Hi all 🙂

I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on a few of the new ultrafine tips for ProMakers (thank you Michelle at Letraset), and here’s my review!

They arrive in their own cap (left hand side of pic) and fit with a click lock onto the bullet tip end of the ProMarker. Within a couple of seconds I noticed the ink colour fill the ultrafine nib tip. On first use, the ink very quickly stopped flowing and even a squiggle shorter than that in the photo was too much. The nib seemed then to fill slower and even after several attempts, it still wasn’t drawing well. I then twisted the nib around on the pen and the ink flow was much better and the nib fully operational. This was similar on other pens. I suspect that if you have well worn bullet tips, the contact with the ultrafine nib may not be brilliant – something to bear in mind when purchasing.

In use, the nibs write smoothly and the ink (eventually) flows nicely. The line is very fine – top squiggle in photo, bottom squiggle is normal bullet tip. Pausing on absorbent paper allows a blot to form, suggesting excellent flow of ink. The writing angle does not seem to be restricted, with the nib working well from vertical to a comfortable writing angle. In tests, the ink petered out again after a little while, but a quick twist of the nib on the pen sorted it out.

Blending: It was queried on the Letraset blog as to whether the nib was interchangeable in use, and it is 🙂 The ink changes colour within a couple of strokes with a gentle blend between the two occurring. There does not appear to be any contamination of the pen nib (the ink is flowing away from it, so there shouldn’t be). Changing back had the same effect. I did note that with pens that had been used more, the ink flow was reduced – another point to take into consideration when choosing which pens to put them on. Switching colours using the same nib does seem to be ok from my short trial. One thing to note: the ultrafine cap and the normal ProMarker cap are not interchangeable. So if you intend to swap out your ultrafine tips, don’t throw away your pen caps.

I wanted to check if the nibs would clog with dried ink, so I left a fully inked ultrafine tip off the pen and uncapped in a warm place until there was no alcohol smell and on writing there was no ink flow. I then put it back onto a ProMarker. No problems, fast response with new ink colour. Thinking it through, I also clicked the nib onto a blender pen, and rinsed the nib through with a couple of squiggles (colour diluting as it disappeared) – this should be an excellent way of cleaning interchanging nibs between colours and uses.

As to which pens to add them to first? I’ve decided that I will definitely add to Apricot and Oatmeal as I use these for skin tones. I suspect I will also be using them on Cocoa and Sunflower or Gold for dark tones on hair – much better to pick out strands.

Overall, I’m impressed 🙂

PROS: quick ink flow, smooth to use, good angle of use
CONS: caps are not interchangeable, ink flow can stop with drier pens/worn or damaged bullet tips

UPDATE:
 Ultra-fine tips are now available from Letraset.com in packs of three. They currently also have a special offer of a free tip with each single pen order.