Got a new Apple Pencil? Once the initial novelty wears off, you might find that it spends most of its time magnetically clipped to the side of your iPad Pro or, worse, stuck in the back of a drawer.

For the last 20 years, I’ve worked almost exclusively with digital tools for commissioned jobs. At the beginning, I would be sketching my art on paper, scanning, and then colouring with Photoshop.

As someone who's been drawing since I could hold a crayon, I've been through my fair share of graphite pencils, sketchbooks, and paint sets. I've tried dozens of different brands over the years, and ...