The Best Pens for 2023: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens
My past year involved a lot of pen collecting, and these have been the biggest hits for me:<p>1. Pentel Kerry. There are slightly more convenient mechanical pencils around for writing, with an autoadvance clicker and rotation. But the Kerry has a cap that posts nicely, and is made to last forever, so now I have three in different colors. Pair with a lead of your preference(I like Nanodia 4H because the harder lead won&#x27;t smudge and erases well). I will also use regular wood pencils, because they&#x27;re lighter, but mechanical is good for getting the same line every time.<p>2. Uni-Pin brush. This is a slightly softer style of felt tip than the Tombow Fudenosuke recommended in the article(which are also good and easy to learn with). It&#x27;s excellent for learning brush techniques - more forgiving than real bristles but still springy and expressive, and it writes dry enough that most paper will withstand it. It also comes in various shades of grey&#x2F;sepia. The values on those are pretty dark so they aren&#x27;t really suitable for highlighting, but they can add some character to a brush drawing.<p>3. Tombow Mono Stick Eraser - among the plastic erasers, I looked up comparison videos and Tombow probably has the strongest formulation - it immediately grabs graphite and makes it really disappear. In some niche cases you don&#x27;t actually want that and would rather have a Pink Pearl to fade something with gradually, but the Mono is excellent at cleaning up a page without much effort - and the stick form is good for precision.<p>3. Papermate Inkjoy Quattro. This is something I picked up because it was the only kind of multipen offered in Office Depot. And it&#x27;s fine. The Inkjoy refills are decent, and when you want one pen for all your notetaking, a multi is the right thing to keep in your pocket.<p>4. Uni-ball Signo 207 Plus+. The Plus+ has a new formulation of ink that I find is one of the most consistent gel pens I have - it&#x27;s smooth enough, handles well, flow is consistent, it doesn&#x27;t get slippery.<p>5. Uni-ball One F. This is a much more scratchy and skippy pen than the 207+, but it has the benefit of being the darkest gel I have ever used, and capable of dialing in some super fine lines in the 0.38 version. That makes it a good drawing pen. The F(Feel) body is weighted at the tip which makes it a little less plasticy, but I also use the original One bodies still. All gel refills tend to flow better after having some rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer applied to their tip, so I recommend always doing that with these.<p>5. &quot;Aen Arts&quot; gel set - this is one of those whitelabel things you can find on Alibaba, but also shows up on Amazon under various seller names. For under $30 you get an array of Gelly Roll knockoffs. And they are pretty good!<p>6. Ohuhu water-based dual brush marker set. Like with the gel set, this appears to be a whitelabel of Tombow Dual Brush knockoffs. Again, cheap, pretty good for coloring and highlighting, though the tips definitely aren&#x27;t all that durable.<p>7. Pilot Kakuno. Like the Metropolitan featured in the article, it&#x27;s just a well made fountain at an intro price. The ink feed is a relatively difficult thing to QC, and Pilot is one of the best at just making it work out of the box.<p>8. Uni-ball Vision Needle. Of the different Uni rollers, this is the one I tend to pick up the most. The needle tip design gives extra visibility, and the refill is smooth enough, though if you want to try one that is buttery smooth and gushes ink, get a Schneider One Business. Also worth a mention here is the Uni-Ball Air, which makes more expressive, inky lines. The downside of going for smooth rollers is that you can lose control more easily.