Saji vs Nipponji nibs; what's really the difference?

 I've always thought there were x3 nibs, the big spoon looking Saji nib, the mid sized school-g nib, & the skinny little maru mapping nib.

I was recently watching a Naoki Urasawa video on YouTube where he mentioned discovering the Nipponji nibs after using a Gnib for a long time 

I looked it up & found that the key hole cutout from the Saji differed from the cutout on the Nipponji, which closer resembles the Gnib cutout. I also found that where the Saji has a perfectly curved bowl shape, the Nipponji seems to have very specific bends, namely down the center line to the tip, & on the sides similar to a paper airplane.

I had to know for myself what the deal was since there's absolutely no comparison information about these anywhere online.

What did i find? Well you just saw for yourself, there's pretty much no difference.

By feel alone, the Saji is stiffer, therefore fine lines come with slightly less effort. The Nikko Nipponji feels a breath stiffer than the Tachikawa Nipponji. 

The Saji seems to be capable of slightly thicker maximum line thickness, though it takes more pressure to reach the maximum vs both Nipponji. 

The Saji also seems to allow ink to run more freely, which has pros & cons. This may be ideal with thicker inks, but could be tragic with thinner inks.

If I had to pick one (I did actually, since I keep x3 nibs holders on my pen carousel, the maru, the g, & now the Nikko Nipponji) it would be the Nikko Nipponji for purely ethereal reasons. I'm keeping them all & will probably use them as spares if I run out of my faves & have to wait extra long for shipping new stock.

Try them for yourself & let me know if you discover a subtle difference I missed.

SOLVED: getting the "architect's angle" drawing surface for cheap.

I had a really nice cheap led board, just a thin led light table, & I was trying to think of a way to get it at the proper tilt because it was the perfect size; 13x18.

I got lazy & ordered a $60 desktop angle adjustable drawing table. It didn't work for me at all, the lowest setting was flat. The 2nd lowest was 70°, the 3rd was 80, & 4th was 90! & It was 16" tall, so 1" of your comic pages would hang over the edge.

I just need a casual 25° lift on that back end to ease proportion warp & eye strain, not to mention to avoid overkilling your wrist angle with the steeper grades.

I returned the desktop table & kept thinking, what could I use that's cheap, readily available, easy to assemble & use, easy to adjust, self-leveling, & disposable!?

Impossible ideal right? Well you already own it. Too good to be true? The answer was a roll of paper towels.

You probably keep a roll nearby for cleaning your nibs or brushes, all you need now is a thin sturdy surface you can lean on the towel roll on top of any flat table to make the perfect angled drawing surface.

I wanted my surface to meet the edge of the table, so I taped a flat wood stick to the edge. There's nicer ways to accomplish the same purpose, but Im happy with it, it's a great return for practically zero effort.

Theres products on Amazon going for $100s just to give you the "architects angle", lifting the top of your canvas 3" up. 

Just use a roll of towels✌️👍

Senku & Mayuri

 

SOLVED: Dry Pens & Markers? No Problem!

Artists need to be able to create the moment they're inspired & have their tools reliably last all the way through every session. 

Dry brush pens, acrylic pens, fountain pens, markers, (& even dip pens if you need to take a 15 sec break) are a show stopper.

They all come with a cap. This makes sense because without a cap, they'd mark up whatever they bumped into, the tip may get damaged, or someone could get severely poked. AND, they would dry out because those tips are basically like the opening on a bucket of paint. Leave that sitting with no lid & it'll dry just the same.

But in case you never checked, tons of those pen & marker caps have holes in them. Go ahead, blow into your favorite. Can you? Then you've got holes. Why do so many companies manufacture their caps with holes? The answer must be profound because I can't even fathom.

What's the fix? Bit of tape? Epoxy? Maybe to the 1st, & eh can't be bothered to buy & mix it to the 2nd. 

I decided to just stick an old dirty piece of Kneaded Eraser on the end, instant, perpetual, removable, relatively durable, airtight seal. 👍✌️

SOLVED: ruler ink smears & smudges.

