Inking Pens, Which Brand Should I Get?

Inking Pens, Which Brand Should I Get?

Many people myself included enjoy to draw with a hard-lined style, but when starting out most of us have had the question “Which Pens Should I Get?”. Today I will give you an overview on the different pens I have used and you can come to the conclusion yourself which pens you'd like to get!

Sakura Brand:

Sakura is a Japanese Company headquartered in Japan, they make an array of art and drawing supplies, I personally am a big fan of their Micron and Pigma-Sensi Pens along with their white gelly roll pen!

Micron:

The Sakura Micron Pens are make specifically for inking They Come in Sizes ranging from 0.05 mm – 0.8mm giving you a great vastness in depth if you use the pens correctly. Their tips are a cylinder shape being round with a flat bottom.

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Tip Sizes:

• Pen Size 005 = Point Size 0.20 mm
• Pen Size   01 = Point Size 0.25 mm
• Pen Size   02 = Point Size 0.30 mm
• Pen Size   03 = Point Size 0.35 mm
• Pen Size   05 = Point Size 0.45 mm
• Pen Size   08 = Point Size 0.50 mm

There are many colors and they are very useful if you don't want to be limited to black, I believe they aren't multiple sizes however and are limited to 0.1mm.

Microns come in packs/sets of different styles, like 

• Sepia
• A pack of all the sizes listed above
• A Manga-Comic Pro pack complete with 00.5, 0.3, 0.8 along with a Pigma brush pen and Pigma graphic 1 pen (1.0 mm) and a mechanical pencil, 0.7 mm lead size (extra leads and erasers not included)

There are other packs and lists all that can be found here.

They are marketed as permanent and waterproof.

Pigma Sensi:

Pigma Sensi are closer to a marker type tip ranging in sizes from 0.1 mm – 1.0 mm they are very nice to ink with, they're the first real inking pens I used.

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Tip Sizes:

• 0.1
• 0.3
• 0.5
• 1.0

Pigama Sensi's are supposed to be water proof but when I played with watercolor paint when I was younger they seemed to bleed a bit but they might not have been totally dried; still it's something to keep in mind if you ink before painting to color. The Pigma Sensi Pack/Set has All Sizes Said above plus a mechanical pencil and a Sakura brand foam eraser.

These cost about $10 for the pack mentioned above. (Prices Vary By Store)

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White Pens:

I've bought two different pens that are white that are Sakura Brand, Gelly Role White Pen, and a White Pen Touch, I personally prefer the Gelly Role Pen over the Pen touch.

Gelly Roll:

The Gelly roll is very smooth once you get it moving but considering I use a lot of medias it gets a little picky on wanting to go totally smooth but it looks fine once you get it to move, this is good for smaller details and about 0.99 cents in Micheals (Prices Vary By Location) per pen.

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If you need to highlight something with a very big area you could use white craft paint or go with...

Pen Touch:

Pen touch is a pump type pen and gets very messy, I'm sure if you practice with it you can make it work for you but it can be irritating, but it can't hurt to try it out if you want.

These are more expensive about 3-4 dollars in Micheals.

Sharpie:

Sharpie as an inking pen is a good option if you want to start cheap but effective, there are a few non-numbered sizes to choose from, even a retractable version of the fine point. Y
ou can also buy a white pump pen much like the Sakura Pen Touch, but this pen I found is less messy, it's oil based but costs about $4.00 if you include.

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Tip Sizes:

• Ultra Fine – about 0.1-0.2 mm
• Fine – about 0.8 mm
• Normal – about 1.0 mm
• Super – maybe 2.0mm; Or a Chisel Pointed tip.

Note: Size measurements are my personal estimates.

Sharpie does have a scent that if you have hyper allergies or are super sensitive might bother you, so that might be good to keep in mind. Sharpies also bleed through paper very fast so make sure if you draw in a drawing pad or a sketch book to keep a paper under the paper so the next page of your book isn't stained or marked, even if it's a wet media paper it's better to be safe than sorry!

Sharpie Sells other pens and markers varying in price, size, and color.

I used these when I was first starting out, and if you are super new you might wanna start cheap and work your way up as you get better.

Ultra Fine Tip Marker, $1.54 from Hobby Lobby (Prices vary by locations)

Prismacolor:

The only pens I own and know of from Prismacolor are called “Prismacolor Premier Assorted Markers” They come in the following sizes:

• 

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  00.5
• 0.1
• 0.3
• 0.5
• 0.8
• B – Brush Pen
• C – Chisel Tip

I've been using these since about October of 2012 and it's almost June of 2013 and they still work well, all except the 0.05 one, that one seemed a little dull from the start though; they work a long time and are very smooth, they don't bleed much even on dry media paper but I still say put the paper under the page just to be safe.

No scent, permanent and waterproof.

Tips are very similar to the Sakura Micron Pens.

I bought them (well my mother did Haha!) for $10.99 on sale; On Amazon they are $15.99.

I also use a Prismacolor marker (an actual coloring marker) on the “fine” edge (about 1.0 mm) for the super fat outlines for paintings like Potted Grace.

Note: Sandford Products Owns Both Prismacolor and Sharpie Brands.

Ball-Point Pens:

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In general I'd say they're okay, not good and not terrible, but if you use markers the black will bleed in to your colors because ball-point pens aren't generally permanent, if you use colored pencils its better, but if you want to do a design like a wood design over colored pencil it'll be nearly impossibly because the pencil is too waxy for the ball-point pen to glide smoothly. If you buy a pen from a good company like Pilot then it'll be smooth but if you touch it it'll most likely smudge.

There are people like Zkos who draws with a ball-point but he doesn't color his drawings, other people do and it's on the computer, if you want to color your drawings on the computer with a program like GIMP, or MyPaint then ball-point pens leave you no real issues. If you want to not color anything in but make different colored outlines then ball point pens are fine just leave them to completely dry before you erase pencil if you use pencil first or else they will smudge.

If you want to try them out you can get packs of 15 or more in a dollar store for a $1.00 (tax not included), but it's normally just black or a mix of black, blue, and red. Mixed colors aren't as common but still out there, a higher quality brand like Pilot is better if you want good ball point pens.

I hope this has helped somebody!

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends, Along With The Health Of Yourself, Family, And All That Know You. ~ Amen

~ Firefly 

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