Illumination: Miscellaneous
You need something to mix paint in. I use a couple of small glasses that
used to contain jelly. Egg cups should work fine.
To erase pencil markings, I sometimes use a soft kneaded eraser. Even white
plastic erasers are slightly abrasive and may affect the surface of the
paint. A kneaded eraser is slightly sticky, almost like chewing gum, and
"lifts off" pencil lines very carefully.
Having a thin black line around the contours will make your picture clearer
and better defined than just paint. I use a technical drawing pen to make
edges, Faber-Castell or Rotring. This type of pen uses Indian ink which
runs through a tiny metal tube and gives an even line of a certain thickness.
Inside the tube there is a small needle which works as a valve: when you
put the pen to the paper, the needle is pushed up and the ink starts flowing.
Shaking the pen lengthwise will open and close the valve, which may help
to start the ink flow. You can get drawing pens from 0.1 mm and up - I think
0.35 or 0.5 mm is ideal. The smallest sizes can produce incredible detail,
but will clog easily.
(Watch out when you buy these pens because they come in two varieties. One
has a special tip of hard metal. This is needed when you write on drawing
film which is slightly abrasive. They cost a lot more and you don't need
that type of tip.)
A pair of compasses are needed for drawing circles (and heraldic shields).
Technical drawing pens can be mounted on a compass with a special adaptor.