Hello everybody, and welcome back to Jenna Gets Creative!
Since we are heading into October very soon, and a lot of you fellow artists will be participating
in Inktober, I thought we would discuss the various pen options out there and also a little
cautionary tale about fake Microns.
So here we have what I consider to be the four kings of water resistant / water proof
pigment fineliners.
The Micron, since we are talking about Microns.
Of course this is the Japanese style needle tip nib. [testing the pen] Micron 03.
This is considered by many on YouTube and in the art community to be the gold standard
of pigment liners, and it is pretty darn good, but it's not the only option.
Copic Multiliner.
These are waterproof when dry, but more importantly if you are a marker artist, they are Copic
marker proof.
[testing the pen] Copic 03.
Then we have the Staedtler Pigment Liner.
This is actually my favourite fineliner when I'm drawing mandalas and that sort of stuff.
[testing the pen] Staedtler 03.
Faber-Castell Pitt pen, another excellent option.
This is the nib size "S" and I have no idea what size that actually is.
It looks to be a little bit bigger.
[testing the pen] Faber-Castell Pitt S. Yeah, this looks like it's probably more like an
05.
So, as I said, all four of these are meant to be waterproof when dry.
[testing waterproofness with a clean water brush pen] These are waterproof.
If you're into more of a brush or plastic nib type pen, you might have seen the Micron
PN.
Here it is.
[testing the pen] Micron PN.
Very, very nice.
You can get some line variation.
Not a whole lot.
Now, there are these Tombow calligraphy pens.
The two different colours are differences in the nib, not the colour of the ink.
They are both black ink despite the fact that this one's green and this one's blue.
[testing the pen] Tombow Green.
That was a very soft, flexible tip.
The green one.
[testing the pen] Tombow Blue.
That is a much firmer nib, closer to the Micron PN but not quite.
Edding 1340 brushpen.
Very, very nice.
[testing the pen] edding.
Of course the Micron PN is just as good as the other Microns.
The Tombow are also waterproof.
The edding is not waterproof!
Be careful with that.
Zig Writer-for-Vellum.
It has this nice little plastic nib that's similar, again, to the Micron PN and those
Tombow pens, and it has this much bigger marker type bullet nib. [testing the pen] Zig. [testing
for waterproofness] Sharpie fineliners.
[testing the pen] Sharpie Pen. [testing the pen] Sharpie Ultra Fine Point.
The Ultra Fine is not AS fine.
Of course, these are Sharpies, you know they're gonna work, they're gonna be waterproof.
They're Sharpie.
But, like Sharpies, they are going to feather out on thirstier papers.
Particularly this fatter one.
I don't know why this is called ultra fine; it's not! [proving waterproof] Basic writing
pens.
This is a Uni-Ball Signo gel pen.
[testing the pen] Signo.
This is the Pentel EngerGel Metal Point (0.7mm) [testing the pen] EnerGel.
The Pilot Hi-Tecpoint V7. [testing the pen] Hi-Tecpoint.
It should not be any surprise to anyone, but uh... gel pen, is not, waterproof.
Keep that in mind.
Fountain pens.
This one, I don't think it has a brand name... oh!
There we go, it's the Jinhao.
[Struggles to pronounce it.]
J-I-N-H-A-O.
These are an Asian brand and they are excellent.
Very nice weight to them.
Very, very nice nibs and everything.
I am using the ink cartridge it came with.
[testing the pen] Technical difficulties!
I haven't written with it in a while, so it's not flowing well.
But again, the ink it came with [testing for waterproof] sooooooo no waterproof!
Of course, You can put whatever ink you want in a fountain pen.
Moving on to the Micron imposters.
This is STA.
I believe this is actually just a legitimate art brand in Asia.
[testing the pen] STA!!!
"For Drawing" in 03.
[testing the pen] For Drawing.
(That's an A, not an O) This is just called "Drawing."
But if you were just to glance at this, it kinda looks like a Micron, right?
[compares Drawing to a real Micron] [testing the pen] Drawing 08.
This is a Micro-Line in 05.
This is put out by Superior, not Sakura.
They are, "Superior."
But again, the packaging is very, very similar.
They are definitely trying to fool you.
[testing the pen] Micro-Line 05.
