Brush Pens

Where do you start?
Like any person perusing a skill in drawing, I have spent an embarrassing amount of money and time in the search for the illustrious, "perfect pen". For the past two years I have bought many but I have narrowed my search to a smaller list that I will explain to you here. I know exciting!

Let me begin by saying there are many different pens. In my pen bag I have many types. I have ball point pens, fountain pens, brush pens, and pigment liners. For this post I will break down Three different brush pens that I use very frequently.  

When I first learned about brush pens I had little interest in the idea. I loved the control of the drafting pens I had always used before. In my head there was never a reason to switch. 

One day while nerding out at the local comic shop, I came across something I could not pull my eyes away from. The art was the perfect mesh of simple and bold. the line quality was full of thicks and thins (which I had not yet understood). I could not figure out how the lines were so perfect. 

The main reason of this was that the artist was Mike Allred, a comic legend, who has been doing this since 1989. The reason I thought was that I was using the wrong pen. So I bought a brush pen.

Mike Allred's signature character, Madman

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Faber-Castell   PITT   Artist   Pen

This is the first brush pen I started with. The Faber-Castell has a good line quality and a lot more control then most brush pens. I got this one first as it was the only "brush pen" Hobby Lobby carried. I have to say I enjoyed the use of this pen until i realized It's not the best. Looking at it now I realize it's more of a felt tip marker then a brush pen but I still use it every once in a while to switch things up. 

This Pen will give you a much more organic look then ball points, fountains, and drafting pens. It will give you a little more line variation but it is no where near the line variation of the Pentel brush pen

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Pentel   Stylo

This pen, though great in its own right, is not in fact a brush pen. I bought the Pentel Stylo for some reason thinking that it was. The reason I am showing you this one is because it was in fact a happy accident. When I first saw the tip on this one I was a bit skeptical. I shrugged and started sketching with it anyway. The Pentel Stylo acts like a firm felt tip pen. Its tip is unique in the sense that it flexes to give you a bit of give. Currently I use this pen as my go to pen. I love the feel and I think it works great in any circumstance. It works well for organic sketching and also for technical drawing. For the most part this pen is perfect for my needs most of the time. but it does not give you the line variance  of either of the brush pens in my list. 

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Pentel   Brush   Pen

Now This is what I was looking for! This is a brush pen. for some reason I could not find one in my home town. I had to order it on amazon. but I assure you... it is worth it. As yo can see it has a huge amount of line variance. The pen actually has Bristles instead of the former felt type. this allows the ink to spread much further and get to a much finer point. 

The Pentel Brush Pen does take a steady hand. if you have experience in inking with a brush it should be pretty comparable. the bristles seem hardy so far and the ink flows very evenly. the point of the bristles comes to a point with two sizes. if you aim it one way the point is about a bristle thick. but if you rotate the pen  90 degrees you get a point that is about three bristles thick. this ads a lot to the utility of the pen since you can choose many different line widths. the one thing this pen lacks is the control. With anything, if you practice with this pen that wont be a problem, but it just takes some getting used to. 

For the most part I use the Pentel Stylo for the majority of my ink work. when I want to let loose and do something a bit less technical I switch to the Pentel Brush Pen. I do not use the Faber on a regular basis, but If your looking for a gateway pen... get it.