KHEPRI-1B
CATEGORY [ XENOBIOLOGY ]
ARTICLE ARVHIVED FROM [ MARIAH BERGGREN ]
ARTICLE NOTES:
[ The hammerhead strider is a large, terrestrial strider native to Khepri-1b. Two distinct species have been thus far identified: the common hammerhead strider and the marsh hammerhead strider. The former lives in a broad range of grasslands and shrublands, while the latter live in swamps and other vegetation-rich wetlands. They are often spotted travelling in small groups. ]
Welcome back everyone! Hopefully you all enjoyed the holiday break and are settling into the new semester smoothly 🙂
Today we’re gonna take a bit of a deep dive into brush pens. I’ve talked about them a lot before, but I’ve never fully gone into all the different types and variations, so let’s get into it!
First and foremost, there are three major materials brush pens can be made from: hair or bristles, felt, and plastic.
For beginners, felt or plastic is definitely the way to go–these are firmer, less flexible, and generally easier to work with. Personally, I prefer plastic nibs, because they don’t really fray, they last a long time, and they’re usually a bit juicier. The one I have pictured above is unusually large and clunky–usually these are small and very easy to work with. Felt tips are probably the most common, but they fray pretty quickly if you don’t use a certain kind of paper, and dry out more easily than plastic. Brush pens with bristles are the most difficult to handle, as they’re the most flexible. That said, if you’re good at it, you can get incredibly results with these.
From there, size is the other important factor to consider, and it kind of goes hand in hand with elasticity. Brush pens that are more elastic will be more flexible, which means you can get thicker strokes with them in addition to the thin strokes. Below you can see some different types of brush pens, from super small and firm–you may recognize the monami plus pen 3000 here, which I reviewed a while ago–to really big and flexible.
In terms of major categories, there’s essentially just super small pens (as in, monami plus size), medium sized (I don’t have a lot of these, but the faber-castell is probably the closest bet), and then large (ecoline, marvy uchida, tombow, and karin are all good examples of this). Hopefully you found this interesting and learned a bit about brush pens, and have a lovely first week of classes!
Hey guys,
I am currently writing this post on Christmas! There has certainly been a lot of crazy weather this week so far. I drew my mom’s dogs in costumes for the holidays. I draw all of my artwork on this blog with Procreate on the Ipad. I like filling up the canvas with different patterns or little details surrounding the subjects in made-up backgrounds. I am excited to get back to campus for the new semester!
Happy holidays everyone!
Marissa 
Hey guys!
I hope all is going well for everyone. I wanted to create a drawing this week that reflected how I feel instead of the regular cute things! It makes me so nervous when I see the “your grade has been posted.” This has been a super fun semester and I have been lucky to make a lot of friends in my classes. I am excited for next semester, I am going to be taking classes on pottery and fiber construction so I am super excited about that! My main medium for art right now actually isn’t illustration, but fiber! I like creating things out of yarn including clothing, looming, etc. Previous to my transfer to UofM I studied illustration at a different college. I submitted my artwork to a student exhibition and I’m eagerly waiting on the results!
I hope you all are having a good break!!
Marissa 
For those following along with Industrious Illustrating, posts 19 and 20 were about my process of creating a childrens’ book for ARTDES 270. Well, now I have a finished product for my efforts! I cut out several 3.5″ x 3.5″ chipboard squares, printed and cut out 7″ x 3.5″ spreads of my illustrations, and pasted it all together using rubber cement. The end result looks like this:
While I’m still not super into making physical objects such as paper cuttings or sculptures, I still enjoyed getting to see my efforts come together into a tangible object. I’d say that it’s one of the pleasures inherent to being creative and making artwork. I’ll definitely look forward to working in various ways in the future to explore and realize all kinds of different artistic visions I may nurture!
Hey guys!
As a STAMPS student, I feel really fortunate that this semester I don’t have any finals and I was able to head home a week early! I know a lot of people who are currently struggling through finals and you guys got this! This week is a little bit of a self-portrait because I am wearing my favorite Christmas sweater in this drawing. It is a Tom Nook sweater (animal crossing) that my partner got for me from Game Stop. I am really excited about my classes next semester, which will include ceramics and fabric construction. I am really looking forward to spending more time with my family over break. The program I used for this image, as well as all of my other images is Procreate.
See you next week,
Marissa
