Letters by Lydia: LePen Flex

Welcome back to Letters by Lydia!  After last week’s introductions, we’re finally getting into our first pen review!

This week’s target: Marvy Uchida LePen Flex.

The set I have has 10 pens, each in a bright pastel shade, although you can get other sets with different colors and amounts.  These pens are great for a lot of reasons, but one thing that makes them unique is the convenient little case they come in.  If I’m packing pens in my bag, I often find myself reaching for this set because they’re great pens and they don’t take up a lot of space.

Marvy Uchida has a lot of products out there, but these have got to be my favorites from them.  You may have heard of the original series, just called LePen, which looks the same as these, except they’re fineliners instead of brush pens.

You can see the difference between the two in the photos here (LePen Flex on the left, LePen on the right), but if you need an explanation, a brush pen is exactly what it sounds like (almost).  There are a lot of different types, but the tip is usually shaped like a brush, and they can bend and move in a way that allows you to get a lot of line variation, meaning thin and thick strokes.

Size-wise, these are pretty small nibs (tips).  For my fellow pen lovers out there, I would say they’re comparable to the iconic Pentel Fude Touch.  In terms of the nib itself, I love these. They’re a great size for doing small lettering, but the pens are juicy enough that using them as markers to color in larger areas works too.  Note, though, that they can dry out a little quickly if you use them a lot, so make sure to store them horizontally. The tips are flexible, but also incredibly easy to control, which earns them major points.  As for durability, these are pretty decent.  If you aren’t using paper specifically for handlettering, the tips will fray faster, but that’s true of most pens.  As for the colors, they’re beautiful–very pigmented and rich.  They offer a wide range of colors between all the sets, which you can see even just in the ones I have; there’s the super light pastels all the way to the deep, rich hues.  That said, I wish they offered a higher quantity of different colors.  For example, they have tons of different blue/green shades, but only one red between all of the sets.  The price depends a lot on where you get them and what colors/size you choose, but a set of 6 is about $10-12 and a set of 10 is about $15-20.

I think that about sums up my thoughts on these pens, but I would be more than happy to answer any questions about these! If you’ve tried these, what are your thoughts? Also, let me know if you have any requests for pen reviews or anything else, and thanks for reading!