My Main Choice for Inking

The brush pen has been my goto tool for inking for quite a while now. It is fast to use for creating line art, gives you a wide range of thick to thin lines and it makes crisp beautiful lines.

HOW DID I LAND ON THE BRUSH PEN?

I’ve tried my hand at different tools for inking from ball point pens to fineliners to digital tablets. But none compare to the speed and control that a brush pen offers.

I can’t even keep count of the many number of drawings I’m proud of, that I made using brush pens. And all these drawings kept challenging me to stumble upon important lessons in learning to ink with a brush pen.

The best thing about the brush pen is that we are able to create different line weight variations with a single brush stroke and that gives you the ability to add line work details to you piece unlike any other tool. Working with a brush pen is quick and efficient once you get the hang of it. I find it quicker even compared to inking digitally where the tool is not as responsive and you need to constantly undo and redo the lines you make.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Here are some brush pens I use to do my artwork,

1. Pentel Pocket Brush Pen - This pen is a bit on the expensive end of the spectrum but this pen produces amazing lineart and has clean uninterrupted ink flow. This one’s been my main choice for inking sketches.

2. Pentel Fude Brush Pen - This is a cheaper option compared to the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. It comes in different nib sizes so you can choose to buy a thicker or thinner one according to your needs. I’m using the Extra Fine variant.

3. Sakura Pigma Brush Pen - If you can’t afford either of the above, then I would recommend this option. This is a use-and-throw pen unlike the ones above where you can refill the ink. But it does the job adequately and is very affordable.

All three of these brush pens are ones I personally use and recommend to my friends and students. You can click on the links in the pen titles above to check them out on Amazon.

Like any tool, the brush pen also needed some time and practice to gain good command over. And I want to share the most important lessons I’ve gained through the process. I aim to have these lessons equip you with the knowledge to make your journey of getting good at inking a lot quicker than it was for me.

3 ASPECTS OF BRUSH PEN MASTERY

Over the years of working with the brush pen I’ve narrowed down honing the skill of inking with a brush pen to 3 main aspects,

1. Line Control

2. Line Weight

3. Practice

We’re going to be discussing these three aspects in more detail in the upcoming blog posts and newsletters. So stay tuned for that, people!

Finally, I want to ask you guys a favor. We’ve been working really hard on putting together a comprehensive course on Inking Fundamentals and we want to make sure we’ve covered all the bases. So please take 30 seconds to let us know what is the number one problem you face when it comes to inking. Comment down below.