TOMBOW MONO 100 REVIEW Greetings fellow artists and pencil lovers! Today I m reviewing the high quality, top of the line product of the Japanese company Tombow, so without further ado let s jump right in! Tombow Pencil Co. is a well known Japanese manufacturer of pen and pencils that has been founded in 1913, so they are in the business for quite a while now. The set that I have right here with me is filled with the flagship MONO 100 pencils. I ve ordered mine through amazon and they were imported from japan, however you could order them from the place like jetpens and save yourself the 3 week wait :).
If you re from Europe like me, the German Amazon also has them available locally from time to time, so be sure to check that out. Allright, let s talk about thsoe bad boys now shall we? The set that I ve got contains 12 pencils that range from 4H up to 6B. They require only a soft touch when drawing or writing, feature break-resistant high-density graphite lead, and have beautiful glossy black paint finish.
They both look and feel fantastic, you definitely have the impression of high quality product. These Tombow pencils are longer than most european brands and are a little bit thicker as well, however they fit into any sharpener I tried perfectly, so you don t have to worry about it.
One thing I want to mention right away is that japanese pencils are darker/softer than most western brands, what I mean by that is That even the 4H is perfectly usable and doesn t put a hole in your paper while writing with it. The HB feels almost like a western 2B, B like a 2/3B and so on, so that requires a little bit of getting used to when reaching for a pencil to draw with. They come unsharpened right out of the box but these do sharpen very easily, and the smell, oh that smell, you just have to feel it for yourself. These also are the only pencils that. I was able to sharoen to a riddicilously long fine point with a regular sharpener, that only proves how solid the lead is, it does not break easily. Mono 100 s do not dull out as fast as most pencils on the market. The graphite is grained extremely well and does not contain any rocky-hard elements that leve those dark marks on the paper in the it, ( unlike the cheap pencils ). Tombow did accomplish a great thing coming up with the recipe for a lead like that. I did a comparison chart of every pencil brand I have, although be aware that there are many other good brands and chocies out there, I simply can t have them all, at least for now :) The pencil I ll be comparing the MONO 100 to the most will be fantastic Faber Castell 9000 also a top of the line product from an even older German company.
The chart above contains all of the Mono 100s that come in this set along the pencils from other brands that I ve bought. The bottom chart is a smudge and eraseabilty test. As you can see all of these pencils smudge quite a bit, yet the Faber Castell 9000 does it the least and Conte the most. Both FC 9000 and Tombow Mono 100 erase very well, so as long as you won t hammer that lead into the paper you should be able to erase whatever you wish to erase without a problem. I ve spent over a week with these and have done quite a few sketches ( mostly on the cheap printer paper for now ) that you can see below. These pencils are in my honest opinion great for every kind of drawing there is, from tight precise rendering, up to loose gestural drawings and animation sketches. Conclusion The Tombow MONO 100 pencils are a wonderful piece of wood combined with an awesome led, they look and feel fantastic in your hand and could make a great gift for eitehr yourself or a person you d like to give them to, they would be very happy, for sure. So are these worth the extra $$ when it comes to buying them for any purpose I d say no, surprised? Well let me explain, these pencils are not cheap and for the set of 12 that I ve got I could have 2 equal 12 sets of Faber Castell 9000 which are fantastic pencils as well ( and will still continue to be my favourites. ). However if you can get them for a good price, or you simply want to make someone a very nice gift, the these are perfect. If you are just starting out your artistic journey however I d stick to cheaper ones for now, after all these are only pencils. They won t do any magic tricks and summon a greta drawing out of thin air for you, these are just tools, great tools, that feel premium and ac as such. My score : 9/10!