Today’s Lunch Sketch isn’t really a Lunch Sketch at all. In fact, I pretty much broke all the rules. I didn’t do it during lunch, it’s not really a “sketch,” and it took significantly longer than an hour. In fact, I started it at 7:00 p.m. yesterday and I finished at 2:30 a.m.

Having done several new hire sketches, all using dry erase markers, I decided it was time to up the ante. I very quickly discovered that for me, the main issue that I have with dry erase markers is that they only make a slightly less than one centimeter wide line. This makes filling large areas incredibly tedious, not to mention how annoying it is try to make any type of light color on top of a dark color, especially text. So I did a quick google for wider tipped dry erase markers, hoping to find something that would allow me to at least fill the board more quickly. I found something much better instead.

I stumbled upon Zig Posterman markers instead. Before I even tried them, I was pretty much in love. They’re waterproof whiteboard markers in varying tip sizes that don’t wipe away until you spray them with Windex. (or any ammonia based cleanser, really, so theoretically I suppose you could pee on it, but that’s another blog entirely…) In addition to coming in tip sizes ranging from 1mm to 50mm (including flat and chisel tip options so I can still do calligraphy), they’re also opaque so I can layer ad nauseum. Today’s Lunch Sketch was my first one using my new babies, so I wanted to really have fun and put the markers through their paces to see if I like them. (I do)

Did I need to stay up until 2:30 a.m. doing this? No, of course not. Did I enjoy it? Hell yes I did. ^_^ (and I think other people around the office did too, so I’m happy about that)

Expect more great white board art to come, just don’t expect me to spend seven and a half hours on them. 😉

Detail Shots:

Progress Shots:

p.s.
The customer service at the Zig Posterman site is undeniably the best customer service I’ve ever experienced. It’s rare to send an email asking multiple to questions and have them all answered and it’s even more rare to have them answered in clear and copious detail. And get this…one of the markers I chose at checkout was back ordered. Instead of saying “Yo, it’s back ordered, eel with it.” (like Dick Blick does) I got an email saying “Please choose another color of the same size, we’ll toss that one in for free and upgrade your shipping to accommodate for the lost day. We’ll ship the one you originally ordered to you when it comes in.” Seriously, blown away. That is so far above and beyond expectations that I start to wonder about their bottom line.