My pencil case, honestlyMy pencil case, honestly

People ask about my tools as if there’s a secret pencil. There isn’t. But there is a pencil case, it’s full, and I have opinions about almost everything in it. Here’s the honest inventory.

The case itself

The case is a canvas roll with thirty slots, bought at a market in Porto for less than a coffee. It rolls up, ties with a ribbon that has never once stayed tied, and lives in whichever bag I took out last.

I like a roll better than a box because I can see everything at once. Lay it open on the desk and the whole kit is there, in order, like a row of piano keys. The eleven sit on the left, where my hand goes first. The forty sit on the right, where they can be admired.

The eleven I use

Out of about fifty pencils, I use eleven. The rest are there for reasons I’ll come to.

1. A blue erasable pencil for roughs. Scanners and phones barely see it, so I can draw over it in graphite without rubbing anything out.

2. An HB for most lines. Boring, reliable, sharpens to a good point.

3. A 2B for anything that needs weight: shadows, the ground under a foot.

4. A 4B, used about once a week, mostly when I’m annoyed.

5. A red pencil for marking changes on printed proofs.

6. A white pencil for pulling highlights out of toned paper.

7. A 0.5mm mechanical pencil for tiny thumbnails.

8. A brush pen with a worn tip that makes a better line than a new one.

9. A fine liner for lettering.

10. A water brush, for when I’m pretending to be a painter.

11. A stub of charcoal for warming up. I never draw anything good with it, and I use it every day anyway.

The list changes less than you’d think. The HB and the blue pencil have been on it for twelve years. Everything else has been replaced at least once, usually by something that does the same job and looks slightly nicer.

The forty I keep

The other forty pencils aren’t tools. They’re a collection, and I’ve stopped pretending otherwise.

There are pencils from hotels, a pencil shaped like a fish, colouring pencils from a set I had when I was nine, and a dozen that were presents from clients after a job went well. Some are too short to hold. I don’t sharpen those. Sharpening them would mean using them up, and then they’d be gone.

the green one was my grandad’s. it doesn’t really draw any more. it comes everywhere.

The sharpener question

I sharpen with a knife. Not because it’s romantic, but because a knife lets me shape a long point with plenty of lead showing, which gives me a sharp tip and a broad side in the same pencil. A blade sharpener makes a short cone and eats the pencil faster.

It took a year to stop cutting my thumb. I recommend a cheap knife, a bin nearby and a plaster in the case.

For the mechanical pencil and the blue roughs, a small brass sharpener is fine. Brass lasts. The plastic ones go blunt and start tearing the wood.

Erasers, briefly

I use two. A plastic eraser for taking things away properly, and a kneaded one, the grey putty kind, for lifting graphite without scrubbing. The kneaded one doubles as a stress toy on calls. I won’t say which calls.

I cut the plastic one into a wedge with the same knife I sharpen with. A sharp corner rubs out a single line; a flat side clears a whole area. One eraser, two tools, no extra weight in the case.

Paper first, screen second

Most of my finished work is digital. Almost none of it starts there. On paper I can’t undo, so I commit to a line and then decide whether it was right. On a screen I undo the same stroke twenty times and end up somewhere careful and dull.

So every job starts in the case. Thumbnails, roughs and character sketches are pencil. When something is working, I photograph it and take it into the computer for colour, clean-up and motion. The pencil sets the energy. The screen keeps it tidy.

The one exception is lettering for screens, which I sometimes start digitally because the letters have to sit on a grid from the beginning. Even then, I print the first version and draw over it. Paper is where I find out what I actually think.

Eleven in use. The rest are moral support.

What I’d buy if I started again

If you’re starting out and want to buy something, buy less than you think:

1. One blue erasable pencil and one HB.

2. A cheap knife or a brass sharpener.

3. A plastic eraser and a kneaded one.

4. A sketchbook you’re not scared of. Cheap paper makes braver drawings.

That’s it. Everything else will arrive by itself over the next twelve years, mostly as presents, and you’ll keep all of it.