Review – Flex By Filofax Pocket

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Dragon Co (Austin Smith)

This review has been a long time coming. I first picked up the Flex by FiloFax pocket book a year ago from a surplus store as they were being discontinued in America (though I can find them on Amazon again now). I’ve never really been the organizer type and I didn’t know what I would use the item for, but it was cheap, and black goes with anything so I picked it up. How could I resist another notebook?

So I have settled on a use for it, and it goes with me (almost) every day as my wallet (second wallet: my first one isn’t large enough to carry much cash and business cards as it’s attached to my phone). So this will be a review of the product as a wallet, and not the myriad of other things it could be used for.

The book comes with two notebooks that I’ll cover first. One is a small, journal-type book, and the other is a tear-able (not a pun) pad. Both are good quality paper that’s fairly smooth, and can stand up to some fountain pens even, but they’re a bit stiff. They fit snugly into the slots on the cover and never seem too intrusive or fattening. Replacement books and other styles can be bought individually, and they are still good even if not protected in the cover.

The cover has a leatherette feel to it (I don’t know the material) but it’s pretty strong and the spine is designed to be flexible so it doesn’t look bad or get destroyed by being opened and closed a lot. On the outside there’s nothing but stitching and a subdued logo, which I like. On the inside there are two panels, each has an inside-facing, and outside-facing pocket that are about business card size and can hold the notebook covers. One panel then has three card slots for business/credit cards or the pad, and the other side has only one slot for either the pad or any other item that FiloFax made to be put in there (I suppose cards would work there too, but there is only one slot). Finally, it comes with a thin piece of cardboard with a pen loop attached that can be inserted into the back pockets, allowing for one to easily take their pen with them.

I personally have: business cards, cash, a small pen (Monteverde Poquito stylus), and all of the included items stored inside. The cover has held up well, with no signs of wear yet, and while I rarely use the books because I have so many other ones (and I’m not a fan of jot-pads) they do come in handy and can take inks that many cheaper papers can’t. I’ve had no problems with the spine or the pockets, and the stitching is still all there. I wish it was a little more customizable, but I wish that about everything.

The Flex is a quality product, as a wallet, organizer, or notebook. It is very customizable and very hardy. If one’s needs change, the Flex can change with them, and it seems to be built well enough to last through those changes. I really like it, and wish it was more widely available here (it might be now: I need to check up on it). It is on the bulky side, so it’s not for the minimalist, and more customizable options would be nice. But unless I see something great I’m not on the hunt for another wallet.

Review – Fiskars Cutting Mat (12×18)

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Dragon Co (Austin Smith)

If one is cutting things for hobby purposes for much time and one doesn’t have a table which would deal well with sharp objects, a cutting mat is really a no-brainer. But how well do the more common ones really work?

Fiskars cutting mats are easy to find in many places. The particular one I use is 12×18 inches, but has a border of about a half-inch, extending the dimensions to about 13×19 but with rounded corners. Each edge is marked with a ruler that is accurate and the mat is divided into inch squares. A couple of angles are also laid out in one corner. Most of the information on the mat is printed on a sticker on one of the sides (it’s double sided).

Being made of a fairly slick plastic, the mat can clean up easily after things like paint and plaster, but it has a texture that prevents the items being cut from sliding around. The mat is self-healing, but that really only applies to small nicks, anything larger might get a bit better, but will obviously never go away. Most things of this nature don’t inhibit the use of the mat. And it can take quite some beating from blades. If one is using this for hobby projects it will easily hold up to almost anything that is thrown at it (or rather cut on it). Obviously it has an upper limit, as it was cut into shape in the first place, but for normal personal (not industrial) use, it’ll work for a long time.

It does its job, I don’t know what else to say. Placing this on top of a table before cutting something for hobby, personal, or artistic use will almost ensure the safety of the tabletop. It works, and you can buy them from Wal-Mart.

Review – Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Dragon Co (Austin Smith)

So I do a lot of non-drafting type drawing, which I will admit is most of drawing. But in that type of drawing, lines are not the same length, they waver, get thicker and thinner and such. If you need to get a similar effect, Pentel has a pen for you.

The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen is quite a nice instrument with a very uninspired name (which is good for tracking it down). The body of the pen is medium length, slick and black. At the bottom of the cap in silver is an asian character that I don’t know the origin of and the word Pentel. They are both slightly engraved and hinder nothing. They are the only adornments on the pen. There is also a clip on the pen that serves its purpose well.

The brush itself is very nice, it is easy to keep at a point and is very responsive to pressure. The pen requires no squeezing or other methods to keep ink flowing so one always gets a nice full line.

