Illustrations, Sketches, and Art Supply Reviews
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Head Study July 2021
This tiny lil baby (4.5”x7”) wasn’t effortless, but it came easier than most of my recent pencil rendering. Used a bunch of different pencils (mostly Mitsubishi Uni and Tombow Mono & Mono R’s) on Legion Stonehenge paper.
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Nude Floating
I’m definitely going to have to get more creative with these names. I sat on this sketch for three weeks (moving sucks), but I finally got some time to transfer and ink this up. No reference on this one besides the hands, though I probably should have.
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Nude Contropasto
Another day off, another sketch turned into an illustration. I scanned this out of my sketchbook, blew it up, and printed it out and transferred it to a 9”x12” Strathmore Smooth Bristol 300 page. Used Deleter Screentone (SE-12) and inked with a Pentel Pigment Brush Pen.
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Floating Nude
First thing I used screentones on this year. I ended up transfering this from a sketch to bristol board with a lightbox. I used to hate doing that, still do a bit but I’m getting better. The original sketch always has way more life in it still, but this has some of it. Dimensions are 9”x6”, used a Pentel Pigment Ink brushpen, Strathmore 300 Smooth/Plate Bristol, Deleter Screentone Sheet SE-12 (30L, 20%)and did the pencils with a Natraj 621 Ruby pencil. I got 50 of them bad boys on the way.
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Leuchtturm1917 A5 Sketchbook New 2020 Version Review
I really love drawing in the Leuchtturm1917 Plain Journal lately. I’ve been using it for the last month, and I’ve just grown to love the paper. The way it handles ink and pencil is really amazing, I just wish the paper was thicker because it folds and creases easily, especially when erasing. I even prefer it to those Moleskine Cahier’s I reviewed a while back. So when I saw that Leuchtturm1917 put out a new 2020 revision to their A5 Sketchbook, I wanted to try it out.
I tried their first sketchbook back in 2016, and I just wasn’t a fan. It had a lot of issues with feathering ink in my experience. Would I like this one any more than the old version?
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Mitsubishi Kohitsu Shosha Pencil 10B Review
I’ve been on a wild pencil kick lately. I’ve stayed mostly in the HB, B, and 2B range of graphite core hardness, but I was wondering what the really soft pencils were like. I ordered a Tombow Mono Professional 6B, and I thought I could get something darker. Then I tried a Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 10B Pencil, and that was much darker than the Tombow Mono Professional 6B, I’d say near perfect. The last thing I can think of to try is the Mitsubishi Kohitsu Shosha Pencil in 10B, so I ordered it up to see if it was any darker.
Spoiler Alert: Just stick with your Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 10B.
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Moleskine Cahier Journal Large Plain Brown Kraft Review
The Moleskine Cahier Journal, in the Large Plain “Brown” Kraft option has been my absolute favorite sketchbook over the last 2 months. Starting August 1st of 2020, I went out and got a pack of these (they automatically come in three packs, 80 pages per, for around $14.99) at Target, I even returned a extra Moleskine Art Sketchbook that I had bought from them because I was getting tired of pages being inconsistent with ink (certain pages were like Bristol board in how they accepted ink, then the next page feathered like crazy), and it was also hard to justify the price per page to just doodle in the thing ($21.99 per sketchbook for 104 pages).
It was hard for me to just use the Sketchbook Moleskine as a sketchbook. I described this problem in my LEUCHTTURM1917 Plain Journal Review a few months back. One of my problems with that sketchbook was that there was ghosting to the back side of every page. Meaning a book that had 250 pages effectively only has 125 pages now, since I’m not drawing on the back of the sheets. I’m not really saving money.
That’s where the value of the Cahier comes in.
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Mitsubishi Uni HB Pencil Review
I’ve really been wanting to try out the Mitsubishi Uni HB pencils since I found out how amazing the Hi-Uni HB pencils are from Mitsubishi (honestly all of their pencils I’ve tried from them have been great thus far). The concept of the same core, but a cheaper pencil sounds like a winner to me.
As it turns out, the Uni is a very hard pencil to come by in America. Jetpens, CW Pencil, shoot even Amazon or Ebay doesn’t really have them. I was only able to source a box via The Thackery (same with my box of Kita-Boshi 9500’s), though you can get some vintage pencils from some Etsy sellers (which I generally don’t care that much about vintage). So, are they worth it?
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