Supernote - EMR Pens

Hi all!

Coming in again with some Supernote thoughts. I received a lovely package from the Supernote team themselves, and it came with the new A5X2 Manta, along with their LAMY Safari Vista ceramic nib pen.

It’s been a bit of an adventure finding the time to use it on top of my intense freelance schedule and holiday balance… but I’ll hopefully have more to note about the Manta sometime. Overall, my first impressions are that… well, if you’ve been wanting an iPad 10.5 sized Supernote, then this will be for you! It isn’t really different from the Nomad except the size, which was something the Supernote team wanted to make sure was the case. From what I can gleam, they wanted to make sure it was lightweight while still being larger, since large devices tend to sacrifice weight and portability. Which they succeeded with in the Manta for sure.

BUT today I’ll chat about EMR pens.

The main EMR pens I use for my Supernote are the Staedtler Mars Lumograph Digital and Wacom One Pilot Dr. Grip Digital. These are non-affiliate links, because I don’t want to sign up for Amazon’s affiliate program.

STAEDTLER MARS LUMOGRAPH DIGITAL

How does it feel?

The body itself is made like the actual pencil, but with an EMR nib. So it feels and smells like a pencil coming out of the packaging. It comes with extra nibs too, in case your initial nib wears down.

The drawing feel is a bit interesting. It’s made of a rubber material, so upon first contact with the device it’ll have a gentle amount of latency, but the springy feeling of the rubber makes the stroke much more similar to a Tombow firm or felt pen. It’s very brush like for me, and somehow makes me more conscious about each stroke. Maybe that’s because of the tiniest latency not going to lie!

It’s my preferred pen(cil) for inking on the Supernote.

What’s the difference between the Mars Lumograph and the Noris?

Nothing, I presume. Just a different body. I used to use a Mars Lumograph for my traditional media before I had moved fully to digital, so I bought it on a whim.

WACOM ONE

How does it feel?

You basically can purchase any kind of Wacom ONE pen as long as you make sure it has EMR in it. I avoided anything that felt like a regular tablet pen, because it tricks my brain into thinking that the Supernote is traditional and to loosen up on my art.

The pens have the same pen feel, but have different housing, so buy a pen according to how you’re feeling just like the Staedtlers.

These EMR pens definitely have a sketchier feel. You’ll be familiar with the easy glide of a wacom pen on the Supernote, which surprisingly can keep up with really fast strokes. This pen is way more responsive compared to the Staedtler due to is hard plastic tip, and will feel more like an actual pencil on the Feelwrite 2 film.

I find myself loving this kind of pen for writing, sketching, and hatching. It’s my everyday pen, but doesn’t necessarily finish up any drawings I have laying around in my files.

What’s the difference between the Pilot Dr. Grip and Mitsu-bishi Hi-Uni and the regular pen?

Nothing again. Just different housing, so different grip feel.

Not to scale. The Mitsu-bishi Hi-Uni is quite smaller in size.

LAMY Safari Vista EMR pen

How does it feel?

I have been really excited to use this pen, because the body of the pen feels great and a bit heavy. It’s also incredibly beautiful because the body is clear! It requires a bit more pressure than both the Staedtler and Wacom One in order for it to register your stroke, but I find the pen to be more for writing. It’s not my favorite to use, unfortunately, for drawing because of this. With some time, you can get used to the pressure you have to add to your screen. I might be biased since my first pens were plastic and rubber, so ceramic feels a little scary for me to use.

I can’t stress enough how beautiful the pen is though. The clear body is SO GOOD, for those fans of LAMY and fountain pens.

A picture of the LAMY Safari Vista EMR Pen, pulled straight from the Supernote website.

What if I can’t afford both a Staedtler and a Wacom One?

Well, I have some good news! If you’re okay with switching out nibs, you can just purchase the nibs you want and replace them! That’s right. Just tested it, but if you have a Staedtler but want that swiftness of a Wacom ONE nib, just buy the Wacom ONE nibs and swap it out! Works entirely the same. Vice versa, if you have a Wacom ONE tablet pen, you can actually buy Staedtler rubber nibs.

So if you prefer your current pen housing but want the feel of another pen… that’s an option! YAY!


Hope this helps anyone looking at these pen options.

If you end up wanting to buy one of the SUPERNOTE related pens, you can use my affiliate link here:

https://supernote.com?sca_ref=7533201.X3B9pIdgJe


What Digital Brushes do I use?

Hello folks!

