I tend to use a 2mm fibre pen for hair/fur using a fibre pen rather than the more traditional Exacto blade or scalpel for scratching, the results seem fairly good so thought I would share how I use the pen.
All I ever use is a 2mm fibre clutch pen ..
View attachment 42943
The first thing I do is position the refill so only about a 1mm or so is exposed then hold the pen 90 at right angles to a piece of 400 grit emery cloth and sand the tip down until it is flat with the end. This gives me a nice flat end to the cluster of fibres and a sharp edge .
View attachment 42944
View attachment 42945
View attachment 42946
To get a nice fine line you don’t want the fibres spreading so I position the tip so that just 2mm or so is exposed , this means the clutch mechanism is keeping the end of the fibres close together, then I just use only the edge of the tip (hold the pen at approx. 45 degrees), so that just the sharp edge is scratching the surface.
View attachment 42947
Using gentle light sweeping movements you can get quite nice fine hairs, as the fibres wear and the edge dulls so I just turn the pen tip a little bit and use another part of the edge.
View attachment 42948
View attachment 42949
In my opinion this produces nice fine tapered hairs with a soft look rather the stark scratched line you get with the end of a scalpel blade.
By just ‘dabbing’ the surface you get very short hairs such as those around the nose of a furry animal
View attachment 42950
Bear in mind all these examples are just one layer of hair texture, you would then mist over these textures with a colour then add another layer and keep going until you get the depth you want, (I usually put down 3 layers).
If I then extend the tip and allow the fibres to spread it is then possible to produce softer wider hair textures.
View attachment 42951
View attachment 42952
These techniques with the fibre pen work as shown here on Claybord, Gesso coated MDF and synthetic paper , you just have to be a little careful with schoellershammer g4 paper otherwise you will tear the paper and a more pressure is needed.
Varying the amount of pressure you use also affects the final result, use a very , very light touch you can achieve super fine gently hairs.
Hope this helps