Sharpies on your trim

[Fajita Fan]

Heresy alert: if you’re a purist and won’t tolerate shortcuts this may not be for you. I mentioned this to someone and he looked at me like I’d suggested something so deviant a Slaaneshi would blush. 
 

AT models have trim. A lot of trim. A looooooooot of trim and if your collection is like mine you have many, many miles of careful brushwork ahead of you. My hands aren’t want they used to be and I’m not even 40 yet, my left hand shakes in some positions and my right (writing) hand ain’t that much better. Whether it’s neurological or muscular doesn’t matter, a doctor won’t be able to fix it. I also have, by my own admission, a rather “large” collection that continues to rot as I start new projects whenever boredom strikes me. 
 

I’m therefore looking for shortcuts. Painting warhammer stuff with Sharpies has been occasional bandied about and I think painting armor panels with permanent markers should be a last, final resort for even the laziest of painters let alone someone with a more serious hand condition than mine. I am experimenting with .005 Micron markers for script and that’s promising but their permanence worries me and I don’t know how they’ll handle varnish. Stay tuned, that’s going to play a major theme on my white titans. Trim, however, is something worth examining. 

Sharpies come in regular permanent ink like you’ve all used but they, along with other companies,  also make oil markers. Now the Sharpie oil markers I tried are garbage, the tips literally FALL OFF letting ink flow out everywhere. There’s an off brand I’ve tried and their “ultra fine” tip seems more reliable but still can ooze so I blot the tip regularly. 
 

Recently I began 3D printing Chaos BFG ships, a fleet I primed black for Abaddon’s 40k crusade and a 30k Thousand Sons fleet I added pyramids to stand out. All of the gold trim you see on these ships is done with gold oil pen and it definitely passes the fingernail test, e.g. it doesn’t scrape off at all. 
 

 

The ridges of 3D printed parts are incredibly hard to paint and as you can see there’s some oozing going on which I later cleaned up somewhat. The potential is there, though. 
 

As an added test I printed a bunch of destroyers and then tried gold/silver/bronze metallic ink Sharpies, just like your regular black ones, and the results are really interesting. 
 

 

I was so impatient I started drawing on that before quickly dry brushing it dark gray so I will need to touch it up but that doesn’t look bad for about 5 seconds of effort. I also tested the bronze marker on a Warhound test panel, I’ll get pics up tomorrow. It was a test panel for Turbodork color shifting red->orange paint and I think this will work better on black or dark under coats. 

 

Will this replace Retributor gold or Leadbelcher? Probably not but this might help speed up painting trim if for nothing else at least basecoating. I’m going to keep playing with it and see how it goes. 

 

 

[Sherrypie]

It's definitely nice for people with less precise hand motorics, even if I wouldn't do it myself. Do tell how it works with varnishing later on or if one ought to consider something like art craft fixative instead, haven't really though about if there's something different in the chemistry involved.

[Rejects of Anvilus]

If i didn't use Sharpies on my trim i would have gone insane! I can confirm that they work well with varnish over them, and that once you add oils and stuff you wouldn't know the difference. All my titans have their trim done with them (except my Psi-Titan), and i used a standard silver metallic Sharpie. Here's an example of the finished models:

Edited July 7, 2020 by spinitron

[Sherrypie]

Damn those look nice, spinitron.

[Xenith]

Seems worth a try - I use micron pens for religious text and fine black freehand, and have a gundam weathering marker.

 

Can you tell us the brand of gold marker you use?

[Spazmolytic]

I have used them in the past & have a buddy who uses them all the time on his Gundam models to great effect, in fact he uses pastels & watercolour pencils for weathering & what not, pretty awesome! 

[Fajita Fan]

Wow, that silver trim is a real testimonial! I think this will be extra helpful on knights on the tiny panels where I keep getting splodges onto the trim using contrasts.

 

Micron pens don’t say “permanent” on the side so I’m worried that varnishing them might cause them to blur where the wet varnish hits but you can leave it unvarnished because it can wipe off with a finger. I still have a few Reaver panels to use for testing.

[Rejects of Anvilus]

I've used micron pens on the scroll work and then varnished and they came through fine.

[Fajita Fan]

I've used micron pens on the scroll work and then varnished and they came through fine.

Thats awesome news. 

 

This is the bronze sharpie on my Warhound test panel. The texture is from slapping about 5 or 6 layers of color shifting paint on black primer brushed on over silver primer so ignore that (this is my planned scheme for Audax  ) but this is really promising. That can be Aggaraxed and touched up with lighter bronze. 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Fajita Fan

[Mandragola]

This clearly seems to work. Go for it.

[Warsmith Uveron]

Iam a huge fan of sharpies.

 

Though as a longtime Chaos player my other trick with trim is to paint it with the primer and drybrush then fill in the gaps.

[Fajita Fan]

New pic soon, the silver and bronze are pretty strong but the gold is less opaque.  I feel like I’m cheating 

[Mandragola]

Iam a huge fan of sharpies.

 

Though as a longtime Chaos player my other trick with trim is to paint it with the primer and drybrush then fill in the gaps.

This is my approach. Wherever possible I spray panels gold and fill in the colours. So much easier than painting the edging, by whatever method.

[Xenith]

Wow, that silver trim is a real testimonial! I think this will be extra helpful on knights on the tiny panels where I keep getting splodges onto the trim using contrasts.

Micron pens don’t say “permanent” on the side so I’m worried that varnishing them might cause them to blur where the wet varnish hits but you can leave it unvarnished because it can wipe off with a finger. I still have a few Reaver panels to use for testing.

Micron pens will wipe off for a couple of hours after using them. I leave them overnight then 'dab' or slop varnish onto the area so it doesnt disturb the ink and it comes out ok.

The black checks on this guys banner and script on the purity seal were done with a sakura 005 pen.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Xenith

[Fajita Fan]

Nice! I intend to do the checkerboards on some guys too, varnishing looks to be required. 
 

I did a couple of super fast test panels to see how green->black color shifting paint looks with white oil marker runes for a psi-titan. The top one is gold, the bottom bronze. Also I did another Audax test panel with the silver Sharpie, I kinda like the silver. 
 

The I took a knight with contrasts over metallics and cleaned up the edges with a silver one. 
 

 

This will save me a lot of time given my imprecise brushwork. 

 

[Myrmidon]

This would prove most useful. Both time saving and helpful for terrible painters like myself. Also, it has been dificult for me to find a tone of light gold dull enough for the trim of Legio Crucius, and Sharpie gold is just exactly what I was looking for.

[Fajita Fan]

Works better over black primer for some reason in my experience.