Blue Pencil Lead

February 6, 2004 4:22 PM

Art/drawing experts: does non-photo blue lead come for a mechanical pencil in any size other than 2mm? [details inside]

I use Sanford Col-erase pencils to rough my comics. I'd love to switch to a mechanical pencil to do pencil work, but the only size of NP-blue I've ever found in drawing lead were the 2mm monsters for Turquoise (brand, not color) drafting pencils.

I can get mechanical pencil lead in .05, .07, and .09mm sizes for red and normal blue, but both are a no-go when it comes to scanning inked finals. I need non-photo blue or nothing else.

I've Googled and checked art stores for months now, to no avail. Does anyone know if thinner non-photo leads exist?

posted by XQUZYPHYR to technology (5 answers total)

Yes. At least when I used to be a technical illustrator many moon ago.

Pentel leads are available in .5mm, .7mm, and .9mm.

I have to affiliation with the link, just googled for Pentel and non-photo blue.
posted by grefo at 4:27 PM on February 6, 2004

On preview, and post, a big nevermind. Although, the blue I have didn't show up in photocopies (circa 1990).

But...I think that when you bring your scan into an image editing program, you can get rid of the blue, regardless of the shade.

PhotoShop gurus, can you help?
posted by grefo at 4:32 PM on February 6, 2004

I know some ways around with photoshop when I use normal blue lead (ex. scanning in color and dropping the blue channel, then doing a bitmap mode conversion) but blue still shows up with my scanner with a direct bitmap scan whereas nonphoto won't.

Besides, I'm really hoping for an answer to the lead search- I'm trying to find out if this magical product that would bypass all the Photoshop-related tricks exists. The closest I've come was being told that Pentel makes 0.7mm lead in sky blue as opposed to royal blue, but I think that's just normal blue misnamed.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:46 PM on February 6, 2004

my art store working wife says check for mars-staedtler.
posted by th3ph17 at 11:47 PM on February 6, 2004

i do a little bit of color seperating for comics, some JLA, Global Frequency, Authority, Green Lantern, just don't deal with the pencil, ink or color rendering. I'll ask around for other solutions.
posted by th3ph17 at 11:55 PM on February 6, 2004