Hello everyone! Today I am reviewing Posca paint markers! I bought the pastel set (medium tip size) last week after seeing other people create beautiful art using these.
Apart from some cheap alternatives I bought, I don’t have much experience with these kind of pens. I decided to get the 5m tips because I planned on using these mostly for backgrounds, as opposed to smaller details.
These pens are – in my opinion – quite pricey. I paid €22 for this set of 8 markers, but on another website, they retail at €34. If you are interested in buying these, make sure to compare different retailers!
These are the eight colours that come with the pastel set. Why did I choose this one? Well, who doesn’t love pastel colours?!
In this set, you get a grey, light green, sky blue, lilac, light pink, light orange, straw yellow and beige marker.
As you can see, these pens are very opaque. They’re water-based, but you can get a very solid colour with just one layer. Because of their opacity, however, you can’t mix them. If you want a larger variety of colours, you’ll have to buy them.
The first piece I created using these pens is this drawing of Azumarill, who’s a member of my team in Pokémon Y. Though I planned on using the markers for background mostly, somehow I ended up drawing a piece with rather small details.
I quickly realised that the tips I chose were a bit too big for this kind of work. I also made a mistake by doing my line-art before applying these pens. Because they’re so opaque, I had to do the line-art all over again once I was finished. That said, I do like how this piece turned out. I only used three colours, yet I don’t think this looks flat or monotonous.
As I’ve said, I primarily plan on using the Posca pens in my mixed-media pieces. I painted Winnie the Pooh using my Sakura Koi watercolours, and the circles in the background were made with the Posca pens. I love the contrast of translucent watercolours with the opaque markers, so I’ll be doing this much more often in the future as well.
Finally I made two full pieces using only the Posca markers without leaving any of the paper white. I dislike how these turned out.
I tried different types of paper – mixed media, bristol and watercolor – yet the paint started clumping after a while?! The paper became very textured and it was hard to achieve a solid layer. You can especially see this in the Tangled illustration. I don’t know whether I’m doing something wrong, but I’m not digging this.
So what are my final thoughts? Because of the poor results in the final images, I still plan on using these markers for backgrounds mostly. Aside from the texture issue, I love the opacity and plan on buying more sizes and colours.
Thank you for reading,
slytherink 