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  Y&C Calligraphy and other MARKER MADNESSMar 18, 2012 4:07 AM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:As you know, I've been messing with waterproof black pigment ink markers a lot lately, and although I'd mostly settled on Copic Multiliners, the soft-ish tips of the larger felt "brush" Multiliners don't always cut the mustard: they lay down a nice, dark, even line, but they can can run a bit dry on fast strokes, and their tips wear down pretty easily--and heck, they can't really make a sharp line from their first stroke. I like them for a lot of things but they can't do it all--oh yeah, and they only come in rather middling sizes. So if I want something that can lay down a long, hard line, or a lot of such lines for that matter, the Multiliners can't cut that mustard.
 
I got to wondering if a chisel tip marker might be a solution. Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of really black, waterproof, acid-free, pigment ink chisel-tipped markers out there; in fact, the only one I know of currently is a single 2 mm "PITT artist pen" chisel tip or "calligraphy" marker made by Faber-Castell.
 
But that didn't stop me from running off to the neighborhood everything-store to see what they had in their grab bag of an art supplies aisle (or half an aisle, including the school supplies part) that could momentarily slake my curiosity. They didn't have the Faber-Castell, and two other mysterious "calligraphy" products were sold out, but rather to my surprise they did have these:
 
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Those (the long ones in the three-pack in the middle, I mean) are Yasutomo "Y&C Calligraphy Chisel Tip Markers" markers, at 2.0, 3.5, and 5.0 mm sizes. Acid-free, but no mention of waterproof, and the ol' spit-finger test (upper right) showed that they rub off rather blueishly when wet--and they're really more of a dark purple than a black to begin with: they made the wide purpley lines just to the right of the marker pack. I like their long, Japanese-style bodies (these always manage to make me think I'm getting more ink than a shorter marker :P), and the nibs were indeed chiselly, and quite tough--although a friend noticed one had a nick or indentation in one edge, which would leave a streak in brush stokes made at a certain angle. They also give out a decent amount of ink. Shame it isn't all that dark, though; and the blueish color makes me wonder if it's got dyes in it, which supposedly aren't the thing for artwork you want to last--don't ask me why; I'm no chemist, darn it!
 
Aaand anyway they didn't seem much like being waterproof, so that was it for those. The shorter, fatter marker you see to their left there is a Faber-Castell "PITT artist pen big brush" marker; those *are* waterproof, pigment-based, and actually black. Their big conical felt tips are pretty hard, which initially put me off of using them; I've had one or two sitting around in the cupboard since I first started thinking about switching from digital to traditional art for A*--if you recall, I used a couple (a big and a smaller one), along with some alcohol-based gray Copic "Sketch" markers (blah), to do the first real on-paper A* drawing back in September.
 
(((Hold the phone. Holy Cow. And they come in white, too! Has Sharpie actually come through? Kind of interesting actually since the "what I think is an American company" or something I mentioned once as being the ones who now own the German company Rotring, makers of the revered Rapidograph technical pens, is actually Sanford, who makes Sharpie products--AND Prismacolor, which is another large art marker line, although on my hasty research not quite as well thought of as Faber-Castell's PITT line, maybe--and are themselves owned by Newell Rubbermaid. Whew! Anyway yeah I wonder if these water-based paint markers of theirs are really the amazing things they sound like they might be. And why didn't I see any of these when scrutinizing the Sharpie section of the local everything store today?? Dar. Anyway this is way exciting, I am totally ordering black and white sets of these to try out.)))
 
((((Man, I have like five or something packages of European, American, and Japanese inks and pens coming to me from various places currently. ... I spent way too much time looking around at art supplies this week. Some of them are pretty crazy, too--just you wait and see! And will any actually be helpful for A*?? :o))))
 
Whew, sorry, lost it again for a moment there. Where was I? Ah, yeah, so anyway those PITT markers. The big and bigger black lines elsewhere on that paper above are Copic Multiliner and PITT felt brush tip markers, respectively: about the same opacity, although the PITTs sometimes gush a bit at the start, giving a somewhat patchy distribution--but it usually evens itself out, and they can make longer lines without streaking dry.
 
So especially after watching Bill Sienkiewicz knocking out an awesome sketch with a big black marker and brush in the second half of that video I posted the other day, I'm kind of wanting to get into finding ways to use big markers in A*; microscopic little markers are fine and all for obsessive detail, but what if you want a line that just up and punches your head off? BAM! Yeah, so I'm gonna work on that. And today's page was the first, hesitating beginning, as I snuck in a big PITT to ink that BUY/SELL/TRADE sign in the window:
 
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The next couple weeks may be a little crazy from the art supply point of view as packages begin bombarding my apartment. >_> Hopefully I'll somehow get myself some time to start practicing with some loose and energetic big fat marker sketches, too--'cause that sounds fun.
 
Oh! And I think the name (of the spaceship dealership) I came up with for today's page is about the best name for anything I've ever come up with--but I have a bit of a soft spot for the name "Stella," so maybe I'm biased. ... Nahhh! I'm thinking this woman has *star* power; could she ever starrrr in her own A* episode based on her thrilling spaceship-dealing enterprises?? I was actually kind of surprised the name wasn't taken; the closest I could find in Google was the character "Stella" from "Starcrash," an apparently ludicrously awful Italian-made Star Wars wannabe (with a young David Hasselhoff!) that I talked about back in November and still haven't seen.
 
And if this Stella's nose looks a wee bit different than it did when you looked at this page earlier in the day, it's because I've tweaked it like twice now. :P
 
 
 
 
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