Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Pencil

Pencil-like pen, please?

ishotjr — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:08:00 -0800

Are there any pens that write like a pencil? I have a weird problem. It is much easier for me to write neatly with a mechanical pencil than a pen. It's odd, because my printing is very neat in pencil, but I have difficulty not ending up with chicken scratch using a pen. I'm in grad school and have to take a lot of notes by hand, which I do with pencil. The notes tend to smudge when they rub against the other pages in my notebook. I could switch to harder or finer lead, but 0.7 HB is optimal for the way I like to write, plus I'd rather have my notes in ink. Are there any pens out there that have a writing feel more like that of a pencil *and* don't bleed through (so I can use paper front and back)? Erasable is a plus, but certainly not a deal-breaker.

how do I improve my pencil/ink drawing, as an intermediate artist?

invitapriore — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:06:22 -0800

How can I improve my pencil drawings from an intermediate/advanced level? Most of the resources I've found on pencil/ink drawing focus on drawing from life, which I can do fairly accurately, or introductory technique, such as cross-hatching, perspective, and basic form and lighting. I'm looking more for something that covers advanced technique. To give an example of some of the problems I'd like guidance with:

– Difficult textures/surfaces. I was drawing a scene that included a glossy photo, and I was stumped as to how to render it accurately.

– Covering large areas with a consistent tone (using graphite). I either end up with fluctuating darkness levels or there are visible lines between rows of my scribbling.

– Planning large areas of tone so that the contrast between them is appropriate. I'll render part of a face and then find that I have to make the surrounding area darker than seems appropriate because of how darkly I drew the lips, for example. This is more of an issue when I'm drawing from my head.

– Contour hatching is something I've never gotten the hang of.

Lessons are pretty much out of the picture, but I'd appreciate anything else. Thanks!

(A bonus related question: I was given Anatomy for the Artist as a gift a while ago, and I don't really know how to use it. Will it serve me best to copy from it, or just use it as a reference to check against my own figure drawings?)

Illustrator Pencil Tool Help

ChloeMills — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:53:47 -0800

Is there a way to change the options for the PENCIL TOOL in ILLUSTRATOR so that it just draws a new line once you pick it up and put it down again - (no matter how close you are to the previously drawn line)? Sorry - this is confusing to word - but if you have the same problem I am sure you will no what I am talking about.

For example - say I want to draw hash marks with the pencil tool.
As soon as I draw one line and try to draw the next one - it either a) replaces the first line or b) connects to the first line.

I want it to just keep the first line and draw a new one. It's more natural.

The only work around I have is to draw a line far away and then come back and draw the in betweens - but that is not as natural.

It drives me nuts. Thee has to be a way to fix it.

I am in CS3 on a Mac and CS4 on a PC.

Let me know.
Thanks :)

Tanks for the memories

hrbrmstr — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:51:27 -0800

I'm trying to figure out the name of a table top game we played as kids with just pencil & paper and involves cannons, tanks and soldiers... The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature has a piece of short fiction that includes a description of the game I remember:

"Eddie had shown Seemueller a cool game. Each of the boys meticulously drew an army on the side of a sheet of paper, and then took turns scratching a pencil line as fast as he could across from his guys to Eddie’s guys. Scritch! and Seemueller’s cannon takes out a line of infantry guys. Eddie’s turn, scritch! The black pencil line runs right through a tank."

I'd love a description as intricate as the Wikipedia paper football entry.

Pastel Pencils

RubyDoom — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:43:02 -0800

Can you recommend a kind of soft pastel pencils? I'm looking for a good (yet somewhat affordable) brand of pastel pencils. I mostly use soft pastels because I really like the consistency of them and it would be important that these pencils have the same smoothness. I just need something that I can get small details with that the sticks aren't able to get.

Paper prototyping tools?

SamuelF — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:13:56 -0800

I'm interested in doing paper prototyping for interface design. Learn me on the best tools for the job. These images by Cultured Code were particularly inspiring. That's pretty much exactly what I want to do, but I'm a little fuzzy on the details. For example, in the first image there appears to be some sort of thick cardboard cut down to the shape of specific UI elements - what is that, and where can I get it? Can anyone recommend a particular type of pencil that might be better for sketching than a good ol' #2, or will any pencil do? What's up with those markers? Help me fill in the gaps!

Need a cheap way to send a single pencil to someone.

inthe80s — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:43:46 -0800

What is the cheapest way to mail a single pencil to someone? I'm talking US domestic to US domestic address. An ideal solution wouldn't require a trip to the post office (although the first one I send probably would be through a desk clerk to make sure it's ok). I want something I could stick in my mail box as the need arises. Looking for suggestions for packaging material as well as postage. I'm planning on only sending one at a time to people, and probably no more than a dozen or two dozen different addresses. Not doing a bulk mailing for some direct marketing company or anything. Just something funny for a select group of friends. I don't have a scale to weigh them, or a postal meter or enough to get bulk discount mailing rates from the post office.

We're talking your standard #2 yellow pencil like you get in school (customized with a message).

Paper or Plastic?

penciltopper — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:15:19 -0800

Which is "greener"? Her metal & plastic mechanical pencils manufactured in Japan, or my Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils made in North America? She says my wood pencils kill trees. I say we can plant more, and the industrial byproducts of pencil maufacture are wood shavings and whatever toxins are in the yellow paint, which I can take or leave (I think...I do like the yellow).

I say she's adding to the world's supply of cheap plastic toxic junk. She counters that I chew/lose/use up lots of pencils, while mechanical pencils can last for years. (I call shenanigans on that, noting that she loses hers all the time). She compares my cutting down rare and precious trees instead of using nonrenewable materials to make pencils is like running a car on whale oil and saying I can always make more whales.

