Is that a masterpiece in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Step 1: Materials

Used Altoids tin.

Pencils.

Tape.

Paper.

I added some pennies later on...

Step 2: Sharpen Pencils.

Use my awesome lo-fi technique if you wish. Look at my instructable "Revenge of Post Office Drawings" for detailed steps.

Step 3: Cut Pencils to Length.

The inside of the tin is roughly 3/4" in height, so I'm going to trim the pencil leads to 1/2" to allow enough clearance.

I'm using some fairly specialized tools to do this: My tube-cutting jig and a jeweler's saw. Any other method will work, but I wanted a reasonable amount of consistency.

Set the back stop on the jig to 1/2", insert the pencil against the stop and engage the hold-down lever. Then cut through with the saw.

If you lose one or two, no worries, just chuck it up and resharpen.

Step 4: Assemble Stylus.

I laid out two strips of masking tape, roughly tin-sized, and attached the pencil leads to the sticky side.

After thinking on it a bit, I decided to add more tape to kinda ensconce the leads, because there was no way they would stick by themselves, and I didn't want the possibility of the paper sticking to the tape.

Step 5: Assemble Device.

Cut a piece of paper to tin-size, and place it inside. Put the stylus on top. Close tin.

Step 6: Something Not Quite Right....

There's no way that stylus is heavy enough to leave marks on the paper, so I added some pennies to the back to give it more heft. I spaced them out enough that the tape would be somewhat flexible.

Ok, now close it up and...

Step 7: Get Out There and Walk Out Some Art.

Jam it in your pocket and hit the bricks.

Step 8: Results.

Ok, so I cheated a little. After a while I noticed that the stylus was very limited in it's motion, so I removed about 1/3 of the stylus (two cents worth).

But don't tell anybody...

I had this in my front pocket at work for 8 hours after the modification.

Step 9: For My Next Trick...

I'm a little underwhelmed by the results. But hey, not every painting can be a Thomas Kinkade.

What I decided to do was make new, single, free-range styluses and set them loose in the same manner. I'll post a pic of the results soon.