Pentel Creator Collective Featured Creator: Chris Koehler - Illustrator Pro Kits Artist

Hey it’s me!

Hey everyone! My name is Chris Koehler, I’m an illustrator, art nerd, and free-floating soup dumpling from San Francisco, now residing in sunny Sacramento.

I am also a diehard Pentel super fan, to the point where I am planning on getting a tattoo of a Color Brush! In fact, it was the Pentel Arts Color Brush that started me on my career in illustration.

Back in high school I found these magnificent brushes in a Japanese stationery store. I had drawn my whole life, but for the first time I had found a tool that acted like a direct extension of my imagination. I fell in love with ink and brush, it became my primary medium as I worked my way through art college. It didn’t hurt that my colorblindness was actually an advantage in this medium! Who needs color when you’re slinging ink?

After graduating, Pentel Color Brushes became the foundation of freelance illustrator career. Over years of practice and experimentation I developed my voice as an artist; a unique way of working allowed me to distinguish myself in a crowded field. But I was restless and continued to play with new techniques, incorporating more Pentel tools and building up a bigger arsenal. I also started incorporating digital techniques in tandem with my “inksperiments”. Over the years this has led to thousands of illustrations for clients such as New York Times, Marvel Studios, Universal Pictures, Popular Science, Google, Penguin Randomhouse, and hundreds of others. I’ve even done graphic novels!

But there was one client that stood above the rest…

Let’s rewind back to my post-college years. I am an avid sketchbook junky. I have an entire bookshelf for sketchbooks. Back then, I was working on a book called Devotion, where I really started pushing red and black ink technique. I was so blown away by what the Color Brushes could accomplish that I reached out to Pentel on Facebook to share my work.

This began a relationship that has been going strong for almost twenty years! Starting with art store demos, and moving on to packaging design, and finally to brand consulting, Pentel, namely Belinda Sumner, the founder of the Pentel Arts brand, has always supported me as an artist and creative.

The super fan at work

Right before the pandemic, I approached Belinda with an idea: what if we organized the Pentel catalog not by their form factor but by how artists actually use the tools?

As we got more inspired we put more ideas out there and this kernel of an idea solidified into a new version of Pentel Arts: Systems. We mapped out six systems: Fine Art & Illustration, Comics & Manga, Landscape & Urban Sketching, Calligraphy & Lettering, Crafts, and Digital Integration.

The artist in his native habitat. Please don’t feed.

And this brings us to the Pro Kits! Belinda and I realized that organizing products by systems was just the start. Instead of just linking the tools together with badges and store displays, what if we made kits curated for each artist archetype? And not only that, what if this kit was about more than just the products inside the box?

I remembered back to when I found these tools myself, how inspired I was by artists such as Frank Miller, Yoshitaka Amano, and Qi Baishi. How I pored over every book on technique I could find. Instead of just being a box of tools, what if we could also pack in inspiration and education? 

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the team at Pentel (thank you Jason, Jeff, Karen, Nancy, and everyone else) supported every crazy idea I brought to the table. This is how we ended up with each kit that includes a signed art print from the curator, a note to aspiring artists, written lessons in the box, and a full video tutorial series from the curator on how to use the tools.

I was also lucky enough to design the entire package, inside and out! Finally my years of laboring over die lines would be of use… After months of pushing pixels and looking over proofs with a magnifying glass (and endless revisions), we went to press. I can’t even describe how it felt to hold the kit in my hands for the first time. I’ve done a lot in my career, but this is the project I’m most proud of.

It’s ALIVE!

As exciting as it was to have a kit of my very own, I also had the unique privilege of bringing my art heroes, colleagues, and friends onto the team as curators. And curate they did! Each artist was selected from a long list of excellent candidates. They were ultimately chosen not only for their incredible usage of the medium and system they were representing, but also for their experience as educators. I could not be more honored to share this series with them and I am eagerly awaiting picking up the rest of the kits when they come out! I can’t wait for you to see them as well.

All that being said… WHAT’S IN THE BOX?! (insert Brad Pitt meme)

Curating my kit was easy, I simply opened up my tool pouch and included everything I use in my own illustration practice. This really is my desert island set of supplies. The stars of my kit are my beloved Color Brushes, presented here in red, black, and a fine tip black pigment. We also have an opaque white milky pen AND brush, which will be my holy grail tool forever. Naturally I included an Aquash brush for those beautiful ink washes and a set of Pointliners for more technical line work.

One of the really unique tools in this kit is the Stylo; it’s a fantastic pen with a nib that feels almost like a crow quill. I do most of my more expressive line work with this pen, there’s really nothing like it. And of course, no ultimate kit would be complete with a GraphGear pencil and an eraser. For my print, I used a recent gallery piece inspired by the works of David Lynch. I also recorded all my tips and tricks and threw in my inking worksheets!

So what can you make with this kit? Here are some pieces I’ve done using these exact tools:

My ultimate goal for this kit was for anyone to pick it up and be inspired, and hopefully, start young illustrators on their creative journeys the same way Pentel started me on mine.