Hello Tombow! And hello to everyone
else. Welcome back to Jenna Gets Creative! Tombow is looking for new creators in the USA
and Canada to work with in 2022 and I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring. So if you'll join
me I'd like to tell Tombow why I would make a great brand ambassador, what I would plan to do,
which products I've tried and own and what I think of them, and which products I'd still really like
to try. You're watching me create a mandala using as many of my Tombow products as possible and
only my Tombow products, with the exception of the paper and geometry tools. For simplicity the paper
is generic cardstock, and I chose this both so as not to showcase another brand and also because
all of these products work very well on smooth, heavy weight paper. The stars of
the show in this piece have definitely proven to be the Fudenosuke pens and the ABT Pro markers.
I'll be doing this somewhat in the style of my subscription box unboxing videos
in that whenever I mention an item for the first time you'll see a clip of me showing
it to the camera up in the corner, and I'll have all of these products linked to the Tombow
USA website in the description box down below along with the current prices in USD and CAD.
Introductions first? My name is Jenna and I live in Newfoundland, Canada. I'm a freelance
illustrator and editor, I run a book review blog and I've got some of my art available
on merch sites like Red Bubble and Zazzle, and twice a week I post here on YouTube. Most of
the time my videos are art content, sometimes they're book content, and more and more lately
I'm trying to blend the two together when I do book topics so the visuals are still art.
My favourite mediums to work with are ink, especially alcohol ink and fineliners, but also
coloured pencils and watercolour in all forms. I already do frequently use Tombow products in my
videos because the Mono Knock eraser is my go-to for erasing small stuff, the sanded erasers are my
go-to on rough textured paper, and the Fudenosuke pens have been my absolute favourite for line art
lately. Unboxing and brand review videos tend to perform best here on my channel, and I'm already
quite accustomed to really spotlighting particular products and leaving details and links about them
in my video descriptions, so I'm confident that if Tombow chooses me and sends me more
items to work with in 2022 and maybe even beyond, I'll have no trouble promoting those items well
and remembering to leave all the links. I do have an Instagram account in conjunction
with this channel and that will be linked in my application, but I want to acknowledge that it
doesn't have the largest following at the moment and in the last few months I haven't posted there
frequently. If I'm selected I'll definitely pick that platform back up again and build it up. If a
little proof is needed to build confidence that I can gather a sizable following on other platforms,
check out my book profile on Twitter using the handle @westveilarchive,
I'll have that linked in the video description, I have more followers over there than subscribers
here. I can also feature Tombow products and what I create with them more prominently on my blog. It
is primarily a book blog, but the book crowd also tends to be the lettering and journaling crowd,
so I think that would be a great fit as well. My blog has been growing well over the last year.
I hit and exceeded 2,000 unique monthly visitors this summer in July and for the current month
I'm expecting over 4,000 page views. I would absolutely love to do Tombow product
unboxings and products reviews with whatever Tombow sends, and I promise lots of content
with honest, constructive reviews. Feel free to look at any of my unboxing videos to get a feel
for how I review art supplies! Shall we move on to what
products I've tried and own? I started trying out different black ink Tombow
pens back in 2018 and between what I've purchased for myself and what has come in subscription boxes
I have 4 black Fudenosuke pens, 1 mono drawing pen, one twin tip black & grey Fudenosuke pen,
and the water-based Dual Brush ABT marker. The Fudenosukes are my favourite! What drew me
to them is that they're similar to the Micron PN with that tapered plastic nib, so you can get a
lot of variation in line width quite easily, but I love the fact that the Fudenosuke has both soft
and firm nib options. These things replace can a huge range of fineliner sizes if you want them to!
If you're watching closely to that little demo screen in the corner, you may have noticed one of
the black pens leaked on me a bit. That one was stored upside down in a travel wrap for a long
time, so it's probably my fault. I've never seen these pens leak before. Rest assured this ink is
completely water soluble and I was able to clean myself off with just warm water very quickly.
The twin tip Fudenosuke is similar and it's one of my go-to pens during Inktober
because it's so convenient to have a grey ink in the same pen to switch over to. The rest of the
year that pen lives in my travel case because again, two inks in one pen, super convenient.