Okay, MeFites.
That should get y'all started. Please chip in on our fight.

Sudoku? I hardly know Sue!

unixrat — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:31:26 -0800

NameFilter: Help me name my 2-8 player sudoku game! A while back, GAMES magazine was having a 'create a new game using the sudoku board'. I toyed with a few ideas, but didn't send any in. I revisited one of those ideas recently and have fleshed it out into a full game. I'll post it to projects after it's been named. It'll be available free for download forever.

Here's a quick overview: 2-8 players, 30 seconds a move. Filling in squares on the board give points, with the Big Play being one that completes a square, horiz and vertical line at the same time. If two or more people fill in the same square, zero points are given. No equipment needed except for a timer and pens/pencils.

Any ideas?

Mutant hybrid office supplies

doift — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:22:37 -0800

Flat pencil or pen that can be used as a bookmark- does such a thing exist successfully? Recently, I was reading a book in which I needed to underline things, and I took it on some errands on the subway with me. I was using a regular mechanical pencil as a bookmark so I could underline as needed. However, the book wouldn't close properly, and the pencil kept sliding out of the book when it was in my bag, and it was annoying. Also, like many people, I sometimes like to carry a notebook and pen or pencil around with me, and have similar troubles then. It occurred to me that a flat or nearly flat writing instrument that could double as a bookmark would be an extremely useful thing. Google search produced these "flat sketching pencils", which still seem too thick. This comment in a previous thread led to these pens, which seem kind of cheap and poor quality, and also maybe too thick.

My question, then, is: Does a really good implementation of this idea already exist? Or are the above-linked examples the best we have for now? Has anyone encountered any interesting bookmark/pencil hybrids in the wild?

Is there a Pencil equivalent to the Space Pen?

chrisWhite — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 21:42:03 -0800

Is there a Pencil equivalent to the Space Pen? I love my Fisher Space Pen but I'm finding I need a mechanical pencil with me more and more often and I was hoping there would be a small pencil and can manage the where and tear of a pocket. Anybody have any recommendations?

The Graf von Faber-Castell Twisting Pencil looks pretty good, but there's no way I'd put that kind of money into a pencil. The closest thing I can find is the Zebra Mini Pencil which appears to be pretty good but the body looks a little thin and maybe not the easiest to hold.

Thanks!

ART Filter - I want to paint on top of a pencil drawing without smearing it. Suggestions?

spakto — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:53:04 -0800

Fellow artists, I have drawn in pencil on a 24" x 30" gessoed wood panel. I would like to seal the drawing before painting on top of it. I've thought of spraying it with Damar varnish or coating it with acrylic gloss medium. My goal is to not smear the drawing. I can work in acrylic or oil. Any ideas are welcome. Thanks!

The quest for the best in mechanical pencils

!Jim — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 23:19:20 -0800

I can't be the only MeFite who with a mechanical pencil fetish, help me find the ultimate mechanical pencil. I have just recently discovered the joy of writing with an excellent mechanical pencil. After years of your basic cheapy 10-pack affairs, I finally bought a Pentel Sharp, and it's a wonderful thing. The thing feeds super smoothly, feels solid as a tank and fits my hand quite well.

There's just one problem: the eraser. It has this metal sleeve that fits around the eraser. The eraser inevitably slides around inside the sleeve, which means I have to adjust it back out every time I erase something. On this latest pack of erasers, the sleeve actually fits into the barrel for some reason, which causes all kinds of problems with the eraser getting stuck inside the pen, meaning I have to get something sharp and jab it out!

So help me, hive-mind, what have been the best mechanical pencils you've used?

Please help me fill my pencil needs!

JonnyRotten — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 04:05:52 -0800

Where in the world can I find a company that will custom print some pencils for me? I need to get pencils printed with something different on each of the faces. Ideally I would provide a image (either separate for each side, or one with each side detailed out) that would be aligned and printed on the pencil. The closest to this I can find is a company that will take a image and print it on the pencil, but they seem to only use round ones. I emailed them and never got a response.
What kind of businesses would do this sort of thing so I could look locally?
This needs to be on a hexagonal pencil.

Pen and Pencil Recommendations: Extremely Fine Points

sdis — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:03:22 -0800

Pen Recommendation: Finest possible point with good ink flow, will not smudge when highlighted. Pencil Recommendation: Any way to get the convenience of a 0.7mm mechanical pencil that doesn't break all the time in a <0.5mm tip? I'm looking for a pair of writing instruments to fix about 300 pages of a somewhat badly copied music score. I need to fill in faded note heads, correct 10-12point french text, etc. The lines of my pens and pencils are too big.
The perfect pen would have an extremely fine line that was deep black, never goes away, never smudges, and never ever skips. (And it will be highlighted repeatedly by various highlighters, so it needs to not smudge, and hopefully dry quickly)

Pencil: A really fine tip pencil would be nice to write in various text-notes. The problem is that I tend to crack 0.7mm leads like crazy in most pencils and I basically can't use 0.5mm leads. Oh, and I'd prefer something a bit finer than 0.5mm. What's my best bet here? Is there such a thing as an automatic pencil that resists my heavy hand? Are drafting pencils the answer, perhaps with very hard lead?(Does harder lead mean that a sharpened tip will stay sharp longer?)

Why are there so many pencil erasers that don't?

judybxxx — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:51:27 -0800

Why do they make so many pencil erasers that don't erase? Isn't that the point? Some do, but lots don't. It doesn't make any sense. This has bugged me for years.

#2 Pencils

kenko — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 19:40:48 -0800

What's so dad-blasted special about #2 pencils? Surely a test-scanning system could be devised that just looked for the blackened marks?

Blue Pencil Lead

XQUZYPHYR — Fri, 06 Feb 2004 16:22:56 -0800

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?