Unpacking The Art Supply order

I finally bit the bullet and sat down and went through all my art supplies to replace dead/dying AD markers and white ink pens, along with some needed drawing pencils. I tend to wait longer than I should to buy new suuplies, it's a pain in the ass and costs a chunk, but you can't work without these things. I used about two-score of my markers until they were bone dry or gasping for an end to their misery, to where I couldn't color anything. And my white pens were also on their last legs.

So, I dove in, tested everything, threw out a lot of dead soldiers, and visited the Mister Art and Jet Pens sites to see what was in stock. I was very lucky with the AD markers at Mister Art, usually there's a number of markers that are out of stock, but only one or two of the colors I was looking to replace were unavailable. I usually like to try a few new colors with every order but the shopping basket was tallying at around $250 for the ones on my list, so, maybe next time around. I also picked up some Tombow mono pencils. They were out of HB pencils so it was all B and 2Bs for me this time (I should have pickd a few HB's up from another brand but I wasn't thinking straight, I guess).

Edited to add: They sent 8 B pencils instead of 4. Bonus!

I spent $25 to join the Mister Art Club which dropped the price on the markers and pencils to a point where I saved more than the $25 on the entire order, which dropped down to around $233 total with tax and free shipping (I forget what the minimum was for free shipping, but it's easily hit if you're picking a bunch of things up. I checked a few other sites before placing my order and Mister Art, at the time, had the lowest price for the Chartpak AD markers.

At Jet pens I picked up some Uniball Signo white ink pens and tried a few Japanese Pentel white ink correction pens of various sizes. I only needed a few bucks for the free shipping so I threw another two Signos in and came out ahead. I'd order more at a time but it was a spendy day overall. The Jet Pens order ran about $40.

(above) The pens on the left are Uni-Ball Signo white ink pens, my go-to for covering up small flubs or wayward lines, as well as lettering white-on-black or adding white line details to black spaces.

The correction pens on the right are all new to me. When I was ordering on Jet Pens I added a few of these to play with/ Apparently you have to squeeze them while using, adding white ink to the page. I was hoping the thinnest might be able to do some lettering white-on-black but I think these are all going to be used solely for cover-up work. If they can substitute for the Signo pens for small fixes then I can save the Signos for lettering. All the white ink pens can get draggy and clog up so sometimes they can be a pain in the ass, especially when they run low on ink. But I find the more you work with them the more you get a feel for what they can and can't do, and to lay the ink down slowly and steadily to keep the line as opaque and "white" as possible.

(above) I did some (very quick) samples of how the pens act over regular writing pen ink, Pitt brush pen and artist's black ink.

1) You can see that you are looking at meager results if you try to do broad correction work with a Signo Uniball. It will "disappear" some lines but you don't want to use it broadly.

2) You can see the Pentel correction ink covers broadly and cleanly with an opaque line.

3) Using a Uniball Signo pen to make marks on brush pen. It neded a going-over to strenghten the heart, but the pens are also new and have to get flowing.

4) Conversly, using the Pentel 0.1 to try to letter on black didn't go well. Maybe I need to practice more with these new pens, but it didn't work out at all. However, I'd bet a large sound effect or larger white text could be possible, maybe with some black ink trimming afterward. But these pens are going to be for correcting mistakes for the most part, and I'll be playing around with them to see if I can get into tight spaces with them and let them do the work of the Signo with more ease.

5) The Pentel 1.0 also not working great for lettering over black ink.

6) My go-to for lettering white-on-black. Uniball SIgno over black ink. Slow and steady.

7) And my go-to for making corrections. This is the standard Pentel Jumbo Correction Pen (fine tip) which you can find pretty easily. I assume the Japanese Pentel correction pens of different sizes will work as well for covering various areas of black ink.

Now I'm going to go over the Mister Art invoice and make sure all the markers are there. Then I will make a new color chart to update what I have and what they look like fresh. I think the old one has been in direct sunlight a few too many times. I need to buy a window shade but I never get around to it.

And that's today's excitement!