Pentel Stylo Sketch Pen

Pentel Stylo Sketch Pen was another clearance finds from Target (reduced to $1.5 from 3), it's a porous point pen with and interesting pencil-like tip that's looks sharpened. The pen's body is light-weight, plain and not too scratch-prone (Hello, Sakura pigma sensei...) the clip is firm/secure and the half-cylindrical half-conical grip is pretty comfortable. In theory, the pen should be a dream sketch combination of pencil and pen but it's not quite my cup of tea.

As a pseudo-pencils, the slightly bouncy tip does offer some swift strokes (that makes you feel somewhat spontaneous) and subtle line variations. I notice that the white triangular base and the tip kind of get in the way when I want to get a finer line. First, the white part blocks my view of what's about to be drawn and unless I am very careful (drawing super slowly and maintain a near 90 degree angle), the slanted side of the black triangular tip always manages to spill ink on the paper. 

It's kind of like drawing with bouncy bristle (such as toothbrush), even though the tip is the only part that's making contact, you always get some spill from the ink droplets that get shaken off from the rest of the bristle. The droplets from this particular pen pen is small (positively smudge-like), uncontrolled and hardly artistic.

As a pen, it was fairly nice and inky (for the first few uses...now it's a bit dry) and the ink is an intense teal-black. There is only partial water-resistance so adding watercolor will mess up the whole drawing (you an add water to shade it though). I suppose there must be people who like this kind of effect but personally, if I want some mild variation (minus the spilling!) with minimal water-resistance, I will just go for fountain pen and a normal black ink.

Overall: It's a cool concept (for a gimmick) that didn't work out.