The ABT marker is the same size as the ABT Pro alcohol markers, which shouldn't be a surprise
based on the fact that they're both called ABT. These are actually marketed as Tombow Dual Brush
pens and there are now 120 colours. You can use them for inking and lettering or you can
use them as watercolour markers. Since I only have the black one, I just use it for inking,
but I would love to get a set of colours and test them out as watercolours. These
have a firm but flexible brush nib on one end and a bullet style marker nib on the other,
and you've probably seen me using this pen to fill in large areas when I'm working only in black ink,
like on my zodiac yin yang designs. I got the Mono Drawing pen in an ArtSnacks
exlcusive Tombow box last year, which I'll talk about more when we get to the ABT Pro markers,
and mine is the 01 size. This is typical Japanese style metal clad fineliner nib
that produces a consistent 0.1mm line, and it is water-based pigment ink so once it's dry,
which happens very quickly, it's safe to use under alcohol ink. I would say these are just
as good as any of your other favourite pigment liners, like Copic's Multiliner or Staedtler's
Pigment Liner or Mitsubishi's Uni-Pin. These are very nice fineliners and I wouldn't mind
having the full size range. I wish these would be offered in different ink colours because
sometimes you don't want a harsh black line. It would be nice to get a light and dark
grey and a sepia tone at the very least, but the Fudenosuke's rainbow range would be even better.
Late last year I decided to splurge and treat myself to the rainbow pack of Fudenosuke pens
and I have no regrets! This offers me the same colour range as the Staedtler Triplus liners
I've had around for years, but once again, the tapered nib means I get to vary the line weight
instead of being locked in on the 0.5mm size of the Triplus. Other than that they're very
similar high quality pens. They're very reliable, I haven't had one dry out on my yet, they don't
mind having their caps off for a long time while I've working, and they even stand up to rough
use when my preschooler gets ahold of them. You'll notice me using them as watercolour markers
at points in this video. I just scribble some ink down on a non-absorbent surface and pick it back
up with a wet paintbrush. I'm using a ceramic plate but in the past I've been known to use
plastic lids from old hot chocolate powder tins. I found it interesting that the orange Fudenosuke
watered down to be almost exactly the same shade as my yellow-capped ABT Pro marker. It's shade
P993 which the Tombow website says is actually Chrome Orange, so I guess that makes sense. You'll
notice, though, that while the alcohol ink makes a fairly flat, uniform colour when layered up,
the watered down Fudenosuke ink has a little more texture and character to it. I like the variety
that added to this piece and I think it looks really interesting, but I would expect the Dual
Brush pens that are meant to be watercolours would maybe dissolve a little more evenly.
In terms of pencils and erasers, I do have a Mono Drawing pencil in 2B from that same ArtSnacks box
but I've had the opportunity to try the full lead range because my sister owns them. They're very
nice pencils, good quality lead, easy to sharpen, nicely labelled in a way that's easy to read. Like
most fine art pencils they don't have a built-in eraser and that's perfectly fine. I think anyone
who does a lot of graphite work would be very happy with a set of these pencils. I have yet
to invest in a full set only because I have a lot of art pencils in all leads so I really don't need
more. If I were to be selected by Tombow, though, and Tombow were to send me a set, I'd make more
use of the Tombow pencils on camera and put the Lumographs away. They are a perfectly good drawing
pencil and I wouldn't mind making the switch. The Mono Knock eraser is one of my most-used art
supplies of all time, I love it, and I want to try the Mono Zero. You'll see somewhere in these
clips that I did have a pack of refills with 3 sticks left in it. I bought that in May of 2018
and hadn't gone through it yet, these things last forever. Unfortunately right after I filmed
this video my kiddo got ahold of that pack and figured it would make a great stand-in for dog
food for her toy animals if they broke them up into tiny pieces. So I've just ordered more...
Besides that I also have the black Mono Dust Catch eraser, which you'll notice me using a lot on this
piece, and I have some of the Mono Sand erasers. The Mono Dust Catch eraser is the best dust-free
eraser I've ever tried. Most rubber erasers break up in tiny little shavings as you use them, making
lots of eraser dust all over your work. Dust-free erasers are designed to peel away in larger
strings of shed material, so instead of a ton of little dust shavings you've just got a couple big
pieces to deal with. Sometimes with other brands that ends up meaning you've got an eraser that
just crumbles to pieces and eats itself in a few uses. Not the Mono Dust Catch! This is the
only one I've ever owned, I've had it for about 3 years, and there's still a lot of eraser left.
It does a fantastic job of erasing graphite completely without damaging the paper. I would
absolutely recommend them over similar dust-free erasers like Faber-Castell's black eraser.
