Tag Archives: small

Review – Dixon “My First” Ticonderoga

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I’m not gonna lie; I find reviewing wood pencils difficult. I just don’t see enough difference in them to make it seem worth my while to look at each specific one. Ones like the My First Ticonderoga are easier, but still the discussion of them ends up being brief. That being said, let’s take a look.

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The pencil is almost solid yellow, with green accents on the information on the “barrel” and the metal eraser holder. It is a little more broken up by the eraser’s pink and the wood of the sharpened end. The eraser works well enough, and is quite large since the pencils size is increased. The body is half again to double the circumference of a standard pencil, making it much more comfortable to hold, in my opinion, but harder to store. It is completely round, making rolling quite easy, but its larger mass makes it less prone to ending up on the floor.

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The lead is standard fare for #2. It works well enough for drawing and writing, providing a medium line that can be both quite dark and quite light, though the largeness of the lead skews it to dark. Personally I haven’t used it much for that, but I have used it for marking wood in lieu of a carpenter’s pencil, a job at which this excels.

It’s a good pencil, both for kids and those who don’t want to or can’t hold the smaller standard pencils of today. The quality control isn’t the finest. I’ve found some wood and paint blemishes but these are quite minor and don’t affect the writing ability at all. The set I got also came with a plastic pencil sharpener that does what it’s supposed to, but is nothing special. They’re just a simple, good option for someone who wants a larger pencil.

Review – Fisher Space Pen Stowaway

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The Fisher Space Pen has a reputation for being a very good pen, with many models being used by many people for many different things. But I feel that some models of space pen get more attention than others. And for some reason, the stowaway isn’t one of them, but it might be my favorite and I think it’s deserving of a look today.

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The body is very simple. It’s a black metal cylinder with a plastic end cap and another slightly larger black cylinder fitting over it. Fitted to this top tube is a clip, which is longer than most pen clips I’ve seen and has “Fisher” stamped into it (not much else to say, it works as a clip should). On the section there is a slight but smooth step down, and then a taper to the point.

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Writing is fairly smooth, though it does require a bit more pressure than some of the more modern pens (but less pressure than the cheap ones). The pen itself is very thin in diameter, meaning one’s hand will begin to cramp if writing more than a few notes. The body is also very short, and generally requires the cap to be posted (placed on the back of the pen) in order to lie in the webbing of one’s hand and be comfortable. This small-ness is very useful when traveling, as this pen can fit just about anywhere (but not an Altoids tin or some similar sized case, which might be why “preppers” don’t use them very often). And even though it’s metal it weighs next to nothing. In most cases it will “stowaway” very easily.

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I really like this pen. It goes with me almost everywhere (and I found an almost identically-sized pencil I will be talking about soon). Its slim body and black color make it very low profile and professional, while its all-metal construction and space pen (underwater, upside down, in space etc.) writing ability make it a very rugged writer. I did dent and scratch mine within a day of owning it, but I haven’t put anything on it since (and besides, that just adds character). The cartridges are even replaceable so you don’t have to throw out the pen each time as with many pens of this size. So, if you’re looking for an on-the-go sketching/writing/note taking pen that could also fit in with any of your other stuff at a moment’s notice, I’d say check this guy out.

Flags

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When collecting things one ends up with quite a few categories. For instance, I have a box labeled “flags” and I’m not exactly sure why. I like flags, but I haven’t set out to collect them, though I do wish I had more now.

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I have a few of the small flags that one would have at an Independence Day celebration or the like. I have the American, 13-star American, Texas, Texas sesqui-centennial, Wyoming, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand flags in that size. I like the size, and the 13-star American version has its own little stand to display it on. It’s hard to display more than one at a time, but they are nice to have in a pencil holder once in a while.

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I also have the German, Mexican, POW/MIA, Come and Take It, and a Fake Texas Confederate Battle flag (got it before they apparently became illegal) in the larger size with grommets. These are much easier to display, but they take up quite a bit of wall space, so more than one is hard to put out, and they aren’t hefty enough to be flown outside (and putting the Confederate flag out might get you in trouble).

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Again, I didn’t plan to get these, or specifically order them. I just picked them up slowly as I went about collecting the other things I collect. They have no real use, but they look nice. I’ve always liked flag design and thinking about how flag design affects one’s opinion of a country or group. Most of the famous flags aren’t masterpieces. They’re either much too complicated or much too simple, but they still represent something, and the design process that was going through their creator’s heads would be fascinating to know. It’s good to keep some in decoration rotation anyway.

