On Friday, I talked about how much I love the Sai Watercolor Brush Pens. What I realized recently is how much I also love the Pentel Fude Brush Sign Pens. I have had one or two of this pens floating around the Desk and frequently reach for them for my daily journal and planning needs but really wanted to have more than just a couple colors so I ordered the 2020 New Color 12-color set ($23) from JetPens.

Like with the Sai Watercolor Brush Pens, the range of colors in the 2020 New Color set featured some unique, non-standard colors so I was very excited to try this set.

The Pentel Fude Brush Sign Pens feature to bullet-shaped, felt-tip style tips housed in a plastic cap. The pens I’ve had floating around the office, I’ve had for months, maybe even years and are regularly used and have not frayed or gotten cruddy so I do tend to recommend these to anyone looking for a more brush pen-look marker. These are particularly good for folks with a heavy hand since these pens have a stiffer brush than the Sai pens.

Some of the colors in this set are quite light. The Pale Blue is even more pale in person than in the photo above but the other colors are all really lovely. The Light Grey will probably get used more for underlining or decoration rather than actually writing titles. The Olive Green is CHEF’S KISS for me. The Blue-Black and Turquoise Green will also get a lot of use for me.

The real joy is how lovely this pen makes my script look. We all have pens that make our handwriting look better and this, for me, is one of those. As such, I will extoll their virtues for years to come.

All these pens are available for individual purchase ($2.50 each)  if you want to cherry pick your favorite colors.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

The post Pen Review: Pentel Fude Touch Brush Sign Pen 2020 Colors (12-Color Set) appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Around the time that I had discovered the reasonably priced Moonman S1 fountain pen with a fude nib, I noticed another, even less expensive fude: the Hero 330 ($4; available in dark red, dark green and black). After some so-so experiences with other inexpensive Heroes years ago, I have hesitated about the multitude of fountain pens that this Chinese manufacturer produces. But I reminded myself that many receive favorable ratings and reviews, and maybe I had just gotten duds. At $4, the 330 was worth a shot.

The first thing that attracted me was its retro, Parker-like appearance (Ana makes a similar comparison with the Hero 329). Made of plastic and metal and weighing 14 grams, it is a lightweight, comfortable pen to hold and use. 

Also catching my eye was the hooded steel nib, which suits the slender pen body and style. It is gently curved instead of sharply bent as some fude nibs are.

Important to me is that the posted pen is well-balanced, since that’s the only way I use any capped pen. More critically, the pull-off cap posts securely (otherwise, all would be lost, especially the cap). 

When I unscrewed the barrel and disassembled it, I was surprised to see that it uses a squeeze converter. I didn’t read the specs or view the detail images on JetPens, so I was expecting it to have the more common twisty converter. The squeeze converter fits with the retro style of the pen’s body, I suppose, but I’m used to syringe-filling all my converters, so this one threw me. I even tried pulling the bladder off to see if I could syringe-fill it that way, but it doesn’t come off. Needless to say, filling it squeeze by squeeze seemed endlessly tedious compared to a quick syringe. In addition, dipping the nib into an ink bottle was messy business – I had to wipe a lot of ink off the hood. 

Messy as it was, the 330 fude was finally inked up with black Platinum Carbon ink, and I was ready to take it out for a ride. I had a project in mind – sketching the contents of my sketch kit – with line drawings that I would color with watercolor pencils, and the 330 seemed like a good choice. 

And it was a good choice! I was pleasantly surprised by how well the nib behaved from the first mark I made (I took a chance – no test scribbling first) in my smooth Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook. The smooth, responsive nib never once skipped or blobbed, and it behaved as beautifully as my much more expensive fude nibs. The only exception is seen in the closeup below of my ear plugs. I reversed the nib, which I do when I want the finest line possible from a fude, and the line was a bit shaky in places. 

The “Field Notes” lettering and the heavy lines of my glasses below show the fude’s widest marks. 

Happy with the sketch, I finally gave the 330 a few test scribbles to see its full range of line widths (scribbles made in Maruman Mnemosyne Notepad). Used upside-down, the line was scratchy and inconsistent, but not intolerably so. 

As I know from some other inexpensive pens I’ve used, quality control and consistency may be an issue, so I can’t vouch for the one you might get, but I got a winner. The nib has a remarkably good range of line variation. I love this fude – and what a price!

