What pen(s) are you using today?

[I-am-not-really-here]

Today I will be trying out a Tibaldi Bamboo double broad, with ink not yet chosen.

[OldTravelingShoe]

16 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

I haven't seen LCdC list the Opus 88 Shell, or the wooden-barrelled Heart Sutra limited edition

These look like very nice pens with clear usefulness for drawing. Looks like I'll have to insulate my wallet against a leak toward Cult Pens then, @A Smug Dill 😄

[essayfaire]

6 hours ago, mallymal1 said:

I've now to decide whether to have a go myself, or to send it off to a pen doctor. 

I guess that depends on how much you like the pen - what you paid for it shouldn't matter!

[OldTravelingShoe]

TL;DR: A Duke 209 matte black with fude nib, inked with Noodler's X-Feather Black. 

 

Figure 1. The input: nib and ink. 

 

Figure 2. The channel: pen, nib ready to sketch. 

 

Figure 3. Zoom on the star. 

 

Figure 4. The output. (It's not the pen's fault.) 

 

Enjoy! 

 

 

[essayfaire]

2 hours ago, OldTravelingShoe said:

TL;DR: A Duke 209 matte black with fude nib, inked with Noodler's X-Feather Black. 

 

Figure 1. The input: nib and ink. 

 

Figure 2. The channel: pen, nib ready to sketch. 

 

Figure 3. Zoom on the star. 

 

Figure 4. The output. (It's not the pen's fault.) 

 

Enjoy! 

 

 

The output is wonderful!  

[DvdRiet]

2 hours ago, OldTravelingShoe said:

TL;DR: A Duke 209 matte black with fude nib, inked with Noodler's X-Feather Black. 

 

Figure 1. The input: nib and ink. 

 

Figure 2. The channel: pen, nib ready to sketch. 

 

Figure 3. Zoom on the star. 

 

Figure 4. The output. (It's not the pen's fault.) 

 

Enjoy! 

 

 

 

That's fantastic! How did you like drawing with it? I've been seeing lots of stuff about the Duke fude nibs but there's no local source here in NL that I've found so far, and haven't yet bothered to check further afield. Where did you get this one?

[mallymal1]

3 hours ago, OldTravelingShoe said:

TL;DR: A Duke 209 matte black with fude nib, inked with Noodler's X-Feather Black. 

 

Figure 1. The input: nib and ink. 

 

Figure 2. The channel: pen, nib ready to sketch. 

 

Figure 3. Zoom on the star. 

 

Figure 4. The output. (It's not the pen's fault.) 

 

Enjoy! 

 

 

 

Great output!

[mallymal1]

3 hours ago, essayfaire said:

I guess that depends on how much you like the pen - what you paid for it shouldn't matter!

 

The repair dilemma is merely if my tinkering skills are up to dismantling and repairing the pen🛠️🪚✒️  👍🙂, without further damage. 🤔

 

What I payed for it doesn't matter. 

[AmandaW]

3 hours ago, OldTravelingShoe said:

Figure 4. The output. (It's not the pen's fault.) 

 

Looking good. Try losing the line altogether to break up the 'outline' a little more. We don't really see outlines (they're for diagrams!) but our eyes trick us that we do. You're already getting great variation to imply light and shade so just a bit more of that at the edges. -->

[AmandaW]

Today's journal pen is a Lamy Studio All-Black filled with R&K Kastanienbraun and fitted with a, just arrived, black nib.

 

I ordered the nib to replace the 14K it had when I bought the pen secondhand. Maybe I'm nuts, I really like PVD nibs,and on this black pen the black nib looks better than the silver/gold one. For now the 14K is on my Black Forest Studio, but not sure about that either because I'm thinking the Lamy gold nib writes too fat for a fine nib!

 

[essayfaire]

3 hours ago, mallymal1 said:

 

The repair dilemma is merely if my tinkering skills are up to dismantling and repairing the pen🛠️🪚✒️  👍🙂, without further damage. 🤔

 

What I payed for it doesn't matter. 

Ah, that makes more sense!

[A Smug Dill]

14 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

Maybe I'm nuts, I really like PVD nibs,and on this black pen the black nib looks better than the silver/gold one.

 

Absolutely! Or maybe it could use a black Hanzi nib...

[AmandaW]

33 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Absolutely! Or maybe it could use a black Hanzi nib...

 

But then the special red Safari with it's black clip and black Hanzi nib wouldn't look as cool.

[dms525]

 

 

 

Eric Sands does fine work.

 

David

[amberleadavis]

2 hours ago, dms525 said:

 

 

 

Eric Sands does fine work.

 

David

 

OOO very pretty.

[mallymal1]

5 hours ago, essayfaire said:

Ah, that makes more sense!

 

👍

[OldTravelingShoe]

10 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

 

That's fantastic! How did you like drawing with it? I've been seeing lots of stuff about the Duke fude nibs but there's no local source here in NL that I've found so far, and haven't yet bothered to check further afield. Where did you get this one?

Thanks for the kind words. Lots to learn. 

 

The Duke 209 is very nice actually. Excellent, wet flow, especially for the strong strokes that create the shade, which I do with the full width of the brush - the turned part of the nib.

 

At contact with the paper, the nib feels iron-y, so clearly a steel nib, and requires a bit of skill to handle well I've yet to acquire. I don't mind either; the nib works very reliably so I just need to learn how to use it. For example, the thinner strokes require handling the pen closer to the vertical, and I like how using the nib at a slant in both pitch and yaw (if these are the correct terms here) can help with varied strokes. 

 

All in all, a lot of feel for a lot of line variation, so I like it very much. 

 

To buy these pens, I opened an AliExpress account and ordered directly from China. I believe they were about €5 each, and I got three matte black and one stainless steel. They all worked well so far, so QA seems gopd on this pen. I should be able to dig up the link to the source, if you'd like it. 

[OldTravelingShoe]

9 hours ago, AmandaW said:

 

Looking good. Try losing the line altogether to break up the 'outline' a little more. We don't really see outlines (they're for diagrams!) but our eyes trick us that we do. You're already getting great variation to imply light and shade so just a bit more of that at the edges. -->

Many thanks, @AmandaW. Will try to do this, but let's see how well it works.

 

Now that you pointed it out, I started thinking why I do it this way... these are my first drawings (as far as I can remember, so in over three decades), which likely means the lines are also my props to help me believe I can get the drawing done in the first place. My hope is that, as I learn to draw and complete more and larger drawings, I will indeed get a feel for the object and lose the need for scaffolding. 

 

Please keep these comments coming, they're very helpful and I learn much from them. 

[A Smug Dill]

[OldTravelingShoe]

9 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

These pens look good indeed, @A Smug Dill. For a €35, as AliExpress seems to be offering, very good.

 

I'm wondering how you experience writing with them - same or differently from the crushed orange N1? Also, any experience with whether they're drying out quickly? 

 

Thank you for sharing.