I do not like how brittle mechanical pencils are, nor their inability to shade wider areas. I like to use this:
They are expensive. Expensive is bad. Upsides are: the thick lead is the same as a traditional pencil, so you can do shading with the broad-side or detail work with the pencil tip both. The lead rarely if ever breaks. The little metal cap on the back has no eraser inside, but the little hole in the end of it does sharpen your lead for you. I bought a pack of HB, 2H, and 4H leads for mine years ago and still have yet to get through all of them.
They are my favourite.
My other favourite is a traditional 4H pencil and an HB for darker details. 4H’s are horrible. Great if you want to do draft work that you can later draw over, because the lead is so hard it leaves only light marks. Great if you want your line weight to not vary much, again because the lead’s hardness leaves it with a very pale range to shade with. Bad if you don’t want to risk cutting thinner paper by drawing too hard. Bad because once dug-in, 4H is hard to erase.
I love 4H anyway. It does not smudge. Smudging makes me rage. Anything less than an HB gets all over my hands and my work. I am a fuss.
