Hadn't drawn anything but a doodle on a napkin or in the margins for a couple weeks and was feeling somewhat adrift in life, so I dropped into Columbia Art Supply and snagged a moleskine book (cause they're all the rage) and a Pigma Brush Pen, along with a couple more non-photo blue pencils (can't have too many). I always enjoy getting a new sketchbook, mostly because its just neat to start new books. Kinda fuels the creativity in a way. I've seen people swearing by those moleskine notebooks, as well as people making fun of folks for hopping on the moleskine bandwagon, as though having a notebook that's more art-y and authentic will make someone a better artist or writer. I'm here to tell you it did not, in fact, make me a better artist. The paper inside is nothing all that special, although it does have a nice smoothness to it (but not so nice you cant find it in a cheaper sketch pad) and it holds up suprisingly well under lots of ink for being so thin. No bleeding onto the next page at all. What I find wonderful about this book, though, is the fact that its soft. That kind of maleability is a nice change of pace from hard-bound sketch books. You can roll it up, stick it in a pocket, and its also easier to keep the preceding pages out of the way if you can roll them away and tuck them under the book. Ring-bound sketchbooks have that trait as well, but I never liked the feel of those, and there's a durability concern there as well. As for the brush pen, I like it. A bunch of my webcomic heroes have been fiddle-fucking around with them lately, so I figured I'd give it a try. It paints thin to fat lines like my croquils, but is a little more forgiving in that there's no risk of errant ink drops. It does show any waivering of the had, though as it only takes the lightest touch to lay down ink. You have to be authoritative and gentle with it, as opposed to my other lover, the Pitt Artists' pens, which are much easier to use with a sketching motion. Different tools, all. Tonight's drawings really helped to remind me that having new tools doesn't improve the carpenter. The man in the trees is a musing on a scene for when I finally get down to working on an actual comic, and the beard-o guy is inspired by Opie from Sons of Anarchy (great show). I look forward to getting down in this book. The built-in cloth bookmark is a nice touch, as is the pouch in the back (nice place to throw a pencil and a pen). On a sour note, I also bought a little two dollar pencil sharpener with a shaving collector, and it doesn't work one fucking whit. it breaks off the tip every time i try to sharpen a pencil. I've lost .25 of a pencil in there so far, and gotten no sharp tips out. Fucking bullshit. Also, I'm changing my blog sign-off from E to Mystery (Mr. E, get it?!). Don't get confused. Mahallo.
-mystery
