3.02.2010

Hobby Tip: .005 Pens

Okay, it seems like some of my hobby ideas have merit, so I'll continue to share 'em.  Keep in mind, this site is meant to be a catch-all: I've never thought I was the best painter or genius general - thus the name, Strictly Average - but I do okay on all fronts.  I don't think the average hobbyist will feel out of place by the material here.

Except maybe the pretty constant innuendo about Jawaballs.  Ain't changing that...


Okay, here's one of my tricks; I'm aware others have used this as well, as I've been told so, but I've not seen it.  I sometimes use - depending on the model - .005 pens for line work.  The first two pictures is the brand of colored pens I use, plus the model I painted up to use for this test.  I speed-painted a Nova Marine, since white and blue will show how well the technique can work.

Here's the same model after the basing.  I include it just to point out the obvious: a model looks immediately better with the base done.
  Here's the model after the pen-work.  I used brown for the white areas, blue for the blue, and black for the silver.
 
Here's the last picture, the front shot.  Note I've matte sprayed it here, so it's the final stage.  I used the red pen for the eyes and green for the piping.

And that's that.  Any thoughts?

6 comments:

AoM said...

If you've ever seen ANY of the Space Marines with eyes or purity seals that Tom Schadle has painted, you've seen other people doing this. www.minivault.com Many a demon winner has had these used on them. Got this trick from him back when he was a regular on B&C in '04, I believe.

AoM said...

looks good, though. The brown definitely works better on the white than a straight black does. I've definitely seen both side by side, and the black is just too much stark contrast.

It's good to see blog entries with stuff like this in them from time to time.

Unknown said...

Excellent! I guess 00.5 is the width or something?

Brent said...

Thanks AoM.

Yea, I've heard others use pens, but I'd only ever heard of the .005 black, which I used for a long time but got away from due to the unnaturally dark shade on some models. Now that other colors are made in a small enough pen, I kicked over the 25 bucks.

But no Golden Daemon winner am I! I'm going to look up this Tom dude though, check out his stuff.

Thanks Mercer - ya, .005 is the size of these.

The ironic thing is, this quick test-mini Nova Marine is beginning to grow on me - I'm liking him better than the new Chapter I'm working on...

Evil Homer said...

Tom Schadle rocks. Minivault. Has tons of recipes as well. He used to post as Commander Y over on Bolter and Chainsword.

Evil Homer said...

Love the Nova Marine scheme but I am a sucker for quartered marines anyway. My favorite quartered schemes are the Howling Girffons, Nova Marines, and Angels Sanguine I think.

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