My Personal List of Best Mechanical Pencils for Sketching and Writing

My recent post talked about my top favorite Chinese brand fountain pens that are affordable. Today I’m going to talk about the pen that I use as often which are mechanical pencils. I use mechanical pencils for sketching on my field notebook (2nd photo below), when jotting down data while analyzing rocks under a microscope, and when I’m on a fieldwork. I also use it to annotate the scientific journals I have been reading a lot these days for my thesis (photo below).

Since mechanical pencils have been part of my life for years, I thought of writing a review of the pens I currently have in my stash.

Tombow MONO Graph

This is the most fun mechanical pencil I’ve ever used because one only has to shake it to extend the lead outward. In my previous company, we were supplied with mechanical pencils of a known brand because as I said, we use to write with it often during analysis. As part of our ISO certification procedure during analysis, all data should be written manually on log books before encoding on the computer as part of back-up in case of brownouts or when we lose our computer. Data is king in my line of profession. However, the pencils I had gotten weren’t comfortable in my hand.

The best features of Tombow Mono Graph is the comfortable grip and the shake-and-extend mechanism as mentioned. I’ve had colleagues in our institute borrow it sometimes and they commented the same thing about the grip and the nifty shake-and-extend feature. I also like that the lead can be locked and extended using its clip. Japan has really done a great job with this pencil. I got this pencil secondhand when one of the fellow watercolorists in my group de-stashed her art materials. The pencil came with Tombow MONO Zero erasers which I will talk about next. I also like the weight of this pen in my hand. It comes in variety of colors but I’m glad I got it in gold color, it looks elegant!

Tombow MONO Zero Erasers

I typically use kneadable erasers when correcting or adding highlights in my sketches but when I’m on the field, I like using the Mono Zero because they’re pocket-sized and since they’re like pens, I don’t easily lose them (I tend to be overprotective of my pens). I have lost a few kneadable erasers because after multiple uses, they resemble the color of rocks. I left some on rock outcrops! Hahahahah! So yeah, the kneadable ones are best left at home amongst my art materials, they’re safer there. I have the MONO Zero erasers in different sizes but I use the pink stubby one the most often in large sketches, and the rectangular and fine ones for precise erasure of notes and details in my drawings.

Uni Kuru Toga Mechanical Pencils

I admit, I only got these pencils early this year because I saw a few artists on Instagram recommend them. I got them in Advance, size 0.3 mm, for miniature sketches; and Pipe Slide in 0.5 mm, for notes. I bought them because I wanted to test out the self-sharpening feature that the brand boasts of and yes, it does work, amazingly well. What the mechanism in the pen does is rotate the lead as you write so it allows you to draw precise line as the lead is kept sharp. Nifty, isn’t it? Both Pipe Slide and Advance also have sliding sleeve that can be pushed into the nose cone to protect it from getting bent when stored.

The grip for both models is also comfortable but compared to the MONO Graph, Uni Kuru Toga pens are lighter. The Uni Kuru Toga Advance’s cone, clip, and eraser caps are metal while in Pipe Slide, all parts are in plastic hence, Advance is slightly heavier than Pipe Slide (phot below). If you prefer your pencils light, go for Uni Kuru Toga but if you prefer it to have a bit of weight, like I do, go for Tombow MONO Graph.

Uni Kuru Toga mechanical pencils — The pink pen is the Pipe Slide while the blue one is the Advance versions of Uni Kuru Toga.

Zebra Techo TS-3

The Zebra Techno TS-3 (size 0.5 mm) is possibly the smallest mechanical pencil available in the market today (please correct me if I’m wrong). I admit, I bought this pen on a whim because I already own a Pilot Birdie mini ballpoint pen, so why not pair it with a mini mechanical pencil? It turns out, I enjoy bringing mini pens with me as part of my everyday-carry. I’ve had people look at me while I use this tiny pen and comment how cute it is. And for that alone, I’d say this mini mechanical pen is worth every penny. What pen addict wouldn’t like a fully functional mechanical pencil that fits the smallest of pockets and housed in an elegant steel body too? I had qualms about using it at first because of the slim body but to be honest, with my small hands, it wasn’t an issue. I bring it with me everywhere I go along with a few fountain pens. It is most especially useful when I need to be on queue and I would sometimes doodle on my small notebook to pass the time. This pencil is just perfect for moments like that. Since it’s new I haven’t brought it out on fieldworks but I do plan to do so on my next fieldwork. My only worry is that it might slip out of my pocket unnoticed. Good thing the body is steel so I hope it won’t be hard to find when I do drop it by accident.

Finally, for leads, I like the colored ones by Uni and in soft lead, 2B, by Faber-Castell. 2B is my go-to lead because they’re soft enough for sketching and writing and quite easy to erase. HB and H leads tend to leave a dent on my paper which is not a good thing when you want to paint your sketch over with a transparent medium like watercolors.