Review – Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen Brush Manga 6 Color Set

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I’m not a Manga artist. And I usually don’t use color in my art. Mostly because it’s hard, like using brush pens is hard. What I’m trying to say is that my perspective on this particular set of art implements might not be the view of the average person who might find them very useful. With that said, let’s take a look at this set of Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens, the Manga 6 Color Brush set.

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The pens themselves are fairly plain. There is an indication of the size (“B” for brush, in this case) on the top of the cap. The cap has a set of groves running around it with a shiny finished top and clip. The clip is the same piece of plastic as the cap and does its job in an unspectacular way. The body is straight until the very end, which protrudes as a fluted section for posting, at which it’s effective. The body contains all of the needed information in several languages, which makes it seems a bit too crowded, but I can’t really complain. The section is slightly textured, which is wonderful; it isn’t slippery or uncomfortable. After that is a tapering section for the cap seal and the brush point itself. The cap seals and holds well onto this point.

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The brushes themselves aren’t of the bristle variety, but are more like a flexible porous point. This makes them much less finicky, and better for a disposable item like this one, as they would wear out faster than a bristle brush. Their flexibility is nice, going from a medium point to one several millimeters wide with relative ease, and they can be bent to some pretty severe angles without any long-term damage being done. The amount of ink they lay down is good. It increases with the pressure on the tip, and makes a full line. At times it skirts on “not enough”, and layering will definitely change the color significantly. Sharp turns with the lighter colors will leave a darker area on the corner. On office paper this amount of ink will bleed though, especially at the ends, but on cardstock there is barely show through.

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The six colors themselves are a decent selection, but not great: Dark Naples Ochre is a nice, natural looking yellow. Orange glaze is a bit pale and not really a color that is found in many places. Pink Carmine is a bit too dark and is hard to use. Purple Violet, besides having a redundant name, is dark and pleasant, but again not very natural. Phthalo Blue is a great looking lake or ocean blue, but is a bit dark for most uses, and Permanent Green Olive is quite dark and olive, which is more suited to deeply forested areas or jungle than to plains or some more common areas. Still, the colors interact with each other very well, and they dry fast, but do mix on the paper, meaning one can get interesting color combinations while still having their pens keep relatively clean.

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Overall, the set is a good set to introduce oneself to the Pitt artist brush pens. It has a nice simple selection of colors that allows for experimentation and can be used for the base of a larger set. But I certainly wouldn’t consider it a complete set for creating an art work. Many more colors would be needed, and more tailored to one’s specific purpose. For instance, there is very little here to make skin tones with, which would be very important in Manga. They’re very good pens, but the set is incomplete.

Addendum: I failed to mention the water/smear proofing of these pens when I first completed this post. Both of which are very good. When interacting with other inks or materials the lines generally stay solid, which is good for resilience but bad for blending. When hit with water the lines don’t move, but they do bleed a tiny bit of pigment.

Book Review – 1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop (By: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, and James Harkin)

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1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop is a simple book. As stated in the title, it contains 1,339 facts (I’m fairly sure, I didn’t count, but math tells me there should be 1,340, so maybe there is one lie). They are collected 4 to a page and “organized” in a stream-of-conscious style.

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The facts aren’t quite common knowledge, though likely the reader will be familiar with some. Some of them are easily verifiable, and there are no real stand-out lies or debunked myths. It’s entirely possible that some of the things presented inside are false, but they do include a link to a website where you can submit any proof you have that a statement made in the books is false. Out of the whole thing, I only found one fact that seemed dubious to me.

In the back there is also a handy index in case you’re looking for where you read that one thing a year and a half ago that you swear to your friends is true. Which is nice, as the lack of chapters would make navigation of the book otherwise difficult. Nothing presented requires much special knowledge to understand (one might have to do a quick Google search or two), and retaining anything is easy as everything is presented in a few sentences. There also aren’t too many offensive or morbid things included (it depends on how broadly you’d want to define that.)

It’s a fun little book to read through, and then sit on the shelf and open up to a random page now and again. My jaw never did drop while reading it, but I was certainly amused when doing so. I enjoyed it, and will enjoy keeping it around.