"Acrylic paint pens" Topic

I am thinking of using acrylic paint pens with extra fine tips for some detail work on Napoleonic 28MM minis. I want to use them for buttons, kilts, etc. ,after I have done the basic painting. Anyone use them or have suggestions? Thanks all

I am thinking of using acrylic paint pens with extra fine tips for some detail work on Napoleonic 28MM minis. I want to use them for buttons, kilts, etc. ,after I have done the basic painting. Anyone use them or have suggestions? Thanks all

They don't work as well as you might think. It's pretty difficult to control flow rate. Especially after the pen has been used a few times.

I agree with Rich Bliss, but it might be worth a try for raised sculpted items like buttons.

I have used acrylic paint pens for painting individual raised flagstones on terrain tiles; I tried the pens thinking the stiffer felt nib could help me be neater than with a brush. This worked out as I expected. Also, since the paint feeds from the pen's reservoir, there is no need to keep dipping to reload, like with a brush.

Note, I am not talking about the craft store / stationary store paint pens. I am talking about artist-grade paint pens. I already used Liquitex soft-body paints and so I selected Liquitex acrylic paint pens to have matching colors. Liquitex is a premium paint brand but I am willing to pay their prices to be sure of paint quality.

I also have experimented successfully with refilling the Liquitex pens when they run low and I've also used the fill-your-own empty paint pens (I forget the brands, but I've tried a couple). This is an example of the Liquitex product quality – I could use their media to thin their paint for use in pens and be sure there was no issue of clogging due to irregular pigment. (The paint formula I use was from a YouTube video and is 1:1 Liquitex Soft Body paint to Airbrush Media with about 5-10% Flow-Aid added.)

If you keep these pens sealed well and store them on their sides, they are less likely to dry out which is the main cause of flow problems during re-use. For the artist-grade pens, you can get replacement pen nibs, although I haven't done this yet.

Again this is always on terrain; I haven't used them on miniatures yet, although doubtless I will try it some day.

One learning issue I'll point out is the felt nib is less gentle than a brush; if you manipulate the pen wrong you can find yourself scraping with the nib and applying minimal paint flow. This can scrape off a layer of paint if it is only touch dry. (Oops!)

I've used them with a fair degree of success especially with flags. I have not, however, been able to find good metallic colors i.e. gold and silver. I will look into the reusable Liquitex pens, now that I am aware of them

Here are some links.

Liquitex makes paint pens in sizes 15mm (huge) and 2mm (what you want). Replacement nibs are available for when yours get dried out (if they haven't dried out they can be rinsed in warm water to clean them and re-use). The markers unscrew and can be refilled, but you have to source your own paint to refill them with. Liquitex Acrylic Markers: link

The color range is extensive and well documented as you would expect from Liquitex (color index, opacity, lightfastness, etc.) However, oddly, there is not exact correspondence to their Soft Body color range, which is why I pursued empty pens I could fill from my paints.

Montana makes paint markers in several sizes. I am not sure about their actual paints as I was only interested in the empty markers to fill with Liquitex paint mixtures. They also sell replacement nibs, and I highly recommend the ACRYLIC EMPTY 250ml bottles which can be used to mix and store paint mixtures, and neatly fill pens. Montana acrylic empty markers: link

Repeating from my post above: The paint mixture for pens, I learned from some YouTube videos and is 1:1 Liquitex Soft Body paint to Airbrush Media with about 5-10% Flow-Aid added. All the pens above plus the ACRYLIC EMPTY bottles have an agitator to help mix the paint by shaking.