 If you've ever tried to ink some gutter lines on a comic page or any straight line with a ruler, & wound up with infuriating feathered ink smudges when removing your ruler, this post is for YOU!

I found a work around to this problem. Yeah, some rulers have a bevel, & it is an option to just flip that ruler 'upside down', leaving the beveled side down & keeping a small gap between the paper & the ruler edge...but some rulers are only beveled on one side, or not at all.

Here's what you can do to any ruler to keep all your edges useable & evenly gapped off the drawing surface: buy a roll of double sided tape, cut a few small pieces & stick them to the corners of your ruler, on both sides. (DON'T remove the piece of plastic covering the other adhesive side of the tape.) Then place a few extra where you feel the ruler flex, this is usually halfway between the first pieces. 

Now you must keep in mind, standard ruler use allows you to swivel the body of your pen in all directions so long as the tip doesn't lift, BUT, with this modification, you must take special care to steady the angle of your pen while ruling a line. Any major deviation could allow the tip to wander under the gapped edge of the ruler.

50 practice lines & I'm sure you'll master this modified tool & never curse the gods for smearing your pristine pages with ink again!

Cleaning the Kuretake no40 brush pen

 Ive been very happy with the performance of my no40 kuretake, in fact its not an exaggeration to say its the best pen ive ever used. Ive been feeding it Carbon Ink & have refilled my Gold Cartridge about 3 or 4 times. 

Well as you can imagine, its finally become gunked up & dried. I now know that it wants to be thoroughly cleaned before every refill. 

I tried to clean it myself using odorless brush cleaner & warm water, but felt that i couldnt quite reach the real problem area; the base of the bristles. I saw a youtuber remove the tip cone revealing the base, but when i removed mine, it appeared different. My tip pulled out a thin felt rod that was seated in the ink well/barrel. It doesnt appear to be able to come apart any further, though the rod has some movement if pushed or pulled upon. I was too afraid to push or pull more than 1mm, if you are willing to risk ruining your pen for the sake of science please let me know if the felt pulls the bristles out or what actually happens. I imagine if they are somehow attached to the felt, you would then thread the felt back in through the tip like a needle, but then im unsure how you would continue to push it through without damaging the bristles too much. perhaps theres enough room for the felt to appear again on the opposite end without applying pressure, in order to pull on it again.

Band Photo

 

Heirs of Ashuradō official strategy card game prototype game box!

 Drawing inspiration from games like D&D, MTG, YuGiOh, & Pokemon, this roleplaying strategy game delves deeper into the world of Ashuradō using some familiar card game mechanics & some new ones.

This prototype 1st edition is available on loan only to serious testers.  Card art production will begin after the release of Heirs of Ashuradō ch03. The official release will follow with fully illustrated 2nd edition starter decks, official box art & more custom game mats.

Check out an exclusive preview of the prototype game box below:

I wish Diane Morgan & Karl Pilkington would collab on a new show called "Nature & that, with Mandy Carter & Karl Pilkington."

 

SOLVED: 3d printer calibration issues

 I use an Adventurer 3 for my 3d printing, which is a very low end machine.

It has an uneven heat spread because the element is centered under the square bed, so any larger prints tend to curl up on the corners because of uneven heating.

I recently found that I could remedy this by preheating the bed before/during calibration. The 9 points of calibration will never be uniform on this machine, there's variance of -0.30 to 0.20 on my bed in order to get a flat print. Heat makes this fluctuate wildly from a cold bed.

Ive found it necessary to recalibrate before every single print, which is an incredible pain in my ass, but I've found variance of up to 0.20 on the same points between prints, I believe due to the flexible plastic bed & the spring loaded heating plate.

I also found that the popular method of using card stock under the extrusion tip is not foolproof. It makes a big difference if your cardstock is a few micrometers too thick. In the attached photo, the card on the left is slightly thicker than the card on the right. The left card was causing failed prints, the right card magically fixed the problem.

I use masking tape on my bed for adhesion, & that thickness must also be taken into account when choosing your cardstock.

I use a postcard that was included with filament from @reprapper. I'm not sure what thickness it is exactly but it feels like 80lb smooth stock.