Sharpie Metallic Permanent Markers Review

I recently bought some Sharpie Metallic permanent markers in the hopes of using them at some point. Of course you can use them on white paper or usually any other surface type except porous surfaces such as concrete etc. So in this review I've decided to draw on black card and this black card has a similar texture to white cartridge paper meaning it has some tooth to draw on.

First of all if you are familiar with using Sharpie markers they are often permanent markers which are resistant to water and also fade resistant and quick drying.

Here is the 3 pack I bought for £1.99. The pack includes a Gold, A Silver and a Bronze marker and these are the three main metallic colours you can obtain.

The unopened pack of Sharpie metallic art markers

The 3 metallic sharpie art markers ready for drawing with

I like the use of these art pens, although the uses could be limited in some respects as it's not often you might need these three colour combinations, but still there will be some uses for these pens in card making and other crafts. Here though I've thought about drawing something that would have some sort of mechanical metallic sheen to contrast against the black paper.

At first I was going to use a white pencil to sketch something in, but I decided to just throw myself into it and use these markers boldly with confidence. On first use of the markers I quickly realized that the markers are not great at layering colours over each other the Silver showed through the Bronze on the Helmet illustration, the Gold however seems to cover the Silver, so some trial and error is advised in using these pens in conjunction with each other.

It is possible to create a total covering of each colour but sometimes that might mean going over the same areas twice with each pen. Again some more experimentation could be used to try and let some of the black show through from the paper. Like most permanent markers these pens stink and it is best to use these in a well ventilated room or else you may feel light headed like I am now lol!

The Silver in the final drawing left some streaks, but again if you want total coverage you will have to cover it a couple of times once the under layer has dried. Now I am wondering if you can add other inks over the top. Well you can but the ink doesn't glide very well over the surface and in some cases with the Uni-pin and the Pigma micron pens I used the ink starts to disappear slightly with a 50% reduction.

As a small test I thought about comparing the pens against using them on white paper and the results are not as effective I think, however the bronze colour shows up well, the silver is dwarfed by the white of the paper and also the Gold doesn't have the same mid tone brightness as it does on black paper. Mixed results Black paper is best.

The best thing about these art markers is that on black paper if you use the bronze as the darkest colour, then the Gold as a mid tone and finally the Silver as a highlight, then it creates a nice effect which is perfect for drawing tribal designs of any sort or highly detailed armour and weaponry and this is something to do more of in the future on this blog.

What do you think of these art markers? Let us know in the comments!