Brush Pen Review
by
Felly.
- 7:58 AM
As you probably know, I am a kind of lettering enthusiast nowadays. Nothing grand or perfect, I consider it as a hobby. At first I usually used the pencil and gradually build on the thickness. But one of my favorite tool right now for lettering is a brush pen. With brush pen you don't have to bother going over and over for the thickness, it's all in one go. I know it's probably take a lot to practice (as I still have to as well) but brush pen is great for someone who's usually very much lazy like me.
There's generally two type of brush pen according to me, the super flexible and the least flexible, it's your preference and serve different purpose, I think. So in the spirit of brush pen, I'll review some of brush pen that I have used (either owned or borrowed) and where to buy them. (or at least where I found them)
disclaimer; the pics of products aren't mine. But the pics of lettering are mine.
1. Kuretake Fudebiyori Brush Pen
These are my current favorites, I own one in the dark blue colour. There's a lot of colours they offer as you can see. As I said there's brush pen who is very flexible and least flexible and this pen is right in the middle. I really like the flow, when I use it for the first time I just know I really like this, even more than Koi brush pen. I read in the internet there's even some mettalic colours. The only downfall is it's not waterproof. I accidentally spilled a little tiny drop of water in my work and it's ruined. Well.
I found this at Gading Murni Store at my campus for around 20K Rupiah. (The exact price at tokopedia is 18.500 well) Here's my work using this brush pen (this one is scanned with black and white mode so)
2. ZIG Kuretake Clean Color Real Brush Pen.
It's my sister's and she bought the whole package of colors and I get the black one. This is kind of hard for beginners because it has a very flexible tip. But one you get used to it you can make very thin line. Also this is a good pen if you want to achieve the dry brush effect. To be honest I still haven't master using this pen and my pen already dried up. Another thing is this dried quite easy, it's only been a short time and my pen already dried up, not entirely, but mostly.
I found this at Toko Buku Gunung Agung for around 30K Rupiah, it's also available in stores like Gading Murni or ATK Mart. Here's my sample work using this pen.
3. Sharpie Stained
I read somewhere that people recommended this for starters somehow. I don't know how I feel about that. I used to own two pens and they all dried up. It's probably because of my accidentally left the cap open, or is it that fast to dried up? I think it is. However I wasn't able to acquire such a thin line as what I did with other two pens above. Usually the tip is quite broad already compared to other brush pen. But I still can work with this, well.
The ink however, is also quite transparent, not really, but not as opaque as the other pen.
You can found Sharpie stained in any major bookstore, like Gramedia or Toko Gunung Agung, or even in stores like Gading Murni for around 20K, I just checked in tokopedia they sell it for 23K Rupiah.
Here's my work with Sharpie stained.
4. ZIG Mangaka Flexible.
I moderately like this pen, this is the least flexible brush pen I have tried I think. The control is very easy and the tip is really small so you can make thin line. Unfortunately you can't make very thick line in one go, the coverage is not that large. This is still a pleasing pen to work with.
I found this at an art exhibition one day, the store owned by gading murni I think, for around 20K. Here's my sample work with this pen.
5. Koi Coloring Pen
To be honest I didn't own this pen, I only used it a couple times so I don't know as much as I know pens I wrote before this. This are much less similiar to kuretake brush pen I think. It's a available in vast different colours so it's a good thing. It's only slightly below the Kuretake I think, maybe I'm quite biased. But I heard that the tip is also easily damaged, and once it is damaged you can't use it for making thin line. Maybe I'll buy one someday and get to really try it.
You can get this in major bookstore I think, Including Toko Gunung Agung, or maybe Gading Murni.(the internet price is 16K)
Those are my go-to brush pen, but if you don't want to invest too much you can always try using regular art brush and ink (a.k.a. kuas & tinta bak, regular lyra brush usually cost around 10k and the ink is around 4-5k?) it could work! Here's still some pen I've tried and I forgot, I think. Maybe for another time. I also have some wish list to try brush pen, I'll put it here.
- Tombow.
- Pentel brush
- Sakura Pigma Brush
- crayola?
Other suggestions are open! I might try them someday. Then again, every great artist should be able to work with anything, but we also have a choice to use our favorite tool as well.