Doodling with Yoobi Gel Ink Pen

Found this 3-pack of black gel ink pens on sale at Target, so decided to try them since I like their neon green barrels. Found it ok, but not as smooth as my old favorite the ubiquitous Pilot G-2. By comparison it felt a bit scratchy.

Got a few classroom prizes for the after school Cartoon Sketching classes

Browsing the clearance end cap at a local Staples store, found this neat gel pens with big-eyed animal mascot toppers: Merangue Popeyed pens. Promptly scooped this bunch to add them to the pool of student prize incentives (notice the dinosaur sharpeners generously donated by George from My Supply Room that started this particular lot) for ongoing elementary school-level cartoon sketching classes in the after school program.
Take a look at the Puffer Fish and Tortoise before and after squeezing them to activate their eye-popping feature. They should all make fine prizes for in-class art contests and could even double as reference models for cute cartoon animals.

Latest donated Prize: Zebra Sarasa Push Clip Gel Ink Pen - 0.4 mm set

George from My Supply Room generously sent me this set of Zebra Sarasa Push Clip Gel 0.4 mm Ink Pens with his last shipment of vintage lead tubes.
The pen tips came protected with these pink plugs that keep them from drying out.
Their push clips allow them to be attached to notebooks and bundles of paper.
These retractable ball point gel pens worked well enough. The pink ink seemed to a be tad more visible than the rest. They should make some fine prize incentives in any one of my ongoing drawing classes. Thanks again George!

Random sketching during a 2 hours flight

Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your drawing skills by always having a portable sketching kit and adequate supply of paper when you travel. These are some of the doodles I managed to crank out during the 2-hour flight between Raleigh and Miami.
Struggling a tad finding the right angle to sketch within the tight confines of the airplane cabin. A letter size clipboard is quite useful for holding the 8.5"X11" card stock sheets, providing adequate support, and helping to find the optimal drawing position when use of the stowaway tables is not practical or allowed.
Sketching tools have to be carefully chosen for a mess-free successful productive session when traveling by air: most gel pens and some felt-tip pigmented pens work well within the pressurized cabin environment, but some liquid ink pens like the Koh-I-Noor Nexus pens tend to leak when the cabin pressure changes. For practical reasons, I tend to go with mechanical pencils or 2 mm leadholders for my graphite sketching tools. Sharpening traditional wooden pencils in tight spaces without a convenient waste basket is too much of a hassle.


Few random fantasy characters drawn with a mechanical pencil.
A couple of monster designs inspired by the Meifumado demons from the seinen manga "Lone Wolf & Cub" (Samurai-style Manga made for adult male readers).
Pen sketch loosely inspired by Greek myths. Always seem to drift towards Ray Harryhausen's visual effects style in "Clash o the Titans" when tackling this type of subjects.
Egyptian designs are quite popular sources of inspiration for fantasy sketches.
Mochica inspired scene sketched with a gel pen.
This dragon sketch was drawn last as the plane approached the Miami airport.

Pilot Hello Kitty Cap Limited Edition Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pen Review

Just got this pen sample for review from JetPens. Thank you Lily!
Since this is such a cute pen, I felt it was a better fit to review it in this kid friendlier blog. It's my understanding that the mascot decorating this pen is Hello Kitty's friend: "Charming Mouse" (Correction update: this HK mascot's actual name is "Sugar", thanks Gentian!)
This limited edition Hi-Tec-C light blue pen performs as well as its regular black counterpart. Great pen for taking notes and writing tiny letters. Its 0.3 mm fine tip writes and draws very smoothly on the paper surface without skipping. Its shade of blue is quite similar to the Pentel Slicci Baby Blue gel pen ink, and it has some non-repro blue quality (when photocopying the scanned image below, only the black kitty appeared clearly while all the blue outlines were barely visible). Thus it would be a good choice for initial blocking and sketching.
The Pilot Hello Kitty Cap Limited Edition Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pens are sure to please little girls and girls-at-heart everywhere. The full set of 9 color pens in 0.3 mm or 0.4 mm would make an ideal gift for birthdays and graduations. Alternatively one could get a few sets to distribute as prizes for students in a classroom.