Fountain Pen
I've been going pen crazy.
I bought a bunch of pens, mainly with the idea of finding a good tool to do lettering with. Yes, I'm finally trying to gradually, hopefully, eventually maybe do my own hand lettering, especially for a particular project I have in mind. But in general I just think hand lettering looks better and lends greater character to a drawing. Words are pictures too.
So, pens. Lots of them.
I first got some Copic markers, which I actually like a great deal, though they do have that marker-y look on the page. But once scanned they seem to look good enough. Still, I'm not so easily satisfied.
So I got some fountain pens and some nib and a nice nib holder and I went hog wild.
In the back of my mind I suppose I had hoped that a pen solution might even replace drawing with a brush and ink, which is oh-so cumbersome and messy. But the fact of it is, I'm just a brush guy at heart. Despite the fact that I really liked some of the linework I was able to achieve with the nib pens, the pen drawings all looked inferior to me. So, at least for drawing, I'm sticking with what's worked for me for time in memoriam: drawing with brush and using a fine-tipped fountain pen for tiny details like hatching.
For lettering, though, I may use a Pilot Prera fountain pen that I've been really enjoying, or I may just go with the Copics; I haven't decided yet. The fountain pen ink tends not to be waterproof, which is a bit of a downside, but I like the feel of the pens, and the line they produce is very nice. The Copics, by contrast, tend to look a bit more artificial, but the mark they produce is waterproof. It's a tough call.
Brush
In any case, I really like pens; they're easy and convenient and fun to use. But nothing quite beats the look I can get with my old, trusty Series 7.