I should have tried this a long time ago...

I have discovered the joy and power of hand-inking drawings. If I would have known that I could do in about half an hour with a quill pen and a bottle of India ink what it takes me multiple hours to do on the computer, I would have done this a long time ago. There's definitely something more satisfying about doing it by hand than on computer as well. Something about moving your wrist and seeing the ink flow onto the paper over the carefully placed pencil lines, instead of trying to get the tablet to work the way you want... It just seems more graceful and personal this way. Not to say that it isn't incredibly personal when it's done by computer; if anything it's more so (see multiple-hour reference above). But that way felt more... mechanical, or something, whereas by hand feels much more interactive and expressive. Plus there's something romantic about it (as in the sense of #2 here).

I knew I wanted these calligraphy quills, but I didn't realize they would have such a wide range of application ;)

It is too early to say for sure, but I'm cautiously optimistic about the impact this will have on my comic strips as well (i.e. I might start doing them again now that it seems like they might not take up a full day to produce ^_^)