The ink itself is black but thin. It takes multiple coats to create a true black, otherwise one gets streaks, but these are only visible on close inspection and may be what you’re going for. The cartridges are also replaceable and fairly easy to find. The pen comes with two and one can buy packs of four.

In short the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen is just that, a pocket brush pen, and a very nice one at that. It does its job well and painlessly. It is one of the finer and cheaper brush pens I have encountered.

Review – Prang 8 Water Color Set

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Dragon Co (Austin Smith)

Ah, watercolor! It brings me back to the days when I sucked at art but loved it all the time. And it was so easy to get off your hands and clothes (and unfortunately the paper, too). Well it turns out that it is a legitimate art medium. But, are those fancy tubes really necessary? Can’t we just use the same old Prang tray that we used when we were kids?

Well, you can, but they’re much harder to use. For starters they are completely solid, meaning that the water necessary to use them is much greater and the colors will still appear washed out on the paper. And of course there are the standard problems with working with water color to deal with.

The colors themselves are the standard bright, crayola-type colors that every “children’s” art supply set comes in. However, with them being water based paints they are much easier to blend and tone down than many other art supplies. Realism is still hard to achieve, though. The colors also have a tendency to be sticky and/ or runny, never quite balancing.

The brushes are okay but definitely the worst part of the set, being cheap and imprecise. Better brushes or better yet foam pads are necessary.

All in all, I think getting better paints would be a necessity for any serious work as the paints are hard to work with. At the least better brushes. But they are serviceable paints and will get the job done in most cases and in the hands of an experienced painter, nearly all cases.

Review – Paper:Mate Write Bros Medium Ballpoint Pen

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Dragon Co (Austin Smith)

Pens, they’re important. Not a lot of them are very useful for the inking process, but they can be useful for simply starting an image, or many other art-things. This one is the Paper:mate Write Bros. medium ballpoint pen.

Ballpoint pens are one of the aforementioned types: not particularly useful for finished works, especially smaller ones, but good for seeing what things look like in ink, and making sketches or notes that you don’t want to be erased. A fun exercise is always to draw with a cheap pen on scratch paper, preventing erasing, forcing one to improve their ability to create an image on the first try.

Ballpoints make a fairly fine line but they have rough edges, as there is some bleeding. A medium point is good for writing and most other uses, but as mentioned before is not good at detail. The ink is good, it does bleed with water, but is fairly sturdy as far as that goes. It is a deep black that does require a little drying time, but usually no more then a couple seconds. It takes to paper well. I’ve had no problems with the amount of ink in the pen either, I believe it lasts longer then most other ballpoint pens I’ve used, but I haven’t taken detailed records either so take that with a grain of salt.

The pen itself is easy to hold, if a bit slippery and shows all the necessary info (although that does rub off after continued use). It obviously has a cap and clips to a notebook or shirt pocket, which is always handy.

Overall if you are looking for a cheap pen that can be used for a myriad of things around your workspace, this in one I would consider. However I would recommend buying a couple of packages of different types of pens to figure out which one works for you. But it is at least a nice house or office pen, which is what it was designed for.

Review – Yellow Dollar General HB No.2 Pencils

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Dragon Co (Austin Smith)

By: Austin Smith

All right, on to the art-making things. Let’s start with pencils, specifically HB or No.2 pencils. The ones I’m reviewing today are from dollar general and are 10 cents apiece. So they’re the cheap, starting pencil.

The pencils are small and light, roughly 6 and 3/4 inches to start, with about a half inch eraser. The wood is cheap, it’s splintery and rough. The paint is applied poorly, with parts flaking off and wood showing through, but it does its job and the letters are easy enough to read. The eraser is all right, it erases, but not all the way. Usable for sketches and writing. The eraser is hard and sometimes smears the graphite instead of erasing.

But that is all roughly cosmetic. One can get other erasers and the paint does its job. It’s really about the graphite. And that’s hard to screw up. HB’s are a fairly hard pencil, really medium, leaning to the soft end. They’re easy to draw with and give a large amount of control. The lead is not brittle, and stays in its wooden case. The pencil is suitable for sketches and of course writing like its main use in schools.

The wood being cheap makes it difficult to sharpen, making it lean more to one side or the other, the lead is also slightly off center. It’s cheap, but usable.

This pencil is a nice cheap way to sketch. And is useful in creating a draft for a sketch to be inked later. It being cheap it is available but it is also cheap, not the best pencil available. It does its job but it’s nothing spectacular.

Art Supply Critic

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