Metallic Paint 'Leafing' Pens

I was just wondering how well these things work and if it’s worth ponying up the cash for them. They sound like a nice convenient way for applying metallic accents, especially if you don’t have the steadiest hand with a paint brush. If they are worth buying, are there some that are better than others?

Calling them “leafing pens” is a bit of a stretch; they are metallic paint. These are a convenient way to apply metallic paint, though.

I use different varieties of leafing paint pens in a number of the paintings I do, I love them for big swaths of shiny things (I use smaller metallic pens for fine details sometimes too), though they definitely don’t look quite like leaf OR paint. I’m not sure how they’d do on sculpture.

The downside with the bigger pens is that fine details are difficult, usually the kinds with better quality ink are push feed style pens and I find it’s hard to get a consistent line with them. This is why I generally use them over large areas, or areas I will distinctly outline. Then again, that’s just my taste in what I make.

They don’t really scan worth a dickens (or at least show how nice they look in person) but they work to my taste, here are a couple examples of how I use them:

Personally, I and my partner love to use them, but we’re both kind of specific about how we use them. I do sometimes use just gold paint for things as well, and while I haven’t ponied up for gold leaf, I can see where I’d like to use it, but if you want more gold-like effects and options (or copper or silver) they’re great. They also seem to last pretty well too, not endless by any means, but I’m only on my second gold pen after several paintings and drawings with large filled gold areas.

Yeah, I would be inclined to stick with paint on sculptures as well, as the paints don’t have brush tips, and getting into fine cracks and crevasses just doesn’t seem like it would go well. They might work for dry brush kinds of work, but how they’d hold up in the long run I’m not sure.