Category Archives: Utensils

Review – Uni-Ball Vision Elite Bold Black, Blue, and Red

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When looking at the Pilot Precise two weeks ago, it occurred to me that there might be people who don’t have Pilot pens available, or don’t like them, so I looked into a different set of pens that have similar features. And I found the Uni-Ball Vision Elite Bold, in Black, Red, and Blue.

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The body and cap are simple and smooth, with a nice white-to-grey fade, a conical top, and a rounded bottom. The clip is metal with a few divots and is very tight. The top of the cap has the color of the ink and there are a few windows below to allow you to see the feed. On the barrel, the brand is stated twice and the model once, but there is no size information. Removing the cap exposes a transparent yet grip-covered feed, and the conical tip to a standard metal roller-ball point.

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The three inks aren’t too special in properties. The black is a thick, nice color. It is a warm black, fairly formal, etc. The bold line on all of these pens is enough to bleed through on cheaper copier paper, but the ink dries surprisingly fast. The blue is a dark blue, again fairly formal. It’s almost a navy or a blue-black color and it works well in most situations. I’d say it’d even work well for some artistic endeavors. The red is fairly bright and red, but it isn’t eye-hurting. It is a very deep, nice color, but it could still be considered aggressive. It is also good enough to have some artistic potential.

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The point is nice, and it writes smoothly, especially in the bold I have here. There is a lot of line variation, though, meaning drawing is a bit harder (or easier, depending on how you look at it). Like I said, there is some bleed-through, but not much. The writing is dry almost instantly from when I pick up the pen, which is amazing and leads to a much smoother writing experience.

Overall, the Uni-Ball Vision Elite is a great little roller-ball with quite a few office applications. The colors are nice without being overbearing, and the writing experience is fast and clean. Artistically they are limited, having little line consistency, but on the color side they have potential. They’re a nice set of pens.

Comparison – Pilot Varsity Old vs New

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If you’re looking for a fountain pen but don’t want to purchase something expensive or something you have to fiddle with, then a disposable fountain pen might be the way for you to go. And If you’ve tried before with the most common disposable fountain pen, the Pilot Varsity, and are looking to get another one, you may have seen the slight changes they’ve made to the design. Are these changes that big a deal? Well, let’s find out.

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The Pilot Varsity has a simple cylindrical barrel and cap, with nice, simply rounded finials. Printed on the barrel is “Pilot Varsity” and a design, but no further information. Both pens have this printed on them. While the old design is straight lines on a tasteful silver with a tiny ink window, the newer version features a multi-tone diamond pattern with a worked in, barley visible, ink window. The cap has a cheap plastic clip with a ball on the end that does tolerably, but is far from the best. Just don’t turn yourself upside down with this pen in your pocket. Taking off the cap reveals the clear section and the plastic feed. One can see if there is ink in the feed, but not in the barrel except through quasi-ink-windows printed in the design. The feed is simple, and has a wick, which allows for better ink flow, but would not be ideal for cleaning (which you wouldn’t be doing anyway if you were just going to throw it away.)

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The nib at the end of the pen is again simple. It is stamped “Pilot <M>” (medium) and has no further ornamentation, not even a breather hole. It is stainless steel, and offers no flexibility in the tines. Now, one might think that since they’re both stamped medium, that both pens would have roughly the same line width; and this would strangely be wrong. At least on the example I have, the older Varsity has a line more akin to a fat medium, or a particularly skinny broad, while the newer example is more of a fat fine, or a sorta skinny medium. If this is indeed a purposeful change that was made, I’m guessing it was for the American market to prevent bleed-through on the extra-crappy paper here, which it does do. This size difference definitely doesn’t affect the nib performance, though. Both nibs are buttery smooth, have no startup issues, and write under no pressure. The ink is the standard Pilot black, and there is nothing different between the two pens that I can discern (and neither are at all waterproof).

So, which one should you get? Well, it really doesn’t matter. If you really want a fat medium nib disposable (well, kinda, you can look up how to refill it online) you can hunt down some of the old ones, which I personally like better due to purely aesthetic reasons. The new one is a bit more loud and silly, and a bit finer in line, but you’d be really hard-pressed to tell that unless you were looking like I was.

