"New Sharpie Creative Water-Based Acrylic Markers?" Topic

Brush Tip, Assorted Colors, Pack of 12 Markers, $20 on Amazon. Other tip types are available, as well.

Anybody ever used these for painting mini's? They have a brush tip, as opposed to a hard tip (see above), per their description. Watching this YouTube Video (14:49 – 18:55), is impressive, especially the white and yellow applied to black plastic! This set retails for $20 USD, while the comparable AK brand costs $100 USD for a similar color package.

For $20 USD, I may have to give these a try. They appear to be an acrylic paint and brush combined into one tool, sans palette! The tip seems to be sharp enough, small enough, to possibly work with miniatures?… Inquiring minds need to find out. Cheers!

DEFINITELY interesting!

But, it's very dangerous. You go first….

And come back to report here.

TVAG

Very interesting!

I agree. You go first.
Report back on how well it does white straps on a Napoleonic or AWI infantry figure.

I don't know about those, but these work great on figures. Especially on shield rims!
link

I don't support the Evil Empire Amazon.
But they're at the Lesser Evil Empire Walmart, and I have to pick up some stuff there.
At least Walmart doesn't try to trick me into a Walmart Prime monthly subscription. And the only local store around these here parts that they drove out of business was Kmart.

TVAG: LOL!

I found others for <$10. Thinking I will visit my local Michael's Hobby Store to see what I can find. I will post if I get some. Cheers!

The acrylic pens I tried in the past were extremely transparent and only worked on white

Sounds like these are a different animal – let us know how they turn out

I don't believe that any yellow pigment will cover over black unless mixed with white to give a sandy yellow color

John

I found another review video on the AK version of these pens, a set of 34 (retailing for around $80 USD). I went on Amazon, and I discovered a variety of sellers of similar products, ranging from $3 USD for box of 12 colors, on up. I hope to visit my local Michael's Hobby Store, Saturday, to pick up a $10 USD pack to try out.

Based on the linked review of the AK pens, I hope I can find some with similarly shaped, foam tips, for <$20.

In the past, I found some acrylic paint pens with a very hard tip: I had to press the spring-loaded tip in a few millimeters to get the paint to flow. After that amount of paint had been drawn off the hard tip, I had to press it in again, to get more paint to flow. It worked, poorly, and it was challenging to control as pressing the tip in slightly would lead to a surge of paint, initially. The foam tips should allow for a more even, constant (I hope), flow of paint.

I saw on his painting of the tank model, that these pens should be very good at applying basic block painting on figures. Detail work seems more challenging. I am an army painter, pursuing simple block painting, followed by The Dip Technique, so these pens seem like they will offer a lot of what I am looking for: paint palette + brush/applicator in one; faster/easier application of block base painting. If they work as well as I hope, they could save me several minutes of brush time, per figure; painting assembly line style, this time savings will add up quickly.

I am all about speeding up my painting time to be as efficient as humanly, technologically, possible, without reducing my current quality in my end results (good enough at 3+ feet distance, on the tabletop). These could really be a boon for me…

I am working on painting up plastic Army Men figures: spray paint a base coat of dark green; paint flesh, and other bits and bobs, as needed; apply The Dip Technique; matte clear coat, and base. I want to play a large in-city battle, close-quarters, where Infantry will reign over artillery, and I need a couple of hundred Army Men painted up yet. The time savings of using such paint pens would shave ten's of minutes, if not hundreds, off of my painting time. With 54mm figures, they should be quite fast to paint. "Numbers have a quality all their own."

Time to visit Michael's -- A.S.A.P! Cheers!

The Sharpies are very nice and cover well, especially on flat surfaces like.shields. I'm hoping for some thinner tips at some point. I recommend them.

I use pens and pencils for musket barrels (still use silver paint for bayonets).
Metallic pencils for things musket details.
White for belts and black for eyeballs on 54's.

Bought a set of the Sharpie acrylic paint pens today, as Michael's did not have any less expensive acrylic paint pen sets in stock. Got the "brush tip" version.

The tips are sponge-like, but firm. The paint comes out fluid, and just heavy enough. I used the black pen on Army Men rifles: fast, effective, requiring a bit of touching up for good coverage. They are easy to paint with, and fast. I never need to shake a bottle, squirt paint onto a palette, no brushes to clean. Did I mention they're fast to paint with? LOL!

I need more time with them, but they just might be one of the best paint investments I've made in a long time.

Color selection is limited -- no brown's. That seems to be their limiting factor. Michael's had many individual pens of various colors, and brands. I will need to look for brown paint pens next time I am there. Cheers!

I wonder how well the white work for labelling foam trays. If it goes on the black well enough, that would be a super handy application too.

I've now used both the sharp tip (hard point), and the so-called, brush-tip acrylic paint markers. They are decidedly different in the nature of their tips. Each type of pen has a ball inside of it, so when you shake them up, to mix the paint (this is a must!), before usage, they will rattle, which is a good sign.

