Blue Lead Fade Testing

Back in early April “Jiahe” commented on my post “The Great Blue Challenge” that he had used Pilot Color Eno blue lead and that it had faded rather quickly. I was initially surprised at this, and my surprise turned to embarrassment when it was pointed out that the lead container carries a warning about fading, as shown below.Jiahe then challenged me to do some fade testing (or light fast testing) on the various blue leads that I had, and I reluctantly accepted.

So, firstly, the blue leads that I have.

In order, left to right:
Pilot Color Eno
Uni ~ish (“Mint Blue” is the colour selected for this test)
Uni Color
Staedtler Mars Micro Color
Faber-Castell TK Color
Pentel (PPB)
Pentel Ain
Maybe someday a pencil company will spell colour correctly? .i.e. my way.I scribble-coloured a rectangle of about 5cm long and 1cm wide for each lead, and then cut the paper into three long strips so that they could be stored separately but re-assembled back together. The strips were labelled “sun”, “some” and “dark”, and were exposed as below:

“Sun” = taped up in a north facing glass window (remember I’m in the southern hemisphere) to get a good dose of sunlight throughout the day. The window glass is untinted and does not have any anti-UV or other treatments, but it is autumn so some days are nice and sunny, but others overcast or rainy.

“Some” = put on the desk in my office at home. The blinds are mostly closed so there is not a lot of natural light.

“Dark” = kept in a closed cupboard, no exposure to light, but exposed to the air.

The Results (all colour photos below are clickable for high res)

Week 1
Yarrrrr???!!! Where has Pilot Color Eno gone? The “sun” exposure has completely faded and disappeared. At first I did a double take – did I forget to colour in that part? Had I aligned my three test-strips of paper incorrectly? If you look really hard you can see some remnants, but for all intents and purposes Color Eno has completely gone. The “some” exposure has had a little fading, though not much.

There is a hint of fading on “sun” for Uni ~ish, but Uni Color has definitely changed. The “sun” exposure getting lighter and greyer, and “some” getting a little lighter. All the other samples are essentially unchanged.

Week 2
Well the sun has done for Uni Color and it’s a goneburger. The “some” exposures for Pilot Color Eno and Uni Color are clearly starting to fade. Note that unlike Uni Color, Uni ~ish Mint Blue is holding up fairly well although the “sun” exposure is starting to show some fading. All the others are looking good.

Week 3
Basically more of the same. The “some” exposure for Pilot Color Eno appears to be on its last legs.

Week 4 – Final Results
Four of our blue leads showed little to no fading and have completed the lightfastness test with flying colours. Full marks to Staedtler Mars Micro Color, Faber-Castell TK Color, Pentel PPB and Pentel Ain. Fifth out of seven is Uni ~ish Mint Blue which has shown some fading for the ‘sun’ exposure, and a little fading for the ‘some’ exposure. Bringing up the rear, and a long way behind, are Uni Color and Pilot Color Eno. Pilot Color Eno 'sun' disappeared in week 1. Perhaps you artists out there can tell me of some use for special disappearing blue leads. Secret agents?

You will need to read my various blue lead postings to choose a lead for you that has the right combination of hue, lightfastness, strength, erasability, etc, but for me personally there is Pentel and then there is…nothing.

No, NO, NO! Don’t ask me to repeat all this for red, green or any other blasted colour. It ain't happen'n.

Caran d’Ache Ecridor Artiste Fixpencil

Caran d’Ache Ecridor Artiste Fixpencil

Now I like to think that I’m without pencil-prejudice or snobbery, but equally it’s true that I am partial to many a so-called luxury brand pencil. So, I was downstairs re-arranging the collection, and … Woo-hoo! The Caran d’Ache Ecridor Rhodium Chevron Fixpencil Artiste set. Now there’s a mouthful of a name if ever there was one. Actually you can find it called various related things, just mix and rearrange the words a bit. So, the nice rosewood glass-topped presentation box contains a 2mm clutch pencil - the silver-plated rhodium coated, chevron pattern Ecridor Fixpencil. You also get an eraser, a set of coloured leads and an art booklet.
The set of leads is one each of red, blue, green and yellow. Even better, they are actually aquarelles, or watercolour leads. So you use them like normal coloured leads, but also you can brush or wash them over with water to blend and create new colours. The little booklet tells you all about the various different techniques. It appears though that I have some way to go before my first exhibition.
I also bought a set of ordinary graphite leads too. The eraser is rather impressive. Far too good looking to actually use, so no idea how well it really works.

