All things cheap and fun….

Review: Rotring 600 vs. Graphgear 500

Since I only use mechanical for drawing/sketching, I am always on the look out for 1-2 nice, lasting pencils. I have been eyeing the Rotring 600 and 800 for a long time but cannot bear/affort paying so much for one. So I was stalking Amazon during their sales and got a new Rotring 600 in matted black for less than $10 after tax. That is a great price but still 5 times what a new Graphgear 500 cost. Something to think about, if it’s worth it. Rotring is a high end drafting tool while Graphgear 500 is more of a low end.

I began drawing using the Rotring with my Canson Watercolor paper, and it comes out nice, so I tried on a 90lb sketch paper. I was wondering if it’s the lead that is different. So I took both of them in one hand, let gravity do its job.

The four on the top were done exactly the same and you can tell both of the HB leads are pretty much the same. So I tried one at a time in circular motion. I found out that due to the weight of the Rotring being very heavy, it moves in smaller areas and requires less effort. Which I always thought would be the opposite. Then I tried the graphgear, it moves randomly and out of place…for being a light pencil, a bit hard to get the shading right.

So I tried drawing and testing them for a while. To my opinion, if you are planning to use for a long period of writing, I would say the Graphgear for that. If you are doing a slower pace and more detailed like drawing, I would say the Rotring. It was made for precise drawing/drafting. Also note that due to the tip, you can get a bit closer and have more control. However, becareful with the tip and put a cap over it if you are planning to travel with the pencil.

This was my first X-mas gift to myself so I am excited to have this pencil. If you take care of it well, it should last you a lifetime. Rotring is a really well made German brand, and I also use their Rapidograph and Isograph Technical pens. They are quite expensive so stalk for sales or sometimes pre-owned ones.

The Hairy situation.

More hair or less hair….I always ask myself. Hair is the second thing you look at other than the face of course. It can be smooth, wavy, curly, messy, you name it. I personally love drawing them, but have stopped since I began using just a .5mm pencil. Most of the time, when you draw hair, you actually draw some strains and the rest are mostly done with a blending/lifting tool. However if you just use a mechanical pencil, you end up drawing one hair at a time….extremely painful. EXTREMELY!!!

That being said, it’s hard once you start and I tried myself. It was really fun but took a very long time.

The above is a drawing of Yoon Eun-Hye, Korean actress/model. I scanned it so you can see the details better. It was fun but I don’t think I want to do this often..

Worse is if you use colored lead. Making it much harder to draw hair. Actually color lead is harder to draw, shade, or have extra details, period. However, it’s in COLOR! Yeah, some people are suckers for COLORS!!!

The (snail-pace) progress of the lazy.

Someone asked me how long it takes to finish one drawing with just a 0.5mm mechanical pencil. The answer for sure is “A VERY LONG TIME.” I have never sat my bum down to complete a drawing before, worrying that it will forever stuck on the chair. Also the fact I can’t be normal to finish one and move onto the next. I jump around too much, to balance thing out I am dedicated to drawing the same person I guess.

First, I would do a few outlines because this is easy and fun, takes little time or effort. I can do this while working on my PC, listen to music, yelling at my kids, watching TV….but not while doing the dishes.

Second, I add in details when I have time in between things. Since I only use one pencil for writing and drawing, it’s always there on my desk, next to my mouse. There is no need to erase when adding details to the outline, it makes things much easier.

Then I just keep adding more details until I am done or just no longer want to add more.

Just keep going and going a little at a time.

There is one thing about using just a lead pencil, it’s hard to speed things up. You just have to move in small strokes if you want finer details. If you look closely, I have endless lines everywhere.

I rarely do with a lead pencil, HAIR! Yes, it will never end if you have to draw one strand of hair at a time. So most of my drawings has very little hair or very little details when it comes to that. I pay alot of attention to the face instead. It’s something I give up in choosing to use just a mechanical pencil.

Is Tracing Cheating or just painful?

When tracing is mentioned in drawing, it has a negative tone to it. However if you have tried this method before, it’s more painful and harder to do than it sounds. It is on the same level as the grid for me. However if you want to draw something very accurate, the human eyes can only do so much. I wear glasses and pretty bad, so trying to measure and sketch at the same time is out of the question. Instead of seeing one point, I see a few…..yeah, that works great with human face….3.5 eyes and 2 noses? I rather people spend time when drawing people or celeb than having them look like they were beaten with an ugly and deformed stick.

You need more prep, supplies and not always easy. Especially if you are tracing something very small. It gives you some accurate shapes but not all the details you need. With any method you need to put in extra work. If you think this is cheating, then anyone using Photoshop is way past that. Where can you just go back and redo, move parts around and unlimited tools at your finger tips? That goes for many drawing programs/apps out there.

