It all de-PEN-ds on you!

Sharing my old pen drawings and… swords.

Jul 14, 2024

A Simple Solution

Whether you are a digital or traditional artist, if you’re having doubts, or been feeling like your drawing skills haven’t improved (that’s me!).

It’s simple.

Pick up a pen.

Not your digital pen, your traditional one. Read Part 1, 2, 3 of my Pen Journey for further reasons why.

Start with simple sketches like objects, animals, whatever interests you— make it into a personal study session.

Also, I try to avoid any social media tutorials, because their goal is for you to fall for their techniques easily. Don’t be deceived to thinking they’re excellent learning material (I’m sure some are), but in the end, they’re only going to show us flawless sketches and pretty edits, and that’s not gonna teach us anything.

We don’t improve by always creating flawless work, we improve by embracing and studying our flaws.

I mean, it’s okay to admire and support your favorite artist, but don’t let their artworks be your expectations or define your visual library. We must depend on ourselves to build our own library.

A Simple Tool

“You don’t need the best drawing tool to draw good.”

I wonder how many times you’ve heard that advice? I’ve said it often too. Some would accuse us for gatekeeping our “special” tools when we say this, but I beg to differ.

I think people tend to forget that it’s not the tools that make you draw well, it’s understanding the tools and practicing with it that does.

It happens in the digital community all the time.

They ask, “What brush do you use to draw?” So I tell them.

And do you know how many response or feedback I received? None.

If my brush truly worked for them they’d be ecstatic and share it to the whole world, “This is crazy! The brush made me draw exactly like this artist! It worked!” But no, the line went dead on their side… literally.

The lines you draw is made alive solely by you. We can use the same pens but our handwriting will always be different. That’s why I always tell my followers, “have fun experimenting!” Because the tools don’t matter, it’s the way we use it that matters.

I love to experiment and acquaint myself with different pens (see Pen Fanatic post). It sometimes feels like I’m mastering a weapon:

G-Pen is like my precise katana
Pilot Easy Touch = my fast Falchion sword
Precise V5 RT = my go-to broadsword
Pilot G-TEC-C4 or 0.35 Pen from Daiso = are thin like Rapier sword! Perfect for inflicting tiny details!

It should be our goal to manage each “sword” accordingly and awaken their potential.

Just like when a warrior trains with their favorite sword, an artist should also train with their favorite pen. Because once you find the perfect fit, oof, watch out! Your pen will start swinging across the paper.

I found a pen I could never part with and still use to this day. It’s the one pen that made me realize my love for details and lineart. I first discovered it when I was staying in the countryside with my grandparents. There was nothing to do and I was itching to sketch something, but the only drawing material they had were the Monami writing pens.

And this was the first drawing done with the Monami 153 pen(s). I used up 2-4 pens drawing this. I remember my grandpa had to go buy more (laughs), he wasn’t too happy.

Photo taken at my grandparent’s kitchen table after completing.

I started sketching more ideas for a children’s book with this pen.

What’s interesting is, these pens run out of ink really quickly, hence it’s one of the cheapest pen on earth! But that’s the thing, the roughness makes it funner to draw. I might sound like a manic when I say this (without context), but I love pens that are almost dying.

Ironically, I end up saving them… for shading purposes. Dying pens can give a variety of shades! So save em!

Even back then, I was into bird designs XD

Afterwards, I bought a box full of Monami pens to take back home, and continued to draw with them for about a year and a half.

Like I said, animals are the best subject to practice drawing.

This pen drawing phase didn’t last long, probably because the pens itself were running out. I started to add less details and shading to make them last longer.

*Bear in mind, this was before the booming of online shopping, and 1/10 households were using Amazon, they probably didn’t ship international goods yet.

Once my favorite pen ran out, my pen sketching days started to dwindle. I then found myself leaning towards digital art again because it was getting more popular. You can tell by the addition of digital coloring on my pen sketches.

I did end up trying different pens, but by then I was already losing interest.

It was also around this time when I started to tutor young kids interested in digital art.

A Simple Teacher

I always taught my students (from the past) to never jump right into digital drawing.

The digital art era was slowly rising, so I thought it imperative to let these young artists be confident with drawing on the paper first. That’s how the old masters did it, how my middle school teacher taught it, and it has worked out positively so far.

Though some people nowadays think it’s “old school and tediously slow” to draw on paper, let me tell you now, you’ll reap more creative experience on paper, that will later enhance your digital drawing skills.

Plus, if you want to learn faster—cough! Draw with a pen.

Anyways, back to my students,

I could see it in their eyes how longingly they wanted to try the drawing tablet that was hooked up to my PC. But I ruined their expectations by handing them a sketchbook, pencil, and pen.

“Alright kids, draw away!” is what I’m always tempted to say.

But a tutor’s role is to guide their learners, and though I can be harsh on myself— I could never be harsh on those whose parents were paying me the hourly bucks. So after a couple of days of feeding them grueling drawing exercises and after-school snacks (kids are always hungry), I finally gave them something fun to work on.

A Simple Idea

We’ve all heard of spirit animals, right?

“Oh hey, what’s your spirit animal?” In which you’d reply with your favorite animal.

But it isn’t just that.

These animals influence your livelihood, they’re incorporated into your bedroom interior, your phone wallpaper, your wardrobe! They’re the animals that stay with you for years. That sort of thing was popular in my days.

Nowadays we like to use the term “OC” meaning original characters. Sadly, that word was nonexistent back then.

So instead, I asked my students if they had an imaginary character they like to draw, a spirit character. If they didn’t have one, I would ask them basic questions like, what’s their favorite animal, food, hobbies… etc. With it, we would invent a character based on their interest.

And kids are great at thinking of all sorts of fun characters, but what’s even greater is, they keep their characters simple.

When you’re practicing drawing, I encourage using a simple subject. Because it’s easier to use a simple idea and slowly build complexity around it.

“If you’re going to perform inception, you need imagination. You need the simplest version of the idea—the one that will grow naturally in the subject's mind. Subtle art.” —Inception (best movie ever), Christopher Nolan

As a teacher, I knew I couldn’t force all the complicated drawing techniques and principles to a child, and expect them to understand or even utilize it.

But what I can do is, help them find a simple “idea” which they can explore and nurture artistically together. I think that’s how one can train their creativity naturally. It’s also more enjoyable to see growth and improvement through a character you created.

This Muffin Girl character was created simply because I loved eating poppy-seed muffins. I used this character as my online persona to tell stories. This character retired when I began working with Webtoons.

Together we went on many art adventures.

This Muffin character really helped me develop my storytelling skills. I had no regrets sticking with this “OC” for many years.

A Simple Exercise

You’re probably sick of reading the word “simple” from the subheadings by now, but I promise you I’m wrapping this thing up…

Lately, I’ve been feeling the need to slow down and return back to my pen drawing phase again. I miss exercising my lines and just letting my pen flow without thinking. Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been setting aside time to do casual studies.