Other sketchers who know I like fudes often ask me for recommendations. This inexpensive Hero is one that I would like to recommend to a fude newbie because of its price, terrific nib and familiar body type, but two things would hold me back: One is the filling mechanism, which might be OK for an experienced fountain pen user, but I would never recommend it to a fountain pen newbie. The second is the possible inconsistency in quality. I would give this one to a newbie (and I might) – but I would hesitate to tell that newbie to go get their own. But at 4 bucks, it’s probably worth the gamble.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

The post Fountain Pen Review: Hero 330 with Fude Nib appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Readers of the Desk may associate me more with pencils, erasers, sharpeners and brush pens and less with fountain pens. Several years ago, however, I took myself on an epic journey to find my ideal fountain pen for drawing – one that would give me variable line widths. Although I tried a variety of specialty nibs and semi-flexible nibs, nothing gave me the lovely, organic line of a fude nib, and using one felt more natural and intuitive than other nib types. Ultimately, I found my grail (spoiler alert) in the then-hard-to-find 21kt gold Sailor Naginata Fude de Mannen (which is apparently not as elusive as it used to be; Pen Boutique has it in stock occasionally. Incidentally, if I had to choose a second-best fude that is more affordable and slightly easier to acquire, it would be Franklin-Christoph’s).

Before acquiring my grail, I tried many steel fude nibs, and even after, curiosity occasionally prompted me to continue trying fudes that crossed my radar. That curiosity still gives me a nudge now and then – which brings me to the Moonman.

I didn’t know much about the Chinese pen maker other than that its pens generally seem to be getting decent reviews (Ana and Laura have reviewed different models here at the Desk). When I saw that JetPens offered a fude version, I decided it was a good opportunity to give a Moonman a try. I chose the S1 model in koi red ($23.50) with bent nib. (I know that fude nibs are colloquially known as “bent” nibs, but why give something as elegant as a fude, which means brush, a descriptor like “bent”? I’ve heard every joke about whether I have dropped them, stepped on them or taken pliers to them to get my fude nibs to look that way. Yawn.)

I don’t usually have much to say about pen packaging, but it’s worth mentioning that my Moonman came in a simple but sturdy cardboard box that can be recycled easily. As you might guess, I have a bunch of plastic clamshell boxes that can’t be recycled, and since I don’t resell my pens often, they can be a nuisance. I appreciate simple, recyclable boxes.

The resin pen body weighs 15 grams, which is comfortable for me, as I tend to prefer lighter-weight pens. While some pens with fude nibs have long bodies to emulate traditional Asian calligraphy brushes or have ridiculously huge or heavy bodies (the Duke Confucius comes to mind; I needed a winch to lift it), the Moonman’s barrel has a conventional size and shape. The screw-on cap posts securely, which is a non-negotiable detail for me when I sketch on the street (believe me, a pen cap that doesn’t post will not remain with me long).

As mentioned earlier, I’ve used several steel fude nibs, and the Moonman has a bit more finesse than others in a similar price range. Its curved profile looks similar to several other Chinese fude pens I have owned (most of which were so terrible that I won’t name them).

The fude I cut my teeth on is Sailor’s 55-degree Fude de Mannen (steel nib). The 55-degree Sailor has a sharply angled bend, and it can be a challenge to learn to use. The Moonman’s curved nib is much easier to use by comparison. Since the price is not too much out of the range of the 55-degree Sailor, I’d probably recommend the Moonman over the Sailor to someone who wanted to try a fude for the first time.

The Moonman S1 comes with a converter that contains a spring-like agitator.

I inked it up with Diamine Sargasso Sea and took it out for a walk. Right away, I was pleased by how flawlessly it started. Smooth and responsive, it didn’t need any “breaking in,” like shoes, as some pens do. I chose some trees and shrubs in an alley to see the range of organic marks it could produce. Practicing the full range in this one sketch, I turned its widest angle sideways to get the broadest marks, like the large shadows. (Sketch made in Field Notes Brand Sweet Tooth notebook.)

Pleased with it, I came home and gave it a more formal scribble. That’s when I realized I had forgotten to test its reverse side on the sketch. I don’t use a fude nib upside-down too often, but occasionally when I need an extra-fine line or detail, turning it over comes in handy. Unfortunately, the Moonman’s reversed nib is dry, scratchy and non-useable. (What – you’re not supposed to use nibs upside-down?) That was disappointing, because otherwise the nib performs very well at all right-side up angles. (Testing done in Maruman Mnemosyne Special Memo Notepad.)

Upside-down usability is not a deal-breaker for me, but it might be for others. For a fude nib in its price range, the Moonman is a good value. I’m going to enjoy taking it out for walks.

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

The post Fountain Pen Review: Moonman S1 with Fude Nib appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.