u/Marinaisgo

I got the Pentel 8 colors mechanical pencil that Hobonichi recently featured in one of their newsletters. Full disclosure, I did get it from Amazon so there's a chance it's bootleg. It did come in an entirely different package than I expected.

That said, I did some tests in my Hobonichi, and I drew Ilya Rozanov from Heated Rivalry. Here's my review.

From the first shading exercise I could tell that the lead is really sturdy, which is probably good for a mechanical pencil. However, because of this, it lacks depth when it comes to shading. There's not a lot of options.

The second thing I realized was that the pencil isn't buildable. When I try to layer pigment, it becomes waxy and pills on the page pretty quickly.

The color selection is good for most things. I appreciate that they have an orange, a pink, and a brown. That will approximate most people's skin color. You can see that Ilya is a little yellow here. That's partially a me thing. I tend to start with a yellow under drawing and because I was afraid to layer pigments too much, he stayed yellow when I would normally have tried to balance him out.

I found myself wanting a black at first, but when I saw how hard it was to blend or build with the pencil, I realized that this would be better as a pencil and ink situation. To it's credit, a heavy ink like the kind in Japanese brush pens lays beautifully over the pencil. But even regular fountain pen writes over it very well. It only struggles when the pencil is the most pigmented and waxy, which is understandable.

Overall, the reason I got this is convenience, and it's perfect for that. Not even having to pick up a different pencil is totally perfect for my artist's block. I'm usually a watercolorist, and having to set up even a travel pallet has been a big barrier for me lately. Whatever issues I have with the lead itself are overshadowed by being a no-nonsense tool for sketching on the go. And since I always have my pens on me, I can fill one with a permanent black ink and hit the road.

If you have the same pencil, is that your experience, or did I get scammed?

Did a test on my new Pentel 8 Colored mechanical pencil. (Verdict: the lead sucks, but the convenience is worth it as I frequently avoid making art because set up and break down seem too tedious). Paper is my 2026 Hobonichi planner tomoe river.