Now for the sanded eraser. Mine are the 512A which say "for ink" but these also
come in a coloured pencil variety and a dual sanded and white rubber option. The ink eraser
is particularly firm and aggressive and I don't actually find that it erases ink or coloured
pencil as well as I'd like it to, but these get a lot of use from me for other purposes.
If I rip my watercolour paper removing the masking tape, I can sand it smooth to reduce that torn
look with these. If my watercolour didn't lift as well as I wanted it to, I use these to pick
up more. If a paper I'm using isn't playing nicely with coloured pencil, I use this to give the paper
more tooth. It's so much easier to control and a lot gentler than using actual sandpaper.
Last but not least, I have the 5 ABT Pro alcohol markers that were sent out in an exclusive bonus
box offer with ArtSnacks last year. The colours are 296 Green, 565 Deep Blue, 636 Imperial Purple,
757 Port Red, and 993 Chrome Orange. When these were introduced last year they had an open stock
value of $5.49 USD each and I thought that was a little steep. They do have a huge colour range
that matches up with the Dual Brush markers and they are coveted brush nibbed alcohol markers,
but so far there's no way to refill these or replace the nibs so it didn't make a lot of sense
to me that they're price on parr with Copics. The price has since decreased to $4.49 USD each,
a whole dollar cheaper, which is more reasonable. The Dual Brush pens are $3.19 USD each at the
moment, so most of that price is just the pen itself and $1.30 per pen is the price
difference for alcohol ink rather than the water-based ink in the Dual Brush markers.
These are really nice brush pens with one of my favourite chisel nibs ever on the other
end. You can get a whole lot of shapes and line variations out of both nib ends, and if you've
watched me work with markers much you may have noticed I actually prefer the chisel end. I know,
I'm weird, but I appreciate the different shapes given to us in these chisel nibs.
In my unboxing video when I got that exclusive bonus box and in a couple videos
since when the ABT markers have come up you've probably heard me call them fancy or glorified
Sharpies because the ink is more similar to an office supply permanent marker than other fine art
alcohol markers like Copic. I do stand by that, they're tricky to blend and they don't interact
with Copics or my other alcohol marker brands the way I would expect an alcohol marker to. In
preparing for this video, though, I pulled out the marketing materials that came in that box,
and I noticed that they make no claims at all about blending. The info card specifically says
"great for layering and shading," and those things they do indeed do very well. I've also looked at
the blending guide PDFs Tombow has available on their website, and as I've always suspected,
it does look like it's a lot easier to get a smooth blend with these markers if you're using
different shades of the same colour. These five markers I have are a great variety of colours,
but they aren't a blending set. I expect I would like these a lot more if I had
blendable shades. I did enjoy using them a lot more in today's piece, just using them to
make flat blocks of colour, than in any previous piece I've done with them there I tried to blend
like I would with something like Copic. Different supplies have different uses, and I don't think
it's fair to expect these to be Copics. These are great for artists who prefer something a
little less moveable like a Sharpie but want the brush nib and colour range of Tombow's Dual Brush
markers. I would absolutely be open to receiving blending sets of these markers and experimenting
more with them on camera. I also think the new price is more fair for what these markers are and
how they behave. They'll never replace Copics for me, but they do this kind of art extremely well.
Before we go let's talk coloured pencils. My sister in law has a set of the 1500 series
pencils, so I've had a chance to try those. They're very soft, creamy leads with brilliant
colours and they would be great for sketchbook usages and colouring books, but that line
doesn't have a huge colour range and I don't think they're meant to be professional grade,
lightfast pencils. They're definitely a high quality general coloured pencil and I think
kids and crafters who are serious about their pencils are the best customer for those.
What I really want to try are the Irojiten pencils. I've heard that they're a harder
lead and that they're a little on the translucent side, so I think they would definitely have a use
in my pencil collection alongside my bolder, more opaque Polychromos and my softer Prismacolors.
So guys, what do you think of this piece? Thank you Tombow for your consideration,
I would love to work with you next year if I'm selected, and even if I'm not you've got
a loyal customer for life. I don't see myself ever giving up the Fudenosuke pens or any of
your erasers any time soon and there are still so many more Tombow products I haven't tried yet.
If you guys are looking for more to watch I've got some suggestions up on the left hand side of
the screen now. Don't forget to like, comment, maybe even subscribe, and if you like living
life creatively, whatever that means to you, I'd love to have you along for the ride. Bye guys!