So, a great pencil. But let's just say the price is probably a bit outside the range of the average struggling young artist.

The Great Blue Challenge

I’ve recently had a bit of thing going for coloured leads, and blue leads in particular, so I thought it was time to do my bit for “art”? I have accumulated a fair few different blue leads and now its time to put them to the test, in the “Great Blue Challenge”.

The contestants are, from left to right:
Staedtler mars micro color – 0.5mm, blue
Pentel – 0.5mm blue.
Uni Color – 0.5mm blue. (Incorrectly labelled as 0.7 in the scans below)
Pilot Color Eno – 0.7mm blue.
Faber-Castell TK-Color – 0.5mm blue.

The Blues Brothers?

I feel it is my duty to uphold the Queen’s English and point out that, except for Pentel, every one of these foreigners have spelled “colour” incorrectly. Pentel have shown admirable judgement and avoided the word entirely!

So first thing I did was a bit of general scribbling and doodling with the leads. The Staedtler lead is very weak, and wore down very quickly. I had to make sure to only advance a minimum amount of lead out the tip, not press too hard and hold the pencil perpendicular or the breakages were just too many to bother with. On the plus side though, it does lay down a fairly good solid darkish blue line.

The Pentel lead is miles stronger than Staedtler and wears down much slower, but it lays down the lightest blue line of the 5 Blues Brothers.

The Uni lead is also strong and slow wearing. Its blue is a somewhat different hue to the others.

The Pilot lead is 0.7mm, quite strong as you would expect. It is also slow wearing. Seeing this is the only 0.7mm Blues Brother, I got out some Pentel and Uni –ish blue 0.7mm leads for a quick strength comparison. To my surprise, Pentel was the weakest, with Pilot and Uni being basically the same as each other.

For the Faber-Castell lead just read my comments for Staedtler again, although their blue is a fractionally lighter colour.

Next then a quick spot of erasing, using three test erasers – Staedtler Mars plastic (vinyl), Faber-Castell PVC-Free and Factis 36R (natural rubber). The results are rather similar for all three erasers, there’s no big difference to their performance, but if I had to choose a winner I’d say that the vinyl Mars plastic eraser was the best. There is though a big difference in the erasability of the different leads. The Uni is definitely the most erasable lead, erasing almost totally, similar to plain graphite lead. Next is Pentel and then the Pilot which both have good erasability but leave some residue behind. The Staedtler and Faber-Castell leads are considerably less erasable than the other leads, leaving a lot of blue behind, irrespective of which eraser used. Overall then, Staedtler and Faber-Castell are very borderline, getting close to being unusable because of breakages and fast wear, and having poor erasability. Pentel, Pilot and Uni are clearly superior leads, with acceptable strength so it’s mostly just a choice of which shade of blue suits you. But one Blues Brother must be the leader of the gang – colour, strength and erasability, for these reasons I choose Uni.

Now then, another aspect of blue leads is their use as non-reproducible leads in graphic work. I wanted to check this out, so enlisted the help of Glen who has previously contributed a guest posting on non-reproducible leads. So, I’ll now hand over to Glen…

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Hi folks, Glen here to throw in my two-cent's worth on a comparison of the non-reproduction suitability of a number of different brands of mechanical pencil leads. What, you may ask, is non-repro? Well be sure to peruse this past post post haste to get up to speed on the nitty-gritty of the illustration uses of blue leads.

Are you back yet? Good... we can begin.

I started by scanning in a sampling of different blue leads kindly supplied by our host, and added two of my own. The Pilot Color Eno Soft Blue is the same lead as the Pilot Eno Blue provided by Dave, but, as the name implies, in a different hue. Much lighter and more turquoise.
Lighter is b.... well, I'm getting ahead of myself there. More on that later.

