 He does preliminary undersketches with a lead holder, because he feels regular pencils get worn down to the nub too quickly.As he explained during a sketch demonstration at a comic book convention, during this process he uses a Sanford Turquoise 4B lead, a soft lead, though when working at home in Atlanta, where the humid weather tends to dampen the paper, he sometimes uses a B lead or 2B lead, which acts like a 4B in that environment.However, his website explains that he uses 6B lead, with some variation.