For Brenno, a pair of posts on materials and technique.

The pen I use 90% of the time is from a Japanese company called Muji. I found the pens in France, and now I order them through the mail from England because I can't read their French website. Here's the Muji site. Their wonderful brush pens are HERE. Just £ 2.50 per pen from the U.K. But made in Japan.

Here's the pen (on the bottom) compared to a typical felt-tip brush pen, in this case, the Faber-Castell PITT.

(I've wrote "5/08" on my Muji to know when I bought it. It helps me keep track not only of age, but use--the date gets worn off with use, so you can tell this one is almost virginal.)

Here's a tip comparison. You'll see right away why the Muji allows such thin lines.

You can see how thin the Muji tip is. I've made some (shaky) lines to show range. The PITT is much closer to a regular felt-tip pen. The Muji is a true brush pen. There are some excellent brush pens available here in the U.S.of A., usually reusable (which is nice!), but they have two drawbacks: they're pricey [$18 or so for the Pentel (not reusable? I forget) to the Kaimei ($80 or so)], and once their tip goes, they are (pretty much) useless.

The Muji is cheap (about $4.00 U.S., plus shipping from the U.K.), and even when the tip goes, you can use those brushes for dry-brush and halftone work. And although they are not reusable (no refillable/replaceable ink cartridge), the ink lasts a while--much longer than the tip!

Here's that new Muji compared to one whose tip has been frizzed by inexpert use (read--me drawing with it):

Here's the new brush showing us the lifestyle choices that will lead to it losing its tip--a.k.a., getting "frizzed." Pressure on the pen results in the bristles "splitting," yielding an interesting (if unpredictable) mark:

You can see even tho' the frizzed pen can no longer make a fine line, it does still have plenty of ink, and can still lay down a nice block of tone.

Brenno wanted to know about specific marks I'd made in the past. I'm so flattered I will make one more post to address this question--specifically.