What's in Your Road Kit?

What's your "Ride-Or-Die" Travel Toolkit for when you're out of the studio?

In October 2016, I just threw a pen in my pocket and hit the road to do comedy for a couple of weeks. The ink ran out somewhere around Russellville, Indiana. (Thank God they had a Waffle House so I could steal the only pen for 20 Miles.)

For those of you interested, it was a Uniball Vision Elite. I use them a lot.

I travel a lot, which I’m lucky to do. I like getting out of the studio and spending time in places I’ve never been, drawing things I’ve never seen, and giving my back exciting new pains from heaving luggage with bad posture.

I’ve subscribed to the “Bring only what you need and nothing else” philosophy for the longest time; it’s a low-stress, minimalist approach to working on the road. But then I discovered so many shiny new tools on GouletPens, JetPens, Blick, and other drawing-addiction superhighways that now I can’t leave home without a ‘kit’.

This brings me to this week’s topic:

My Road Kit. (2024)

(Full disclosure: None of the links in this post are affiliate links. You’re already paying for this Substack. I’m also very lazy.)

This kit will inevitably change over the years as I discover new tools, but, for the most part, these are my ‘ride-or-die’ drawing utensils that I never leave home without, whether I’m taking a weekend upstate or a month-long trip to Japan. (which I’m about to do on Saturday! 🥳)

This kit contains pretty much everything I’ll ever need for drawing while I’m away from the studio. I’ll go through each of the items below, but I want to let you know that this little kit only cost me about $27 on Amazon (and it contained a bunch of mechanical pencils!) It has survived many crazy travel stories and has yet to let me down.

What’s in the Kit?

Dip pen with a Hunt #101 Imperial Nib

1. You can read all about my discovery of this nib in this post, but this is the one tool I can’t leave home without. I snipped the top end off for better balance and wrapped it in masking tape in case I’m drawing somewhere sweaty. Yes, I’ll inevitably spill ink on my only pair of pants at some point, but I don’t care. Totally worth it.

   

2. My Nibbly Dibbleys (Spare nibs)

   One thing about bringing dip pen nibs is that sometimes they break, they bind up, correct care isn’t always taken in preserving them when I’m in a hurry, so I need to switch them out. I carry this little pill box for nibs— both Hunt #101 and…
   

   

   3. Dip pen with a Hunt #102 Crowquill Nib

   This thing has gone through a lot. I remember first buying it in Melbourne in January 2020 and drawing cartoons about the bushfires. While I was scribbling away, I remember thinking, “This is definitely the worst thing that’s going to happen in 2020.”
   

   

3. My magical nipple! (No, not that one.)
   This thing sits on any flat surface and keeps nice and stable, holding a tiny inkwell that I dip the abovementioned pens into. The ink I use is Higgins non-waterproof ink, just because it pays nicer with more paper stocks than the waterproof variants (and let’s be honest, I’m going to spill it. It’s easier to clean.) This is what it looks like with the tub in it:

   

   

4. Kuretake Disposable Pocket Double-Sided Brush Pen (Fine & Medium)

   This little bugger is one of my favourite pens of all time. It has two sides: a larger brush tip on one side and a fine tip on the other, so fine it can sometimes replace the line variation of a dip pen. It’s Japanese, and I order them about a dozen at a time because they run out faster than I’d like. But I don’t care.
   

   

5. Pentel Waterbrush
   These usually come in a pack fo four, and instead of bringing actual watercolours, I put a drop of ink in each one to get a little light wash going. You have to monkey with it a little bit to get the water flow going, but this thing is one of the better waterbrushes I’ve used.
   

   

6. An eraser that looks like a small french fry
   I can’t tell you why, but this shape just works for me. Maybe I’m hungry.
   
   

   

7. Staedtler Mechanical Pencil Night Blue Series, 0.7mm (925 35-07)
   I think this one may have been a recommendation from

   Tom Richmond
   or someone, but I did the pencils for my entire book with this thing. I love the weight of it, I like that it doesn’t snap the leads, and I like that it is thin enough to still feel like a pencil without being too chunky. I actually hate using mechanical pencils (I prefer the real thing) but when you’re on the road, you have to sacrifice pencil-sharpener space and just go with one of these and some replacement leads. Speaking of which…
   

   

8. Spare leads for the Staedtler
   These are Pentel Super Hi-Polymer Leads, (0.7 mm) that I always pack and am yet to run out of. Dealers choose what kind of leads you like— but if you’re a 2H kind of person, you can sit at the other end of the bar while the adults chat.
   

   

9. BIC Xtra-Precision Mechanical Pencil, Metallic Barrel, Fine Point (0.5mm)

   Ok, this is the part where I totally should have just packed a regular pencil, but bear with me, there’s a reason I have two mechanical pencils: I get these super-cheap BIC pencils for light blue pencil lines when I can’t be bothered using the french fry eraser. (Photo blue doesn’t show up in scans, or you can block out the cyan channel if you take a photo of your drawing.) They’re light, they’re cheap, and you can get them at any CVS in the country.
   

   

10. Pilot Color Mechanical Pencil Lead Eno, 0.7mm, Soft Blue
    The leads I use in these are the little 0.7mm soft blue leads you can get at the link above. I tend to pack as many of these into the little container as possible as the soft leads run out faster than the regular ones.
    

And that’s it! That’s my travel kit.
I very deliberately didn’t go into paper or drawing pads/sketchbooks because that’s an entirely different post, and this one is already long enough. I’m very curious to know what’s in your kit— or if you just throw a pen in your pocket and walk out the door like some kind of artistic Jack Reacher.

Thanks for reading this far. I hope this helps you. Share it with someone you think might enjoy reading it. That helps me a lot.
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‘til next time,