The Prismacolor / Sanford Verithin Non-Photo Blue is actually not a mechanical pencil lead at all, but a traditional pencil, and the standard to which I wanted to compare all others. If you want Non-Photo (the older name for non-repro) blue and like pencils - use this. But if, like me, you prefer mechanical pencils (and I think I'm safe in assuming such) then what comes closest? Read on fellow travellers and you shall see..... This first image shows the varying hues and darknesses of the different blue leads scanned in full colour. In itself not important (unless you're using blue lead for colouring purposes) but as we proceed you'll notice a correlation between the hue of blue (wasn't that a late 60's Pscyhe band?) and it's suitability for non-reproduction use.
As well please note the black ink lines of varying thicknesses, strength and size. We'll use these as guides to the amount of blue remaining for each different type of lead.

Our second image was scanned in the "Grayscale" mode. Grayscale scanning gives inked images a softer feel, with not only pure black and white reproduction, but shades of gray as well. I chose a medium setting for this test, with, as you can see, a wide range of results.
The Prismacolor Non-Photo pencil has disappeared completely, as has the Pilot Color Eno Soft Blue. But all others show at least some pencil marks under their ink lines.
The Pentel didn't fare too badly with the Uni following closely behind.
Should you choose either of these leads it's probable that some adjusting of the Histogram / Levels / Brightness - Contrast controls on your scanner or in Photoshop (or whatever other program you use for image manipulation) would be able to remove most, if not all, of the remaining pencil.
I'm afraid though, that the remaining leads I'd have to deem unsuitable for non-repro use in grayscale scanning. The Pilot Eno Blue (regular) and especially the Faber-Castell and Staedtler just aren't cut out for these parameters.

We shall move on....
The third image was scanned in Bitmap or Black & White mode. This method scans the image as either a black or white pixel, with no grey in between. Bitmap scanning works well when you want a crisp black line, suitable for paint bucket filling, and allows for a nice white background. Be aware that Bitmap images require higher resolution scans to achieve smooth lines though. Low resolution will show "staircasing"
or jagged edges.

Enough from Professor Flatbed and on to the test!

As you can clearly see Bitmap scanning is more forgiving to the blue leads, with three (The Prismacolor, Pilot Soft Blue and Pilot Eno) passing with flying colours (or should that be "flying black & white"!). Even the Pentel and Uni look good with only the slightest hint of pencil. The Faber-Castell and Staedtler are once again in the rear and apparently unsuitable in our task. Some adjustment of the Threshold level on your scanner is possible to help remove the remaining pencil, but there's not much leeway.

So in conclusion I'll state my laboriously exacting findings using this highly advanced mathematical equation...

Light Blue Lead = Good, Dark Blue Lead = Bad.

Or put another way, and not taking into account pricing, softness / break-ability, erase-ability or lead size, I'd recommend the Pilot Color Eno Soft Blue, with the Pentel next and Uni third. I'm afraid the Faber-Castell and Staedtler just don't cut the mustard when it comes to Non-Repro use.

I hope this helps if you were thinking of trying, switching to or experimenting with blue pencil leads. Give it a whirl - I don't use it for every job, but it sure comes in handy when you need it.

Over and out - Glen Mullaly
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Right, it’s Dave back again. After Glen and I prepared all the above, we noted that some of it was inconsistent with Glen’s comments to his original posting, namely the scanning properties and erasability of Pentel vs Staedtler. Clearly a little more investigation was required.

It appears that heavy or light pressure when using the blue lead is an important factor. For scanning, Glen did some re-testing and is sure that when applied with light hand pressure, the scanning results are reversed to our heavy handed results above, namely with a light hand, Staedtler is better for scanning than Pentel.

We both also did some more erasing tests. Glen felt at light pencil pressure the Pilot Eno Soft Blue erased completely, the Staedtler mostly, and the Pentel poorly. At heavy pencil pressure the Pilot Soft Blue still erased well, but the Pentel and Staedtler switched places with the Pentel faring slightly better, but both the Pentel and Staedtler erased poorly, the Staedtler almost not at all. Personally I felt that at light pencil pressure the erasability of Pentel and Staedtler were similar, but markedly improved upon their heavy pressure performance. One thing I did notice though, at light hand pressure the Staedtler lead felt miles better than Pentel. Smooth soft even Staedtler line versus hard scratchy variable Pentel line. Very surprising to a Pentel fan like me.

Anyway, I guess what this all boils down to is that if you are using coloured leads you really do need to try a few out and experiment to find the best mix of paper type, hand pressure, lead brand and colour to give you the performance that you want.

