Review – Muji Hexa Ballpoint (.25mm Gel Pen)

My handwriting is very fine, and I always gravitate toward finer and finer tipped pens in my quest to jam as much information on the page as possible. But there is a limit to how small the tip of any given pen can be. Too thin a felt-tip will simply break, and ballpoints or Rapidograph-style pens will either not allow ink flow or damage paper. Thus, even pens on the smaller end of the possible scale are hard to come by (being more expensive and relatively user-specific when compared to more standard sizes), with .25 being about as thin as one can find. Muji, in its characteristic minimalist style, offers a gel pen in such a small size. Is it a worthwhile purchase?

As with many Muji products, the pen is outwardly pretty simple. The hexagonal black body is a little larger in diameter than a pencil, and covered in a matte rubber that is only interrupted by two slits in the plastic near the front (for seeing the ink level) and a set of bumps with the slightest of step downs for posting in the back. After a brief clear plastic part, the metal cone in the front quickly brings us to a very fine protruding ink tube that’s about an eighth of an inch long. The clear plastic cap is also hexagonal, with an integrated clip and matching color insert that both covers the tip and displays the sizing information where it can be read easily from a pencil cup. Other than this, there are no markings on the item itself, as the label comes off, stripping you of all its information(in Japanese).

Performance is good. The pen is comfortable to hold and stays firmly in one’s hand (though the material can make capping and uncapping a bit more “frictionful”). When put to paper, ink flows relatively smoothly. At this size of tip, it is impossible to eliminate all of the scratchiness, but a good job has been done of controlling it. Likewise, another problem at this thinness is that a pen will tend to skip more if at any angle other than perpendicular to the page, but this too has been mitigated. I’d still recommend you write as straight as possible, but it shouldn’t have too great an effect on the writing. I don’t have much information on the ink, but I can tell you that it dries quite quickly (I almost can’t get it to smudge) and it’s waterfast and alcohol resistant (it does bleed a little, but remains legible, which is good for writing and bad for stains). Its spread isn’t too bad either, laying out on the average page about the same thickness as a .25mm (01) technical fineliner (though, with my handwriting both seem very close to a .7 ballpoint).

The pen’s a good one. It’s nice and sleek with a rugged body (I might be worried about the longevity of the cap. though) and a good writing feel. It’s slightly more expensive than a gel pen of comparable quality in the States (the price tag says ¥210, or about $2, but they sell it in the US for $3), but not enough to be out of their range. The tip is noticeably more fine than other ballpoints and gel pens you’ll find, but in my opinion almost awkwardly so (I’ve never been a fan of how gel pens look on the page {when written with my hand}), and there can be potential issues with the pen drying out. Still, if you’re looking for a functional and minimal super-thin writing pen (that isn’t as finicky or fragile as a technical pen) this is one to look at.

Review – Sharpie Highlighter

At times I feel like there is very little for me to say about certain things. And highlighters are one of those things. I use them, but not so much that I’ve extensively tested many of them to find the best. And I only use them for highlighting, and not some of the more creative applications like using them similarly to a blue pencil. Still, a product that does its job well deserves some of my time to talk about it.

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This Sharpie highlighter was a pack-in with several Sharpie pens, but I’ve seen it on the shelf by itself as well. The body is very simple, being a translucent yellow cylinder with a “cone-shaped” stopper on the end. The cap is a solid piece of plastic with an integrated clip that works well for what it is. The section is also a simple cylinder after a step down from the barrel, and then there is a slight taper and protrusion at the (chisel) tip. Sharpie is on both the cap and barrel in various forms with the only other information being a nontoxic seal and the words “smear guard”.

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When writing, the ink goes on smoothly, and is very bright. So if you want to draw attention to something, this will work. The ink also resists smearing both what it is being applied over, and itself when wet. While it does smear and spread some when dampened, it isn’t too terrible, and during my tests only fountain pen (liquid, dye-based) ink smeared even a bit. I haven’t tested the longer-term effects, but I’d like to think Sharpie has experience with these things.

It’s a highlighter. It’s a good, simple, bright highlighter. If you aren’t looking for anything special from your highlighter, but don’t want smearing, these will work.

Blog 11-3-15 – Things are late, and unfortunately will continue to be late

Hello followers and viewers. I value my schedule highly, and I believe I have done a good job over the last long while of keeping up with that schedule. That being said, if you view my content with any regularity you will have seen that I have been late the past few weeks on a few things, and have unfortunately exceeded previous records of my own lateness. This is especially not fun for me with my comics, which I consider the core of my online content.

Now I don’t want to just make excuses, but I have had a few things happen recently that have made progressing more difficult. I moved into a “limbo” situation that has not gotten resolved as quickly as I had hoped, and makes my work and living environments undesirable from a “getting things done” or “moving around comfortably in clear spaces” kind of way. I’ve also had to change jobs to one with irregular hours that prevents me from being in “work mode” for my various comic and article writing/drawing. And finally I have a large project I’ve been working on with a very hard deadline that is very behind schedule. I’ll talk about that more as it nears completion.

So with all of those things I was still able to be on top of things for a while, but it wasn’t going to last. And it looks like things will be problematic for a little while longer. I hope you can bear with me while I work this out, and I hope to have all of the items I have been late on and caught up to all of the new content by the end of November, but it might end up closer to the end of the year. I hope you enjoy the content regardless and I hope your holiday season is less stressful than mine is going to be.

Best Wishes,

Austin Smith

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