The hard tips work well for large, flat surfaces, not so well on miniature figures; the paint comes out more readily than a permanent ink marker, but it does not flow very well on curved surfaces. These tips are hard plastic, I believe. they are not flexible, nor do they conform, in any way, to the surface which you apply them to. The paint comes out more hesitantly than it does from the brush-tip pens…

The brush-tip pens have a firm, but fibrous, tip on them; it is not very flexible, but it will flex more than the hard tipped paint pens. The paint flows really nicely -- they will work on 3D miniature's surfaces well enough. I painted around 30+ Army Men figures using my black brush-tip paint pen; on top of that, I used it to edge many of my chipboard building models -- the paint flows much easier, with much better quantity, achieving much better coverage, than any permanent ink marker has ever done for me, and I began using ink marker pens to edge cardstock buildings back in 2003!

I finally emptied my brush-tip black acrylic paint marker. I will be visiting Michael's soon, to replace it with several more. The brush-tip is remarkably easier to use compared to the hard tipped paint markers. I find it much more laborious to edge the chipboard buildings using my black hard tipped paint pen, but it does work. It just takes more strokes, more effort, and more time to achieve the desired coverage.

It is difficult to explain the difference in paint flow between the pens. It is impossible to quantify, but when you experience it yourself, you will likely understand what I mean.

I look forward to using the brush-tip paint pens on some 28mm miniatures, very soon. The brush-tip is fairly small for detail work, but not very fine detail work, I am afraid.

For speed, and convenience, the brush-tip paint pens cannot be beaten. It was tremendously satisfying to use them on Army Men figures -- it was remarkably fast to apply paint with them! I am all about speed in my painting. I am planning to run a largish Army Men game, in October or November of this year, and for that, I hope to have around 300-400 painted Army Men figures ready for the tabletop. With assembly line organization, and repetitive brush strokes applied to models grouped by pose, using a brush-tipped paint pen, I hope to reduce my total paint time, per figure, to less than 10 minutes, which has been my standard, for more the past 20 years. If I save two minutes per figure, painting 400 figures, that would save me 800 minutes, or 13 hours of painting time… Cheers!

Update:

So I've used both the hard tipped acrylic paint pens, and the so-called, brush tip paint pens, on 28mm sized miniatures, along with my 54mm plastic Army Men figures…

For me, the brush tip pens are the best, hands down, no contest! They have excellent paint flow, excellent coverage (90% of the time, for me), and they are incredibly convenient to use. Some of the paint pens I bought, can be refilled, easily -- I have not refilled any, yet, but I found instructions on how to do it, and it is really quite easy and simple to do. My biggest question is how long will the brush tips last, as they are somewhat soft? I also found that one brush tip pen's tip is beginning to show signs of wear and tear, while others (not as heavily used, yet), show no signs of wear.

Can they be used on 28mm figures? Yes, they can, but you need to be mindful of the tip's size, shape, and rigidity. The hard tipped paint pen's tips may possibly rub off the primer from the figure. To avoid this, press the tip down on some scrap cardboard, to get paint to flow around the hard tip, then apply it -- being careful as you may get too much paint wicking onto the figure. The brush tip pens offer the entire, fairly sharply pointed tip for applying paint: use the pointed tip for precision application of paint, or use the wide side of the brush tip to apply paint more liberally, over a larger surface on the figure. Keep an eye on the brush tip, to make certain it is not broken, bending, etc. -- they do wear out!

Paint pens are not going to replace brushes and paint pots. They are, however, an incredibly useful painting tool to have in your kit. The refillable paint pens are the most intriguing: when emptied, you can refill them with any color you prefer, but remember to flush out the pen and its tip, to rid it of any residual paint colors, and to avoid having the previous color of paint from drying up, ruining the tip!

One thing I learned is that the hard tipped pens work really well on chipboard, or any relatively hard surface. Their tips do not work into small spaces as easily as do brush tip pens. Brush tip pens are the most versatile, and the most useful for painting miniatures, of any scale or size; their brush tips come to a fairly fine tip, which is extremely useful for edging cardboard buildings, but they are also really useful for detail painting on miniatures. As with any tool, there is a learning curve, and practice improves your results, over time.

Regarding the inexpensive paint pens, and the more expensive paint pens, I used both the inexpensive Sharpie brand (12 colors for $16 USD, or $1.33 USD per pen), as well as those selling for up to $8 USD per pen: price does not indicate a huge quality difference for using them on miniatures, and for edging cardboard buildings. Perhaps a good test sample of pens would be this set of black paint pens, from Amazon: TRANSON 8 Pack Black Brush and Fine Dual-tip Acrylic Paint Pen for DIY Glass Canvas Wood Leather Ceramic Rock Painting, for $6.99 USD ($0.87 per pen). Black is perhaps the most used color for edging, and lining. If you want to go for a larger color selection, this pen set offers 24 colors, dual tipped pens, for $24.99USD‌ (that is $1.04 USD per pen)! The price is right, and both of these pen sets offer dual tips: bullet and brush tips! This set of 24 colors, with dual tipped pens, is on my order list -- they just might replace my brush and paint bottles…

By the way, they do make white colored acrylic paint pens in these sets… Cheers!