Zebra F402 and F301 Ballpoint Pens

Tucked away in a drawer, I found these Zebra pens and thought I would check them out in two of the journals the Ink Joys did so poorly in.

Fabriano Venezia:

I would prefer a medium point for sketching but these fine points didn't do too badly!

I find the fine points take a bit more pressure to achieve the darker marks I need but I was able to get nice light to dark values similar to those I could get with the PaperMate Stick ballpoint pen (just takes longer and more strokes due to the fine lines).

The transition or blending of light to dark appears smooth.....not choppy and inconsistent like I found with the Ink Joy pens.

There can be slight skipping but not too bad.  At this point I'm not sure if the skipping and extra pressure is to be expected all the time or if because these pens have sat for a very long time possibly contributing to that.  I honestly wouldn't know unless I bought fresh new refills.

As for blobs, they happen but occasionally wiping the points on a paper towel helps keep them at a minimum.  Plus with a finer point, the blobs are smaller.

I would definitely use these for sketching.

UPDATE: after original blog post.  Worked an acorn with the F402 (black) and it definitely compares with the PaperMate Stick pen :-D

Handbook:

I tested these pens in the Handbook before I tried in the Venezia sketchbook.

With this paper, the pens only did OK.  With the fine points and paper texture, there was a bit more skipping and several ink blobs.  However, I did NOT wipe the pen points at any time like I occasionally did when sketching the knots in the Venezia sketchbook.

Even though I had a little trouble on this paper, I can work with these pens for sketching.  However, these would not be my first choice........not in this sketchbook.