Review: Staedtler Pigment Liner Sketch Set (6 Pens)

I only knew of Staedtler pigment liner after watching a Youtube video with my favourite comic artist-Christophe Blain using it. My usual brand for similar pigment liners are Artline and Pilot.

The Staedtler pens came in a set of 6 line widths.

The packaging is pretty nifty as the pens comes in a hardy little case and stands up at an angle. How cool is that!

The line widths for the Staedtler pigment liners are 0.05mm, 0.1mm, 0.2mm, 0.3mm,0.5mm and 0.8mm.

The metal tip of the quite long and this allows you to use it against ruler without smudging.

The barrel size is quite comfortable to hold and slightly thinner than the Pilot drawing pen.

The weight and feel are pretty standard across the various brands of pigment liners currently available on the market.

On the packaging, Staedtler claimed that the pigment liner pen is “airplane safe” and there is no danger of ink leakage if you are bringing the pen along on your flight. I will need to try that when I take my next holiday.

What I liked about the pens are the crisp lines they produce and more importantly, the ink are very dark when you need to darken a specific area when drawing. For the review, I have tried to use the various sizes to produce a variety of marks and ink, as well as testing how dark can the ink goes.

I also tried inking a drawing and using watercolors on it immediately to test how waterproof is the pen, as well as its drying rate.

These drawings were produced with nib sizes of 0.05mm, 0.1mm and 0.2 mm. I personally felt that 0.05mm is too thin for me but I think it works well if you like to do very detailed artwork and pointillism style. The 0.1mm and 0.2mm work well for me, and I liked the smooth ink flow as I tried to draw in a loose style as well as more controlled manner.

For the remaining 3 sizes of 0.3mm, 0.5mm and 0.8mm, I like how I can get thinner lines if I tilt the pen slightly to draw.

This was done using the 6 different nib sizes available as I want to see how well the different nibs can complement each other. More importantly, I used watercolors on it, almost immediately after I done up the line work. And the ink really dries very fast and there were no bleeding when I applied watercolors on it right away.

Overall, I am very pleased with the Staedtler pigment liners and just to note that they uses archival ink, so that’s another bonus to get this great set of pen, especially if you are using them for drawing purposes.

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Find more reviews at Dick Blick Art Materials (US) | Jackson's Art (UK)