Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen Hard Tip Review

On my never ending quest to forcibly turn artistic use brush pens into my own personal writing and note taking pen, the Tombow Fudenosuke is the latest put to the test.

If you haven’t been paying attention, I realized a few months back with the the Kuretake Fudegokochi that some brush pens make for pretty good writing pens. As one who uses felt and plastic tip drawing pens on a daily basis to write with, the brush pen provides a unique option. It takes a very particular brush pen to work well in this scenario, starting with a very hard tip.

For a brush pen, the Fudenosuke has a hard tip, but it is not hard enough for writing notes with. It is a wonderful pen for its intended use - I can get a wide range of line widths, and the ink is great - but for general writing it is not firm enough. Artists shouldn’t hesitate to pick this one up.

Are there any brush pens that you have used that I should try out for general writing use?

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Brush Pen, Pen Reviews, Tombow.

Rite in the Rain Outdoor Journal and Tactical Pen Review

I have been wanting to review a Rite in the Rain notebook ever since I reviewed the Apica Rain Guard a couple of years ago. I also wanted to be sure to give the Rite in the Rain a proper review since I just dripped some water on the Apica to test it out. Well, there was a big rainstorm at my house last week, so the review was on!

I donned my hooded rain jacket at marched outside with my Outdoor Journal and Tactical Pen that I ordered from Hickorees. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to be able to write and take pictures, but I quickly realized that my grill was the perfect spot. It wasn’t a monsoon outside, but the rain was steady. I tried to take a few in progress photos show how wet the page was getting and how the pen was performing.

Here are my takeaways:

The paper did great. It was soaked but it hung tough. The spot where my hand was resting on the journal soaked through more due to the pressure, but it held up fine.

The pen has a Fisher Space pressurized refill, and it did a good job overall. The one issue that you can pick up in some of the photos is that if the ink blobbed at the tip (like a normal ballpoint would) it would spread out a bit in the water. That happened regularly as I lifted the pen off the page and put it back down to write.

Once I went inside, I wiped down the journal with a paper towel. The ink didn’t smudge, and the paper dried quickly.

It was a very impressive performance by the Rite in the Rain Journal. The pen did well, but if I had planned more I would have tested a Uni-Ball Power Tank and Tombow Airpress for comparison. I think they would have done even better since they write cleaner to begin with. I was just too soaked to go back inside and get them.

I am not a hunter, fisherman, logger, construction worker, or any other vocation that this journal is targeted to, but I can’t imagine another paper product that would perform as well as this one.