Posca paint pens are a popularly used medium for mixed media and sketchbook usage. I recently received them in the mail and will be reviewing them from a painter’s perspective, hopefully offering some insight to if they are worth it!
My prior paint pen usage
I have only used paint pens a few times before. Personally, in the past, I have never liked them. This is because they usually take a couple of coats to give an even and thick consistency that I am looking for on my paper or canvas, so I am excited to see how these work.
I have seen these pens all over tiktok revolving through the artist community, and thought that it would be worth it to give them a try.
I have recently been using my sketchbook a fair amount more with ideas as opposed to procreate on my iPad, and figured that they could be a portable asset to my skills. I typically use watercolor or gouache in my sketchbook, and it can be quite time consuming and a long process to take my brushes and paints everywhere with me.
How do you activate them?
The paint pen is something that comes with a felt tip, and can have a water or alcohol base. The posca paint pens have a water base with acrylic paint in them.
The pens have to be shaken for a good while (as displayed on the side of the marker) and pressed down repeatedly to get the paint to the tip. The felt tip comes dried and empty.
It actually took a bit longer than I had anticipated for the paint to start coming out, so do not get frustrated if it does not release any paint right away!
Make sure that when you are using them, you are not going over an already painted area if it is not completely dry. This might be self explanatory for some, but since it is a hard felt tip, it will scratch up previous layers if they are not finished drying.
How fast do they dry?
A reason why I typically stay away from thicker consistencies in a marker or gel pens is because of how easily I smudge surfaces when working. Luckily, these paint pens dry fairly quickly, about 30 seconds on a glossed surface or canvas, and almost instantly on paper. I was actually quite pleased with how quick the drying processes were.
How do they write?
The pens are very opaque, which I quite like. The lighter the color was for me, the less opaque it was, but it is fairly easy to go back over the prior design.
When writing with them, they glide pretty smoothly. For the tip being felt, which is not my favorite because of the feeling most times and the texture on paper (just a personal preference), it was pretty buttery and simple to work with.
However, the thinner pens (being the fine point) are a little scratchy. If you are writing using the sharpest point of the tip and dragging back and forth on the paper, they will spatter a small amount of paint surrounding the area.
There are multiple sizes of the posca paint pens, the two main ones being the fine point, and the medium point. I personally thought that the fine point was a desirable thickness for using in a sketchbook, and the medium for canvas work. Both had equal consistency!
Overall rating
These pens were very easy to adapt to, especially for someone who primarily paints. I do a fair amount of sketch work on my free time, so these will be a nice adjustment to help liven up my creative process.
I think that these will be very nice for me to have when I am traveling and want to take something with some color to it to add to my sketchbook ideas. Compared to other paint markers that I have used in the past, these are very opaque and leave a nice thick consistency.
The only problematic part was when scribbling or dragging, there can be a little bit of splattering that comes off of the end of the marker, and it can end up in spots that are not desired.
I would rank them a 4.5/5.