Alternative to White Gel Pen

I should be starting posting projects, shouldn't I? I'm still up to my elbows in 2010 calendars, I can't see straight. In the meantime, let me talk about white inks and gel pens.

I know how most everyone in the scrapbooking and card making world loves our white gel pens. It gives an extra 'oomph' to our projects. But if you're like me and having all kinds of frustration about accessibility to it (read: I need it now! No time to order!), this is a perfect solution.

Any town with a technical school/college/university is most likely to have a school supplies store that sells technical pens and drawing ink. For me, I've always been a Rotring user so this is what I have. Other brands are also available such as Staedtler and Faber-Castell. The best part of it is, Rotring also have white drawing ink (and other colors like black, brown, yellow, blue, red) which you can buy for only Php100 and will go a long, long, long way. A few drops into the ink cartridge of the technical pen and it's good to go for awhile. Gel pens sell for about Php160 each. So, even if technical pens cost much more (about Php450 each, depending on point size), it's still cost-effective in the end because you only have to buy the ink when you're finished with a bottle. And you'll get different thicknesses if you're up to buying those college sets (includes three technical pens, ink, pencil and white rubber eraser in a set).

So, how long does a bottle of Rotring ink last? Look at it this way. A comic book's original size is 11" x 17". Now for a 22-page comic book that uses a lot of black ink, it only consumes about half a bottle of the same size.

Warning, though. Never use white ink on technical pens with sizes .10, .20 or .30. I would suggest that you start with .50 like the one I used above or thicker. White ink has the tendency to clog smaller sized pens and you'll have difficulty cleaning it. I lost a couple of .10 in my lifetime to white ink gunk.

That's my first tip in October and I hope it helps.

I really should start posting projects. All I post are tips.