(This might just be the longest posting to date!)

Follow Up Article - Lightfastness or Fade Testing of Blue Leads

Non-Reproducible Leads

Back at the beginning of the year I tried out Uni –ISH coloured leads and got rather interested in coloured leads. Far far away, Glen Mullaly, an illustrator from Canada read that posting and started thinking about mechanical pencil non-reproducible leads, and that maybe it was time to give them a go. Glen had previously submitted a guest article on his modified pencils, and I was interested in what he was doing with blue leads, so asked if he would write a guest article on the subject. He said "sure", so here we have it, Glens guest article.
Thanks Glen,
Dave

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Feeling Blue?

Non-Repro Blue (or Non Photo Blue) was once a common tool used by editors, layout editors, animators and illustrators in the print industry. It was a shade of blue that was undetectable by film cameras shooting layouts and art for print use in black & white. This was useful since in pencil form it allowed for notes to be made right on the flats without affecting the image or, in the case of it's use by illustrators (like me!), it saved having to erase the underlying rough pencil sketch from an inked, finished illustration. For an artist on a deadline this could mean big time savings and so it was widely used by many in the magazine, cartooning and comic book fields. As the scanning of art took hold and the film camera faded from use in the print industry so did the non-repro blue pencil. But in recent years there seems to have been renewed interest as more and more artists have come to take advantage of improved scanning, imaging and printing technology to once again utilize the wonders of this invisible blue friend.

Many artists use a blue pencil for all their work. My methodology is a little different as I use a combination of light-table, regular mechanical pencils, non-repro blue mechanical pencils and non-repro blue ink-jet printing depending on the job. A typical pen & ink illustration (of a manageable size) might consist of these steps...

1. Rough, small pencil sketch on paper with regular H mechanical pencil.

2. Scan in, blow up sketch to full size and print out using ink jet printer. Use print out on my light-table as underdrawing to produce finished tight pencil sketch on new sheet of paper. If my rough sketch was tight enough I might skip this step and go directly from step 1 to step 3.

3. Scan in, use Photoshop to convert image to shade of non-repro blue (about 75% Cyan) and print out on inking paper. Depending on the job and the print size of the work I may do this in sections.
4. If my initial sketch was fairly tight I may go directly to inking (going over the blue lines with black ink) or if not I'll finish the sketch using my non-repro blue mechanical pencil (you knew I had to get to this eventually!!!) and then to inks.
5. Scan in image as either a bitmapped image (preferred) or grayscale. Then in Photoshop, after converting to grayscale (if necessary), by either adjusting the levels or using the channels I remove any traces of the lines left by the blue - and then I'm good to go. Whew!
6. Colour and finish.
As I said this is just how I approach some of my jobs, every illustrator will have their own preference.

Now to the leads......

Once I decided to start using blue pencil again I searched out my local art supply stores. Non-repro pencils are harder to find these days.
Many use the Prismacolor Verithin. But since I'm a mechanical pencil guy (see my previous post on customizing MPs) I had to find blue mechanical pencil leads.
I didn't turn up much. It basically came down to the Pilot Color Eno Soft Blue 0.7 and the Pentel Blue 0.5.

So I use them both!

The Pentel is the better lead, longer lasting, harder (rarely breaks) and best of all it's 0.5, my preferred size. Unfortunately it's shade of blue is darker than the standard non-repro blue so it requires a light touch (I'm usually pretty heavy on the the old MP) and it doesn't disappear as easily in Photoshop as it should.

On the other hand - the color ENO is the perfect shade of blue, BUT....it's much softer (it easily and often breaks) and only comes in a 0.7 size. So the choice is yours - 0.7 / softer but great colour, or 0.5 / harder and a little dark.

Hope this helps. If you've found other blue mechanical pencil leads out there that you like be sure to leave a comment and let us know! Here's wishing for blue skies ahead!
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All photos and illustrations by Glen

You can see some of Glens stuff on his website and flickr.
http://www.glenmullaly.com/
http://www.glenmullaly.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenmullaly
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See also this follow-up posting "The Great Blue Challenge"

Uni “-ish” Coloured Leads Review

I thought I would start the year off with a little bit of colour, so the first review of the year is Uni ‘-ish’ Coloured Leads by Mitsubishi Pencil Company of Japan.

