Pilot Portable Color Fountain Pen, Petit1, Red (SPN-20F-R)

I love this little pen, as an artist and a freelance specialty writer for artistic design and multiple font specialist I think this is one of my new favorites! I usually use Zebra Comic Pen Nibs for the type of work I do except of course Copper Plate and a few more demanding fonts requiring the use of certain nibs to achieve because I design with fountain pen exc. certain specialty request. I do however use fountain pens if I am rough drafting and when I am traveling and working on a design job I like using fountain pens (less mess, and less to have to worry about carrying and accidental spills in luggage 😡) it helps to get the layout and design down but I travel often all over to mine gemstone and minerals and I am gone for sometimes a week at a time or so but lately it’s been 3-4 days gone, 3-4 days home and a whole lot of traveling gives me down time to work on creating jewelry, cleaning merchandise we’ve dug up and any freelance art projects and I found this pen and it’s size perfect. I have actually been able to layout and complete jobs all with this pen. Nib is excellent and definitely compares to the zebra cartoon nibs I use to finish projects. It shocked me by the performance as these are cheap little pens (cost wise) and small enough to put in your pocket. I have $60 pens that just can’t cut what I’m needing so believe me at the suprise at how wel the ink flow is. I have bought 3 three in 2 weeks, not because they broke or anything but at this cheap price I am using them to fill multi colors and as you will have to refill the cartridge that comes in it (it’s super easy eye drop size hole) it works perfect for travel. In a review I read the ink lasts a long time but I don’t agree. It keeps an even flow, no skips no blots, it writes fine (not one if your looking to write in calligraphy without having to go back and add the effects it’s more like a very fine tip liner side of the spectrum or for cartooning (perfect cartoonist pen) But as far as the ink lasting a long time, tearI mea read it lastn it lasts as you'd expect if you're drawing or writing all the time as an artist would. I have no problem with refilling it it is definitely easier than carried around Fountain pen extra tips and a bottle of ink to tip your nib into every five or six strokes. It makes it possible to work on the go. I even take breaks when mIning and I sit in the car and work on the project with this pen. It came with a pleasurable shock that I was able to finish a project start to finish with this pad while add the go. Great little pad I suggest buying it

A lot of people point to the Pilot varsities or the Platinum Preppys as good starter fountain pens. I disagree. This is my first fountain pen, and considering price of the two other alternatives on amazon, I would say that this pen offers far greater value.This pen is short and stout, and the diameter of the grip of the pen is a little larger than most. Just something to keep in mind. The pen is also meant to be used with the cap posted on the back, which turns the mini pen into something long enough to use comfortably.This is a plastic fountain pen, which contributes to the cheap price. The nib that comes attached is a proprietary Pilot nib that only works with petits. It looks pretty simple, and comes without any ornate decorative etching. This is not a bad thing. The pen still writes smoothly, without any adjustment. Ink flow is.... Good, if you are using the default petit1 ink, but filling the cartrige with Parker's blue black (a kind of drier ink) causes some minor inkflow inconsistency.Since this is such a cheap pen, Pilot tries to nickel and dime you by using a proprietary ink cartridge. While the ink inside is rather nice, prices on amazon are way too expensive for the amount you're getting. The cartriges hold less than 1 ml of liquid total, and run out very fast. You can, however, convert the pen into an "eyedropper" by slathering the threads with silicone grease, and filling liquid ink directly into the clear cartridge chamber. This holds about 2 ml of ink, which is a much more reasonable amount of ink.Now begins my argument of why this pen is a great starter pen. Although this pen is plastic, it is not meant to be a a disposable pen, and the thick, robust plastic means that you can drop the pen from your desk and nothing will happen. Although the ink fill is small, it still offers enough ink for a newbie to get a good feel for what a fountain pen feels like. Die-hards probably won't appreciate the wick feed, but as a result the pen writes without any burps, and has a smooth, consistent ink flow (with default ink, of course). If the user then decides to go further into fountain pens, the petit they buy won't be completely useless. It can easily be converted to a larger capacity form, and is cheap enough to carry everyday, and won't make you cry if you lose it.Overall, this is an excellent pen, and a unique one, at that. The only other pen in this league is the Kaweco sport, which is nearly 10 times as expensive, and features a far less consistent nib. The kaweco sport also feels flimsier, in my opinion, and don't look as colorful as this one. I would recommend this pen to both veterans and neophytes alike.

I had another more expensive fountain pen before I bought this one and thought it would just be neat to have a cheap one I could throw around and not worry about, didn't have to be good or anything, and then ended up liking it more. It's small enough to fit perfectly in your pocket, or even the smaller one pants sometimes have on the right, if you post the cap on the back when you're writing it's no problem to hold, and the nib was great. Nothing crazy but it writes smooth, didn't write too wet, overall just great.

I was not a fountain pen person before, but I certainly am now. This baby writes on everything, no problems with smoothness of ink. I tend to like tiny pens for carrying around and this fits the bill. With the cap on the back it's comfortable and almost normal sized. It is a fat barrel, so you have to like that kind of grip. Also, the ink that comes with this will feather very badly on regular cheap notepaper (Mead). It isn't terrible on printer paper, but it's definitely not a super thin line unless you use a high end notepad like the Black and Reds. I would say that on high quality paper it is probably a .3-.4mm, on printer paper about a .7, and on notebook paper about a 1.0 with distinctive feathering on the edges. The ink does dry very quickly, though, so I have not had issues with having black hands, which I usually see even on high-end gel rollers. I haven't purchased refill ink yet, so I couldn't comment about using another ink in this. But I do like the fact that you see exactly where the ink is and how much you have (it has a clear nib). The ink review is based on the black color--I see reviews for the blue-black are slightly different.