Today I wanted to give some info on art supplies that any illustrator needs in their arsenal of drawing materials. The first thing you probably think of is pencils and a sketchbook, but I want to mention some items that you may or may not know about.

Erasers

Now something you should always have, is a good eraser because no matter what you are going to make mistakes. To make your life easier you want an eraser that will make everything just disappear. I like to use the ones that are half blue/half pink. You might also want to consider having a kneaded eraser which makes is so much better when using charcoal. The same goes for having a good pencil sharpener. You want one that won’t break your pencils all the time.

X-Acto Knife

Next you want consider having an X-acto knife and some type of paper glue. An X-acto knife is a lot more precise than scissors and you are able to control what you want to cut out on a flat surface. Also, having glue specifically made for gluing paper will dry a lot faster than liquidy bottle glue.

tracing paper

Now another great thing to have as an illustrator is a pad of tracing paper for transferring your drawings instead of having to draw them over again.

portfolio

You also want to have a portfolio to keep you work in, to protect it and to have for presenting.

speaker

One more thing I want to add is some type of speaker. If listening to music helps you focus while drawing then this would be a great thing to have! You would be able to listen without having to worry about cords getting in the way with headphones.