What I Use To Draw (Erasing)

I make a lot of mistakes when I draw, my process involved a lot or stray lines, wrong approaches and overall fumbling to get a drawing into the bullseye, or as close to it as possible. But even the best cartoonists need erasers, to rid the page of structure lines and all the stray pencil marks you don't want the scanner to pick up or the eye to see.

Kneaded erasers are my favorite because they work without leaving wear and tear on the page and don't fade ink lines much. The downside is that if you're a heavy penciler, like I am, many marks won't come up easily or at all with it. Also, they can be difficult to use across a large piece because of the way the eraser grabs the surface. I currently use Faber-Castell kneaded erasers. I think the size is "large" even though they aren't all that big. But there's smaller sizes, so, there you go. I wish they made them the size of a hand.

Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser - I've been using these for so long, I guess they're a standard. I don't know. But they're always around and I've found they do the trick when you need something taken out of the picture. More often than not plastic erasers will take up ink and dull or fade ink lines you've laid down. I tend to use the block erasers more to erase all the stray pencil that exists rather than erase inked sections, for that I try to use the kneaded erasers. But these are good for hardcore erasing.

Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser (w/holder) - all sorts of names for this tool, retractable pen, refillable holder, stick, holder, etc. It's a plastic pen holder you put plastic erasers in and it's good for getting at smaller areas where you want to do some more precision erasing and leave the other parts of the drawing the heck along. For when shredding with the block will just cause a lot of line damage and you just want to go in and dig some pencil lines out more carefully.

Pentel Ain Sala Hi-Polymer Eraser - As you can plainly see, this little number is an even thinner tool to remove lines without messing with the ones you're keeping. Very handy if you're a detail goof, like me, and a bit of a fumbler, like me. I am pretty sure I started picking these up at the little stationary shop in the back of the Kinokuniya bookstore at the Mitsuwa shopping center in Edgewater, NJ. I liked looking through the shop an always wanted to buy something but this was the only item I could really use. There were lots of brushpens I would have liked to have tried but I was on a very tight budget. So every time we'd go there I'd pick up a few of these. They work really well. I haven't been to Mitsuwa in many years, now. Used to go pretty often, from the 90s on, when it was called Yaohan. A lot of fond memories.

Tombow Mono Eraser - A smaller and more precise version of the stick/holder eraser. I can't recall where I picked this up, it might have been from an old Jet Pens order. I like Tombow's pencils and pens so I might have tossed this into an order to try out. I remember it worked really, really well. I need to order refills for this thing when I gear up for an art supply order. Which I should do quickly, because the moronic tariffs are going to jack up art supply prices.

Next up: all the other stuff.