The fake that claims to be a Micron.
[testing the pen] "Micron" 03.
[testing with water] Now, of course that's spreading around the ink, but the STA is waterproof.
[cleans off water brush pen] The STA is good! [shows STA pen] This is good.
It is waterproof.
"For Drawing" is fairly waterproof.
Once you go back and forth a bit you'll start to pick up a little bit.
It's not bad.
That's this one [shows pen] Also pretty good if you want to pick up this instead.
The "Drawing" one [shows pen] is absolutely not waterproof.
The Micro-Line by Superior - absolutely not waterproof.
This fake Micron - Really, really, really.
not.
waterproof.
So here we have a full six pack set of legitimate Microns and their equivalents in the fakes
I ordered off of Wish before I knew the difference.
At first glance, these look exactly the same.
But if you're looking closely...
You might be able to tell, the legitimate one is on top.
The wording with "Micron" is slightly thicker (bolder) on the fake pen.
Very importantly here, the writing under the AP seal is completely different.
The legitimate one has less writing.
And just in general, the barrel is a slightly different colour.
On the caps here, the legitimate Micron writing is much, much thinner.
You'll notice, though, that they have every detail in there.
That is the Sakura logo.
This writing is all the same.
It makes the same claims.
It even has the same barcode.
So, anybody who gets fooled, like, you are completely forgiven... but you've been fooled.
[showing the tips, uncapped] The fake is on the left.
These are both a 005 (0.05).
[Shows how they are not the same size] So here we have a comparison of the lines.
Sorry about the 02 on the fake side, it's dying.
I don't know why!
I got these about four months ago.
They're.... they're pretty close, but they don't really match up.
We can't really compare the 02 because it was dying.
But these 005 pens are not the same.
[indicates the real one] This one is thinner.
The 01, not the same.
Again, the fake is bigger.
The 03, for some reason, the legitimate one is bigger.
05, that's starting to look okay.
08, that's looking the same.
Now for the water test, real... [tests with water] No problem!
Fakes... [tests with water] Look at all that smudging!
Not waterproof!
Again, I wanted to show you these fake ones.
All the pieces are just thicker, and clunkier, and not very well finished.
Look at these rough pieces on the end of the metal needle point, there.
[indicates ink ring] This black ring here is because a lot of these leaked in shipping,
and I had to clean them off, but they've continued to leak, and now it's in the caps, and, yeah.
[twisting end of pen] This is so poorly put together that this has come off when I didn't
want it to a few times.
Particularly when I'm using it and I take the cap off and stick the cap on the end,
I pull the cap off [tries a few times] sometimes this comes off.
[tips out ink cartridge] And then that happens!
And this goes flying across the room and makes marks on your floor!
Not fun.
In summary, all of these pens before you are ones that I would recommend for Inktober or
any other inking needs.
If you are ordering cheapies from places like Wish and AliExpress, these ones are pretty
darn good.
The kings!
Well, this is the Micron PN.
The kings, of course: Micron, Copic, Faber-Castell, and Staedtler.
I rate all of these equal in terms of a nice, waterproof pigment liner.
If you're working specifically with Copic markers, obviously the Copic is pretty good.
Micron is also really good.
Faber-Castell and Staedtler will do funny things with some alcohol inks, but they are
great for water-based materials.
If you are wanting more flexibe tips, more line variation, the Tombows are pretty waterproof,
and they are very nice.
If you're wanting something completely different, and waterproof, the Zig Writer-for-Vellum
is very nice.
If you're on a budget and you don't want to be scammed so you're buying local,
Sharpie pens!
You cannot go wrong!
They are permanent.
They are a Sharpie.
But they will feather.
If you don't mind not being waterproof, and you like calligraphy brush type pens, edding
is excellent.
But again, not waterproof.
If you are getting a cheap fountain pen, Jinhao is good.
I do recommend them.
I had a little bit of trouble here because it's been sitting not used for quite a while.
It is a good pen, I promise! [re-tests pen to demonstrate how nice it is] You can get
quite a bit of line variation.
I do love this pen.
Those are my recommendations, that's my review of these pens, and my warning about fake Microns.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I will see you on Tuesday with a regular art video.
Thank you so much, buh bye!