First up, I had better reveal the fact that I have never ever used coloured mechanical pencil leads before. So I’m a first timer and can’t compare them to anything other than ordinary graphite mechanical leads, and wooden coloured pencils. Not that I use wooden coloured pencils very often either.

The only –ish leads I have seen around in my part of the world are 0.7mm and sold as a mixed pack of 12 leads, 2 each of six different colours. I haven’t been able to find much information on the web about them, but it appears –ish leads are also available in 0.5mm, and some colours are available as packs of one colour only but aren’t branded as -ish.

The lead container is a normal size one and the clear top half-round section simply pulls off to allow access to the leads. The leads are in six little divided sections within the container. It’s a good system, except it is a little difficult to just get the one colour you want. You basically have to shake them all out a bit, choose the one you want and push the others back in.

As far as the six –ish colours go, (Mint Blue, Green, Orange, Red, Rose Pink and Violet) I am very impressed at how bright and vibrant they are. Just on the actual colours themselves, 'Orange' is the yellowest orange I have ever seen! But they are all good strong dense colours – not like some cheap coloured pencils that put a semi-transparent smear of colour on your paper. These leads write very smoothly and quietly. They are a very soft composition, I would guess something like a 3 or 4B grade equivalent in graphite leads, and this presumably accounts for their smooth and quiet nature. However being soft they certainly do wear down quickly, so you have to keep operating that lead advance system on your pencil. Much to my surprise they erase fairly well. I won’t say they erase as completely as ordinary graphite, but I tend to think of coloured pencil as not really erasing all that well so I was pleasantly surprised by –ish’s erasability. I note Mitsubishi’s claim “erasable” on the lead container, and I agree with them. Just FYI, the label on the back of the container says, “Leads made in Japan, Packaged in China.”
On the down side though, there are some issues with strength. I certainly had some breakage problems, red in particular seemed to be a bit prone to breaking. Strangely though, the break often occurred up inside the pencil, rather than snapping off down at the tip. Another problem was that the lead tended to crumble under pressure. When you press down hard, particularly as you first start writing, a few little specks crumble off and so you get the equivalent of graphite dust left floating around on your page. I found the blues to be a bit worse than the other colours for this crumbling.

Mechanical pencil coloured leads only have a small colour range compared to wooden coloured pencils so I guess they aren’t really aimed at the serious art market, but rather at those who just want a bit of colour. (Sorry, I just can’t resist the thought of teachers and their red pencils.) Uni also have a mechanical pencil model “–ish” which they appear to market as their fun vibrant “colour-shock” pencil. It comes in the same 6 colours as the leads so it’s all part of an integrated concept.

For the final verdict then, Uni –ish leads are well worth a try.

Sketch Pencils

Sketch pencil is the name often given to those mechanical pencils that use very thick leads - by that I mean leads like 3.2mm and 5.6mm. Personally I don’t normally include 2mm clutch pencils in the ‘sketch pencil’ category because they were usually used for draughting and other purposes, whereas the thicker leads are really specifically for artists to draw with. At least that’s my view of things.

Actually perhaps “leadholder” is a more appropriate term than “mechanical pencil” as most, if not all sketch pencils are clutch mechanism pencils.

I’m no artist and I don’t really have many sketch pencils, but here are a few photos of two that I do have.

The Koh-I-Noor ‘Versatil’ 5347, 5.6mm clutch pencil


You can see how thick the 5.6mm leads are, pictured here with an ordinary wooden pencil. They are huge!

Some 3.2mm Kaweco leads – graphite and coloured. There doesn’t really seem to be a lot of coloured leads available, certainly not compared to ordinary wooden coloured pencils.

5.6mm and 3.2mm pencils.

The Kaweco “Sport” bunt 3.2mm clutch pencil is short and wide, of octagonal cross-section. It is 104mm long x 13mm wide across the flats, that’s about 4 x 1/2 inches.

Now, for the artist who likes a pencil with a stratospheric price tag, there is the Montblanc Leonardo Sketch Pen (it’s a pencil), as reviewed over at Paper and Pencil.

“Ladybug” and “Butterfly” in graphite and coloured pencil, by one of my young relatives. The Leonardo is definitely beyond her price range, but if she grows up to be a famous artist…