Cartooning Tips and Tricks: The Brush Pen

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

Zander says: For quick, bold brush strokes and an organic feel to your artwork, the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen is possibly the best tool you can find out there. No other tool has so fundamentally changed the way I draw, and feel about drawing, like this pen. Its thickness and flexibility prevent you from using it to render tight, precise images, so you are forced to work more loosely and make more decisions about light and shadow in the inking stage than in the penciling stage.

I stopped doing the thing that I told young artists to do for years -- filling in the black areas in pencil before I ink. I've always said that it's important to judge the black and white balance of a picture before you go into the inking stage, but with this pen, I've started to improvise with ink and adjust the balance as I go. It makes for much more instinctive and fluid-looking images in the end.

Kevin says: This brush pen has brought back the joy of drawing. A lot of that joy comes from there being no need to clean the bristles. Yep, I hate to admit it, but the lack of responsibility makes me feel more creative. While I still like the line quality of the sable brush more than the brush pen, the brush pen lets me draw for thirty seconds, cap the brush, and go on with my life. This tool also opens up the possibility of drawing outside the studio without needing to pack a ton of accessories like brush, ink, water, towel, soap, etc.

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