Matthew P asked: I am a beginner at drawing, mainly drawing cartoon, ‘anime-style’ drawing. One big difference that I’ve noticed, however, between my pictures and those of proffesionals, is that the lines the pictures are drawn with are always paper-thin, while mine are thick. What type of equipment, particularly pens, should I use to achieve similarly thin lines in my drawings? Or is there some secret to how they do it?
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The pens I use are “micron pens,” made by the brand “sakura” and they come in a variety of sizes and colors.
They are usually tan and can be found at a local craft store like Michael’s.
A lot of the professionals I know actually use regular ballpoint or .5 - .8 pens, and just work rather large. When they scale down their work on the computer for coloring purposes, the lines actually become thinner.
But if you want small pens, you can get them as small as .005 and they are in all sorts of stores. Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Wal Mart. Several brands sell pens that get that small.
As a calligrapher, I’ve used just about every pen type and brush you can think of. The two recommendations that you’ve gotten are both good, with the Micron or Millennium pen being the better pen because it uses waterproof ink. Rapidographs also make super fine lines and use cartridges, so you can change colors. But the best pen by far is the old-fashioned Hunt’s crow quill steel nib. It gives you, with little practice, razor fine lines that, with just a bit more pressure, widen to double & triple width.
Rapidograph pens. You can buy them at Pat Catans, or Michaels.