Okay, now based on what I heard from SilverClaw, I may get some pushback on this one.
But yesterday, at Target (pronounced "T'har-zzzhhhay") I happened to see some new Sharpie brand "liquid pencils." That's right, a pencil made o'liquid...liquid graphite! Well, I was curious enough to buy a two-pack, and so did Jenn.
She got blue and orange models, I got the manly-man black. Form factor is exactly like a retractable pen of moderate quality and thickness, and has a shirt pocket clip. Has a small matching black hard rubber eraser nub at the back, just looks like the plunger of a retractable pen.
IT
IS
AWESOME
Why, you ask? Well, first of all it writes as smooth as, once again, a moderate quality gel pen. Smoooooth. Now, when I say smooth, I mean in feeling. The solidity of the line isn't 100% even, much like with a real pencil, it does have some light spots/speckling/variations but what, are you asking for God's pencil? Yeah, I thought not.
So, it writes as easily and smoothly as a pen, has a more consistent laydown than a pencil but does speckle a fair amount like a pencil, but...here's the awesome part. It erases better than time travel or that thing from Men In Black. Seriously! I'm talking 100% erasure, nothing left but the dimple in the paper. No dirtiness around it either!
Here's where I heard otherwise from megatoes (SilverClaw)...he said he heard they erased nasty. They do, if you smear your finger across it firmly when it's still 'fresh', or may if you use a traditional pencil eraser, but using the hard rubber nub that it comes with, it's incredible. Not even many rubber bits of dirt left over, even, virtually kruft-free!
So why am I posting about this here? Well, I'm not saying every arr-teest should switch over to this stuff for preliminary work...I'd wager you can't "scribble sketch" with it like you can solid graphite...but for artists who start out drawing simple line art and just erase over bits as they go, this thing would be fucking awesome. The pencil sketch will be 90% of the final inked piece from the get-go, and with the ability to get friggin' perfect erasures*, I'm pretty sure someone out there in arr-teest land is gonna like this as much as I do so far.
Where's my check, Sharpie?
*That album they put out late last year? Mmmmmmmmeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh... Now a perfect Erasure? We'll start with "Chorus" and move on from there, kthx.