I would definitely not recommend Copic because of their price, since their markers are REALLY expensive and their sets don't give a good color range - I would recommend Winsor and Newton or Ohuhu.
I've got about 200 identical mechanical pencils in my desk because I've been using that same type for years and it's got 0.5mm HB lead. I use mechanical pencils for basically everything except rough sketches.
i'll still use just the one mechanical pencil/hb lead for full shaded graphite illustrations but i cheat with the dark dark values and layer a black sharpie underneath a graphite coating. chev knows what that looks like
You and twilit are the only people who really post there, frax, with the exception of a rare post from like me or chevy. I realized if I posted there often it would only be K-Pop and not very many people wanna listen to that