You don’t need to spend a ton of money when buying art supplies. The most important thing is to find the right supplies without spending hundreds of dollars trying to find what suits you better.
I did the homework for you and here you have the best pencils, erasers and ink pens on the market.
Pencils:
- The Cretacolor Monolith woodless graphite pencil. Great for blocking shapes and shading. In my opinion, after some use the tip becomes very smooth and your linework very loose. If you wanna do some shading to your drawings these woodless graphite pencils are perfect. The set of pencils includes a HB, 2b,4b,6b,8b, 9b. Also a kneaded eraser and watercolor pencil. Very nice pack. The Cretacolor Monolith Set on Amazon .
- The Faber-Castell 2mm mechanical pencil. If you want precision for detailing or you have a clean style this bad boy will do the job. I use the Faber-Castell 2mm for detailing my drawings. I like to sharpen the tip and use it for fine detail.
- The Conte A Paris 1710. If Charcoals are your weapon of choice, these pencils are super cool. If you don’t have the experience you gotta be patient sharpening them because the charcoal breaks easy, but apart from that they are probably the best brand out there. The Conte A Paris 1710 on Amazon .
Sharpener:
- Sandpaper Pencil Pointer: I use them for sharpening my charcoal pencils and also my woodless graphite pencils. with the help of a cutter and some patient, you can achieve those long and beautiful pencil tips you can see in the traditional pro artist videos. The Sandpaper Pencil Pointer on Amazon .
Erasers:
- Fabber-Castell Kneaded eraser. I use this eraser because is great if you want to clean your drawing without losing you base linework. This eraser doesn’t leave particles of residuum like the traditional erasers. The Fabber-Castell Kneaded eraser on Amazon .
- Mono Zero 2.3mm eraser from Tombow. Is a Pen-style body eraser with a push-button mechanism. I love it because is perfect for erasing little details, like when you want to fix the eyes of your character without erasing the whole face. The eraser has a high precision tip and will protect your work. Unless you put a lot of pressure it will not damage the paper. The Tombow Mono Zero 2.3mm eraser.
Pens:
- The Pentel portable brush pen. Is Fantastic for inking. Creates very fluid and consistent ink brush strokes. The ink is water-resistant and the pen comes with an extra ink charge. I use it for the contour lines of the drawing and some of the main lines. The Pentel brush pen on Amazon .
- The Pentel Fude Brush Pen, Medium. I use this one for feeling areas with pure black. You have also the bold version which is even thicker but I prefer this one because most of the time I’m feeling not very big areas an I need some precision. The Pentel Fude Brush Pen on Amazon .
Sketchbook:
- The Canson 180 Art Book 8.3 x 11.7” . This is my favorite sketchbook without a doubt. First of all, because it has an extremely sturdy stitch binding that allows this book to lay completely flat when open, and trust me, it really bothers me to use an elastic rubber or the hand to keep the pages flat and open. Another great thing about this sketchbook is the size of it, if you hate like me to draw in a small sheet of paper you will love this sketchbook. The paper is also of good quality, almost 100gr/65lb thick, maybe not enough if you are into watercolors but good enough for pencil, charcoal, inking, markers and some ink wash. The grain of the paper is not too thick and your pencils and charcoal will look quite good there.
If you want something smaller 5.5×8.5inch here you have it on Amazon