Happy November! Things have been crazy, hasn’t it? US folks, I hope you all went out and did your civic duty and voted. It’s a very important thing to do.

Without further ado, a question some folks have asked me during my Twitch streams.

What brushes do you use?

As with most digital artists, I think it’s a complicated question since we all tend to experiment and use a lot of different things we stumble upon. Luckily, the ones I’ve been using regularly have been ones that I’ve kept track of.

BIG NOTE: I have not been sponsored or anything for posting any of the products I talk about. It’s just what I use and I fell in love with as of Nov 2022.

Main Inking and Coloring Brush

The “Chan Brush”

Not a surprise, but my “Chan Brush” was created out of a little frustration. I liked using the Real G-Pen and the HIMOG Zara, but there were some issues with getting the right velocity and pressure when I needed it without switching between the two. So I opted to combine both and just call it my own.

I had a credit question, which is why it’s a little open-ended for me. Feel free to credit where you deem fit, but you don’t need to credit for commercial work or personal stuff. I don’t feel my brush makes any immense breakthroughs!

Pencils/Sketching

Frenden’s Clip Studio Brush Pack

Frenden has been an old reliable throughout the many many years. He had all his brushes separated into neat little categories for a time, all with low prices of around 5 USD. However, he’s done us the ultimate solid and combined all of them into one mega pack for 15 USD. If you’re not sure you’re interested, I will 1000% back these brushes. You’re bound to find something you like in it.

I use the 4B Real Pencil in his pack for all my sketching. My preferred pencil in real life is a 4B+ anyway, and it hits all the notes I need. It also works well for adding texture to a monochromatic layer for some texture!

Textures for Comics

Multiple amazing CSP artist assets

I use these brushes fairly frequently when making comics! These ones are just sort of my default options, but the textures are so amazing for the price! They add amazing tone without going into the half-tone territory, which is amazing! And it saves your hand trouble! EXTRA amazing!

Effect Full Set Clip Studio Assets

The Terrible Hatch Pen

Stippling Brush

True Grit Texutre Supply - Stipple Studio

This brush got some traction when I talked about it on my Twitter, which was a surprise!

I use True Grit Texture Supply’s wonderful Stipple pack! This particular one from the pack is called “Fat Tip - Medium Fill” which gives me a wonderful amount of density without losing its texture from afar.

I use it to soften SOME edges. It’s a way for me to not use blending brushes, to maintain some control over my cel-shading style.

I recommend subscribing to their newsletter to get 20% off, and then unsubscribing if you don’t care about their other products!

That’s all I have for now! These are my regular brushes, and I just make do.

I hope this is helpful and expands your mind just a little!

Where do I print books?

Hi Folks!

My book “Parts of Us” is here! I finally got the chance to take some silly photos. I used my old Nikon d90 for this, like all of merchandising photography, and did some quick gentle color balancing to fix some of the colors. But I’m stunned! The blues came out so vibrant, which I did not expect with a digital printer. Maybe technology and paper has been getting better, or maybe I never use very bright colors in my work! (The latter is very true.)

Parts of Us book sitting on a table
Interior shot of the Parts of Us book

Printing!

This is my third time printing through this company, and I’m happy with the quality again! They’re on top of things in terms of making books, and they provide a nice low quantity for independent artists.

The company is called MIXAM and they have locations in the UK and in the US from my knowledge. They have a great turn around time, and amazing paper stock options. Things to note however: I have a decent library of printing knowledge and have experience with printing books. So I typically have a good time with any printer, but I think MIXAM excels at having a print on demand calculator which includes shipping estimates. This way, people can figure out what days they have to turn in their files in order for them to get their books on time for a convention or an online store. (This is called Lead Time.)

I do use my comics template when I print through them, however I also use Photoshop for Prepress and InDesign for Page Layout.

This is the technical part of the blog: For those of you wondering, printing is the main reason why I tell folks to be cautious with my template. It is a slightly bigger size than your typical 8.5x5.5” format, which gives some wiggle room, but can lead to some extra drawing that wont show up if you don’t pay attention. I think the template has an issue with calculating gutter space.

Here’s an example of a page in InDesign.

The brownish boarder indicates the full page size, and you can see it extending slightly past the bleed on the left, but extends into the other page pretty far.

It’s because the way the inDesign document is formatted doesn’t account for gutter bleed. Which is so tricky and depends on the individual printer if they include it or not.

But I’m still in the process of tinkering with this template, and it’s all very very technical!

TLDR: Be careful toward the edges of the comic template if you ever use it! Or you might regret it!

Thanks for reading!