greens, and blues that you don’t normally get in standard colored pencil sets.

From a writing and coloring perspective these are wonderful. The cores are wax, but they feel the most traditional graphite pencil-like of any colored pencil I have used, right down to the sound and feel on the page. They don’t feel waxy or sticky when laying down lines.

Is it strange to say I feel like I can control these colored pencils better than others? That’s what it feels like to me, especially when coloring in fine details. I can hit right on the edges of even the smallest details. I think it has something to do with the pencil-like edge I get from the core, as opposed to a more rounded tip. I make mental notes of this constantly as I am coloring, as if to say “Wow, this is different.”

Sharpening the Irojiten colored pencils is a breeze too. I’ve mostly used my Uni KH-20 crank sharpener, but handhelds, like the KUM Masterpiece, do the trick just as well.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the packaging, because for once, that is the first thing that caught my eye. Each Volume of the Dictionary comes in a dedicated 10-pencil box with plastic slots to hold the pencils in place, and numbering and name details for each pencil on the inside cover. The box also has an elastic band to keep it closed when stored, or on the move. These added touches help justify the price, at least a little bit.

The best products are the ones that give you joy. The Tombow Irojiten Colored Pencils do that for me, whether I’m using them, or just looking at them sitting on my desk. And that’s where they have been since they arrived. I like them so much I want them close by at all times. Plus, they fancy up the joint just with their presence.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on May 7, 2018 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Tombow, Irojiten, Colored Pencil, Pencil Reviews.

Tombow Play Color Dot Marker Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter.)

The prospect of dotting all my stationery with perfect little bright circles delighted me to no end, so I was excited to try these new Play Color Dot Markers from Tombow. The colors are fantastic and the dots are definitely charming, but ink issues severely limit their usage. Alas, I cannot dot all the things. These markers only work on goldilocks paper--coated enough to prevent massive bleed-though, but not so coated as to prevent drying. The design is brilliant, and with a recipe change I think these would be a staple product for me. But right now, I can't use them the way I want to.

These pens have two ends--a 5 mm round felt-tip marker that works as a fat line, or as a highlighter, or as a circle stamp. The stamping is tricky to get the hang of. You can't just do a vertical drop like you would with a rubber stamp--you have to lightly press, do a little wiggle so that the full circle makes contact, and then peel it away from the page at an angle. This prevents the pigment from pooling at one side of the circle making it uneven and causing it to bleed through. You can see on my test page a variety of circle fails before I got the hang of it. Once I did, however, the circles came out really nicely.

The pigment is bright enough to be seen when used as a line, but pale enough to use as a highlighter as well. Because it is water-based, though, be careful about what you highlight over. And be mindful of the paper you're using, too, because of the bleeding issues.

The other end of the pen is a very fine .3 mm plastic tip. It's nice for writing or coloring in fine spaces, though the water-based ink does give it that over-pigmented area where lines overlap. In contrast to the very wet broad end, I did experience some dry-out of the tip during longer coloring sessions.

The pen body is plastic, and colors are very well indicated all over it. The broad end has the cap with a clip, while the fine point has a small cap. Bothe caps click closed securely, and both caps post on each other, which is a lovely clever thing. The clip is nicely flexible and sturdy. The side of hte marker includes instructions for proper stamping technique both in Japanese text and in a small graphic. If it hadn't been for that graphic, I'd be making blobby circles, still.

The 12-pack includes brown, grey, lilac, blue, sky blue, mint green, apple green, honey yellow, orange, coral, sakura, and cherry red. The colors are all vibrant and fun--I really like the palette chosen. It includes practical staples and a few fun accents.

Now, those bleeding issues. The wide tip causes some ink to pool, and it's in those pooled spots that bad things happen. If used carefully, the pooling can be mostly avoided, but not entirely. On cheaper paper, even the lightest touch soaks right through. And if the ink really concentrates, it can bleed through even Tomoe River paper. And it has some drying issues on heavily-coated papers as well. The two best papers I found for these markers were Kokuyo and Rhodia--and I still had to be careful (and still did get some faint bleeding). It's a shame, because these would be SO useful for planners and bullet journaling, but no one wants to make a confusing mess of their planner. I sincerely hope that this design might be revisited in the future with a revised ink recipe. They're nearly perfect, but the flaw is a fatal one.

I'm still going to use these, though. The colors are too good, the dots are too fun. If I can't dot all the things, at least I can dot some of them. It's better than no dots at all!

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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