Above is a outline of what I was drawing before adding details and shading. I did not use the grid method or tracing, but random lines instead. It’s not as detailed but fun and basically I do not need to pay much attention to it. I can do this while watching a movie or in between working on the pc. The actor I was drawing is Wang YiBo and I want him to look like the real person as much as possible. My human eyes cannot do that, and my measuring with a pencil skill is no where to be found. Plus this picture is around 6×9 inches, a little smaller to be exact.

When you are drawing things that do not need to be exact, light sketching then an outline is fine. No need to torture yourself with the painful methods. Just like the pears above, you can find thousands of different shapes and sizes, colors and more. However with let say a person’s face, there is usually one,….well unless they are twins, my bad. You know what I mean.

As I am tying this, I am in a way cheating…badly. You know when you use Word, it will tell you when you spelled a word wrong, it will tell you when you use the punctuation in the wrong place, it will help correct your grammar, tells you when you forget to capitalize a letter. When I see someone using any method, I think to myself “Damn, so much patience” or “Nice!!” There is good reason this method has been around and very useful for not just artist, but seamstress, illustrators, and more.

I use tracing when I draft patterns for my BJDs. I never get it right the first time, so I will trace the first one down and fix the part that is off….I sometimes need to do this many times before getting it right. If there is no tracing, I would just be cursing non-stop.

So you want smooth skin??

As mentioned before, I prefer rough sketch drawings over smooth detailed one more. Again, me personally of course. However I am someone who still like to try different thing if I get a chance….and messing up so this can be an example/practice for those who like to have smooth skin for their drawings of people.

Both are unfinished and just a first step done…so just to show as examples. The one on the left I was using my 0.5mm mechanical pencil, while on the right, I started with a 2B pencil and just gave up and used a brush.

I did a rough outline sketch with my lead pencil but I found an old 2B pencil lying around and decided to give it a try….just to remember why I gave up decades ago. It was rough but very dark, however after shading part of the neck, I did not like it. I moved onto the mouth thinking it would be better. Nope, I gave up after that. Now I either erase the two areas and start again with my mechanical pencil or just redo from scratch. However since I am not continuing on this, I used it as a practice example for those who like to do this. To blend, you can use a stump, q-tips, tissues, fabrics, cloth, or cheap brush like I did. I just took an old broken brush and used the graphite I shaded in the neck area to give the first layer to the face. It was not alot so I can’t get much dark areas in but you get the point. This method is super easy, fast, and fun to do. If you want more graphite, just use the pencil or run your brush over a graphite stick. They are cheap and comes with all starter drawing/sketching sets. You can add layers until you are satisfied. For highlights, you can just lift them in the areas you like. Since they are brushed on, lifting is super easy. This takes up very little time and great for those who like to draw larger portraits or drawings. By the way, choose before you start unlike me…..This method works great with charcoal also, sometimes you just put down a bit and use the brush to paint around…like the pulling method with watercolor. That I failed on many times…

The above is the second one and used only my mechanical pencil. I really like this as it gives me all the control I want. It’s time consuming and you can see how much little lines I have just in a small area. Basically my pencil does not really leave the surface, it just moves around. This to me is more my style but for sure not ideal for larger drawings, don’t even try unless you want to spend countless hours cursing.

Where to start with your drawing?

Normally there is a starting or part you always draw first. Most will start with the eyes and if those are correct, the rest will follow. I never do because for some reason if I start there, they never look right and I end up never continuing. Where do I start, the neck and work upward. Yep, even with outlining/sketching or adding in details, I always start at the neck. I do this because it’s easier and when starting I tend to mess up, it’s the best part for that. Even if I leave it hanging I will always come back later and continue. You can call it a mental thing, but if you find your perfect starting point, that is best for you. Does not have to the like others, even professionals, just for yourself.

I tend to move around alot and so as you can see, all of my unfinished work are the same..working from the neck upwards. I do this for people portrait drawings/sketchings.

Now, the question is ….”Are the eyes and eyebrows the hardest parts?”

I would say they used to be, when I tried to draw them first. Now that I found my starting point, they end up to be fun and easy. I used to dread eyebrows but now it’s actually something I look forward to, especial when using such a thin lead pencil. It is much more fun with even a thinner point pen.

The best of the cheapest fountain pens…

Fountain pens can be as cheap as $1-2 or as much as thousands….so of course I have to go for the cheap ones. That does not mean it’s bad. For inking I use my dip pen because it’s easy to change colors and clean…but the non-stop dipping can be stressful.

I am a fan of Daiso for sure and luckily they carry some fountain pens. I originally got a metal white one with the normal size nib in medium/fine tip writing. It works really well and was taken by my son. I then found a clear version with a much smaller and around nib, with the same medium/fine tip writing. Much easier to see what you are writing. I was not sure if they can be as good as the first one but shockingly, it is much better. I was able to find an 20yrs old ink converter and loaded it with black ink and ready to ink….

