There’s something very captivating about needle tip pens.

From the first look you may notice that the Pilot G-Tec (called ‘Pilot Hi-Tec’ in some parts of the world) doesn’t look flashy. It has a fairly run-of-the-mill appearance, with a clear barrel and recycled-plastic construction, reminiscent of a typical office pen from the 90’s. Looks can be deceiving though, and that has never rung more true than here.

We first discovered the G-Tec after watching a tutorial video by renowned comic book artist, Richard Bennet, who uses them as his dedicated inking tools. Our curiosity got the better of us, and we did a bit of digging. As it turns out, the G-Tec is not only widely available, but has also amassed quite a cult following over the years. Artists and writers alike have been using them religiously for decades. We tried them, we love them, and now we stock them!

A bit about the pen itself.

Firstly, this is not an expensive pen, but don’t let that fool you. The tip is tack sharp and precise. It has a 0.4mm needle point, which creates an ultra fine 0.2mm line. This leads to it being the perfect choice for intricate ink drawings, fine writing, or technical drawing. The ink-flow is incredibly smooth due to Pilot’s signature smear-proof, bleed resistant, bio-polymer gel ink formula (sounds awesome, right?). The ink cartridge is refillable, so you only need one pen, however, you might reconsider that, as the G-Tec comes in a few different colours. We currently have them available as single pens in 9 different colours, or as a 5-pack set, which contains black, blue, red, green, and purple.

In the article images you can see a fun karate-cat inked illustration we created of which the bulk was drawn using the G-Tec pens. We also used a Copic Gasenfude brush pen for some of the fills and thicker outlines, which compliments the razor sharp G-Tec stroke purrrrfectly!

The Pilot G-Tec C4 is definitely a favourite at Artsavingsclub (and around the world), and if you haven’t had a chance to work with them yet, we definitely urge you to do just that!