Waterman, Paris has added a new, high-end style finish to their ever-popular, cigar-profiled Expert design. This new model is the Expert Precious Finish - a deeply engraved, metallic finished pen that offers a higher level of sophistication than your usual lacquer or stainless steel designs. This Expert still offers the solid proportions, weight and balance you have come to know and love of the Expert line, but with a refined look and luxurious appeal.
The deep, spiraling engraving up the barrel is etched into Nickel Palladium plating while the satin black lacquer cap is also etched with the same pattern. The clip and cap rings are made from Ruthenium for a nice silver contrast against the black cap.
The Expert Precious is going to be available in a ballpoint, rollerball and fountain pen in May 2012. The fountain pen will be fitted with a stainless steel nib in fine or medium point sizes. The twist-action ballpoint pen will use a standard Waterman ballpoint refill and the capped rollerball can use either the Waterman rollerball, fibertip or ballpoint refill interchangeably. A Waterman rollerball refill is included inside the pen initially. The fountain pen fills via Waterman ink cartridges or converter, which both are included with the purchase of the pen. MSRP for each will be $165 for the ballpoint, $180 for the rollerball and $190 for the fountain pen.
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Although these are not fountain pens, these "concept" pens are certainly interesting, if they perform as well on paper as they do..... on paper.
Color Picker Pen
Like a pen chameleon, imagine choosing any color in your environment - from the deep red of an apple to the bright yellow of a sunflower - and being able to write with that color. People who are familiar with Photoshop know that the color picker is a powerful tool in the digital realm. The ability to do the same with a pen in the real world would be something else.
The idea is that you would use an optical scanner to "pick" a color in your surrounding environment and the pen would mix and produce that color for writing / drawing use.
It is also known as the "RGB" pen, which leads me to believe that this item is still currently in the "conceptual" phase because you would not be able to create an ink using a subtractive color process. Using the CMYK color process would be a more feasible method of color combination, similar to how inkjet printers work. Click for more information on the Color Picker Pen.
Wacom Inkling
There has always been a disconnect between handmade and digital media that artists try to negotiate when it comes to creating new creative designs. Drawing, painting, crafting and illustrating in the physical world comes more natural to us human beings than trying to be creative on a computer screen. Wacom is an industry leader in producing pen & tablet interfaces that allow artists to manipulate pixels on the screen in the same fashion they would a paintbrush and some oil paint. Drawing on a tablet screen still leaves something to be desired in the tangible sense. Plus, it is harder to take with you when you want to do sketching on-location. Enter the Wacom Inkling.
Simply attach the sensor bar to the top of the page or notebook and draw with the Inkling ballpoint pen, making real marks and lines on the paper. Once you've completed the drawing, you have a hand-drawn piece an a digital file that can be transferred to a design program like Adobe Illustrator to adjust as a vector art file. That means you can tweak your drawing on the computer, taking advantage of the precise technology.
Some Inklings have been released early on in the product launch and have faced severe criticism by end-users. They are not available for sale at the moment, but if you check out the Inkling Amazon.com page that they have up showing the product (you can also opt-in to be notified when it comes back into stock), you will first notice that this product got a 2 1/2 star review. Upon closer inspection of the written reviews, you will see that there are many accuracy problems when it comes to converting the sketch into the computer, which is the whole point of the device. The Inkling has not been available since November, which one could assume the reason being that the pen design is being improved to deliver on its main feature.
On a personal note, I really do hope the Inkling is released again and I will be eagerly looking to the reviews of the next batch to see if the technical issues have been resolved. For more information (and a video) on the Wacom Inkling, check out Wacom's website for more details.
If they had a "Best Pen" award, Pelikan was petitioning for the ballot at the 17th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards held in January 2012 in Hollywood. The stars signed an impressive guest book with one of the most prestigious Pelikan Writing Instruments – the 7005 Majesty Rollerball.
As taken from Pelikan's press release, "Pelikan’s distributor Steven Roth personally handed over the 7005 Majesty Rollerball as the stars lined up." Check out a few collages of stars using the Pelikan Majesty to sign this guestbook.
