Is that gel pen?

Indeed it is!

It looks a lot more.. uh, refined than when I use gel pen. Are these portraits big or do you just have a particularly small pen? May I ask what kind of pen it is?

Dammit, it didn't reply #

Its a Uniball Signo Broad brand/model, I bought it at Michael's. I use it primarily to put the eye shine in my colored pencil badges. And what you see is approximately the actual size, maybe a smidge bigger, these aren't very big at all.

Do you have an example of your gel pen work, maybe I can see what's going on?

Looking through my stuff, unfortunately I don't have a good example. I'm starting to think maybe I just have a low quality pen, though, so I'm going to look into the one you use!

Thanks for letting me know. I was impressed by how sharp and polished these looked while being gel pen. You also use more crosshatching than I do though, so maybe that's something I need to try.

I will say they're not very good for consistent coverage. crosshatching works because it doesn't have to look perfectly smooth and white. if you want perfectly smooth and white, i suggest using gouache and a good paint brush.

I have some white acrylic paint for that, but I honestly tend to keep forgetting I have it. I also have trouble with the brush, the paint gets .. stuck to it and I have trouble washing it off after I'm done. Should I be using a particular fiber of brush?

I would switch to gouache honestly, for your purposes. You can get a really cheap set or just a tube of it if you're just going to use white. Reeves brand is good for experimentation without the large investment (8-12 bucks for a set of them, they only come in sets and you can buy them at michaels), its what I started out with when I wasn't sure if I wanted to work with it, and I've done a lot with those tubes since.

The difference between acrylic and gouache is that acrylic, unless you use liquid acrylic, gets plasticky and clumpy and needs to be thinned out . Gouache behaves like watercolor. Add a little water and it glides on, but its opaque.

Hmmmmmm. Alrighty, I'll have to look into it. To dickblick.com! Thanks for all the advice!

You're more than welcome! I have suffered your frustrations too so, I'm happy to help you avoid it XD

Its a Uniball Signo Broad brand/model, I bought it at Michael's. I use it primarily to put the eye shine in my colored pencil badges. And what you see is approximately the actual size, maybe a smidge bigger, these aren't very big at all.

Do you have an example of your gel pen work, maybe I can see what's going on?

this came out marvelously XD
thanks a ton for the awesome pic

No problem! I emailed the large version(s) to the email you paypalled me with, did that go through?

yep XP

awesome

Nice. ;3