 

Review – Plaid 10 Detail Brush Set

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Well, while perusing my archives, I found a review of Testor’s plastic cement. And that is when I realized I have a whole set of Modeling stuff that I would count as art supplies. So today I’ll be looking at some of those, starting with one of the cheapest and most universal things, a Plaid 10-piece detail brush set.

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This will be general and cover only the quality of the brushes and not the individual brushes themselves, which might be covered in future installments. First off, the bodies are made of cheap wood that is poorly painted with quite good lettering telling you what everything is. There is a brass-colored section near the end, and some very ugly orange bristles pointing out of it. The section and body are quite sturdy for their thickness and not at all slippery, but not too nice in the hand either.

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The bristles themselves are all right. As previously stated, they are an ugly orange, which doesn’t really matter too much. They are synthetic and have a bit of pop to them, which I like, but others might not. At first they are quite soft and strong, but they may easily become frayed and bent. This is more of a problem with individual bristles and not the brush as a whole. This makes it difficult to get a good edge when you paint, until you cut the offending bristle out of the brush. The brush’s life is likely shorter than most brushes (considering they are sold in Wal-Mart), but, honestly, for the price they work very well. They get floppy pretty quick (which some people might prefer) and they do wear out shortly after that. But they have a lifespan the I’d expect for the price, and getting a 10-brush set this cheap is incredible. They’re even relatively hard to stain.

Overall, if you need only limited detailing done on paintings, or are looking to start painting models and miniatures, this is a great starter brush set. One might want to upgrade to a well-know brush brand later, or even to hair brushes, but for a starter set these are excellent.

Review – Crayola Twistables Crayons

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Now, crayons are impractical for most art types, usually because they are fragile and fiddly. What if these two problems were fixed, and crayons were easy to take and use anywhere? What would their value be? Well, Crayola has a set of twistable crayons which have plastic bodies with a twist action, so let’s take a look.

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First off, the crayons come in a quite nice plastic-and-card-stock carrying case, which, while handy, seems like it would fall apart rather quickly. And, just for me personally, I would want to store these somewhere else, but have a problem throwing plastic things away so I keep them in it.

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The crayon barrels are made of plastic and have Crayola and Twistables written on each one, with no indication as to color, though the body is see-through so the color is fairly apparent. Near the tips is a tapered and grippy section which works quite well, especially since the rest of the body is very slick. At the other end is a twisting knob which operates easily and can be used to both push the crayon out and retract it.

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That’s almost all there is to say. The crayons themselves are nothing special, they’re just kept in place by a plastic tube and screw. They are, of course, for kids so they are bright and not very natural. They are also non-toxic, which is a bonus. They stay alright on the paper, but not as well as more “professional” crayon and oil pastels.

So, overall they are better crayons, but they don’t change what Crayola crayons really are. Which is good for the people who use Crayola crayons. They aren’t particularly serious art supplies, and that’s fine. For more advanced things I’d recommend picking up one of the larger cases with more colors rather than the standard 10 pack I got. Past that there really isn’t anything special about them.

Review – Pilot Easytouch Pro

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While not necessarily an art supply, the Pilot EasyTouch Pro claims to use a hybrid ink formula to make a smooth writing, quick drying, waterproof ink, which sounds super handy. Let’s see what it’s all about.

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First the body of the pen features a “modern design”. The tip is a metal cone similar to most click pens. The grip is nicely tapered and flares out at the end. The barrel is fairly straight, but with a little engraving and minimal information. The clip is simple, and tight, with a “modern design”. At the end is a click button and a strange cutoff design. The click mechanism works well but has a grating sound.

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The ink itself is a slightly dark black, but really more of a grey. The tip is medium and there are no options. It does flow quite easily, with very little pressure on the paper. It isn’t as smooth as a fountain pen, or even a gel pen. It does offer some line variation when one presses harder, and it becomes considerably blacker when one does so. It dries fairly fast, though not the fastest. All of this is quite nice until at some points when one is writing (especially when one has just started) a large blob of ink spills out of the point and bleeds though the paper. This is not really unusual for a ballpoint, but the amount and the bleed through make it quite a problem. It’a not really a problem when writing, but a problem when doing anything else.

So overall, this is not a drawing pen, but a writing pen, and not a long writing pen either, because of blobbing, but if one merely wants to sign a paper, or write one page it is quite a smooth-writing fine instrument.