Daiso fountain pen, medium/fine tip size

I tested it out writing first but when it comes to inking, it’s super smooth and can be light, dark as you move it. The only problem for me is when I only need to outline something, I can’t stop. I was able to try different stokes, curves, straight lines with the pen….can’t complain at all for a $1.50 fountain pen (plus tax of course)

Beside being such a great writing pen, it is very well built. Clear plastic, metal clip and super cute nib. Just I can’t remove the nib to clean because the way it’s made. So just do normal cleaning.

I know many would rather use a fine liner but I am old fashion and love fountain pens. Was the first type of pen that I had to use in school when I was five. My country required all 1st graders to start with fountain pen, old school style. Everyone had to carry a ink bottle and all of our bags had ink stains.!!!!

So if you have a spare $1.50 plus tax, want to know about fountain pen, give it a try.

The Grid method for drawing ….maybe?

When you first learn to draw, especially a person’s face, you were taught the Grid method. Where you draw the grids on the original and also onto the paper you are going to use. It’s a great method for any size. From small original to large drawing. I hated this because you have to make sure to measure correctly and draw the lines. However today, you can get a clear transparent grid to use on the original, save you 1/2 of the time. You can also make reusable with thin cord/threads. Even so, I find this extremely painful. Sometimes you get a square with nothing, other ones with too much details. You also have to put in a bit of sketching. ….then comes the very careful erasing of the lines. Sometimes you can see some still if you drew them too hard.

Those who hate the grid will rather do the measuring with their pencil and sketch until they get it right. More fun but alot of erasing and measuring. It is great for larger drawings but with small ones, 1-2 mm off and you can see how off the drawing is. I tried this and kept dropping my mechanical pencil, leaving marks and holes in the paper. Therefore I only did one portrait of an actress decades ago and never again.

However, I was watching my drama that was adapted from my favorite novel and fell in love with the actors/actresses so I decided to try drawing again. The problem is I have not drawn anything in more than 10 years, I want the lazy and easy way out…..so I tried the “lazy” method. No measuring required, no sketching either. You just draw an outline straight on the set lines. Might look odd but once you add some details, it will be quite accurate. I was very skeptical at first, but it takes barely anytime or effort, so why not. So far I have been drawing the same few actors/actresses alot lately.

These are outline sketches I did. It takes very little time so I sometimes just draw more than one. The hardest part is finding the right photos/faces I want to use. They do not look close to the originals or nice to look at but wait…..

The above is very rough. As mentioned, I forgo the blending tools/stump and I only used .5mm mechanical pencil. I personally like the roughness over the smoothness. Personal taste and choice of course. You do not have to erase anything from the outline, just add in details as you go.

The above one I took a bit more time with and was on Watercolor paper, so you get a different texture.

As you can see from the original outline, a little detail goes a long way. This method is for the lazy and beginners as you do not have to do muck work, plus it takes about 1/3 of the time compared to the other two methods.

What happens to damaged, unwanted, old clothing…

To me, they ended up being recycled to make bags, purse, craft and mostly BJD clothing. I like to get and use clothing that can’t be use by people and not accept at donation center mostly. Like stain, ripped, missing buttons and more. That way I do not feel bad about cutting, dyeing them into something new. All of the will be thrown away so giving new designs/life is great. I personally love buying damaged things at Goodwill also.

This started a two years back when my niece first donated a batch to me. I started a BJD clothing line in her name , Mia-X and have made over 100 outfits. Some shirt or dress can be made into a few for dolls. Just over the the last weekend, she donated a new batch and I am back to working on them.

Most of the items from her are of course kids clothing, so what I try to make reflect that. The above (violet) outfits are for Imda 3.0 and DC MSD sizes. I was able to piece together a total of 8 dresses from 1 of her old dress…yep, nice!!!

So before you decided to throw away old stuff, think what you can do with it. Of course donate but I found out donation centers will not accept or will throw away stained, damaged stuff because they can’t fix or sell them. T-shirts will get holes in time, stains, fading and missing thread. It’s just normal.

When art turns to the Dark Side

Does the medium, color changed how your drawing looks and feel?

The above was a simple pencil sketch for my inking…..a little sad and innocent feel but when I was done picking my ink and color it changed quite a bit..

My baby looks like it turned to the much Darker side. Don’t get me wrong, I personally love the dark and gloomy feel. I love inking with my dip (cheap) pen and some watercolor.

I guess I am someone who never like soft, smooth, even in my drawings. I started out drawing one portrait like decades ago and used stumps to smooth out the drawing. However as time goes by (actually as I stopped drawing for 13+ years, I one day decided just to jump back on), I forgo that and like things a bit raw and rough. So you can see in all my pencil/colored pencil drawings, I do not smooth any part out at all. Just keep all the roughness.