Drawing pen / pencil for panel lines?

I have a nice set of Leroy pens aka Koh-I-Noor or Rapidograph pens. These pens you fill with India ink which give you tips down to 0000 in size.

When I was a young modeler, one of the mentors was a gentleman who made models the old fashion way, from blocks of wood. All of his panel detail was applied with these pens...including the rivets! He build exclusively 1:72 and his collection was every aircraft the USAAF and USAF had ever flown. From the first Wright Flyer all the way (at the time) XB-70. He was working on such things as the C-5 and F-15, but passed away shortly after I moved away.

In the picture below you can see part of his collection on the left, my modest collection at the time was on the tables on the right. This was taken inside the main hanger at Scott AFB, cira 1974/75

The bleeding is the result of the aniline dye and solvent used in most marker pens. I haven't used the Micron brand that Hawkeye is working with, so I can't comment on that, but Sharpies and similar "office" pens are bound to bleed thru paint.

What we call India ink is a waterbased product and is available in many colors from craft and art supply stores. It is easily applied with a technical pen with an owner filled ink cartridge, or the nibs that calligraphy folks use to do fancy lettering. They work just like acrylics, but are thinner so they dry faster.

Hope this helps!

mike

I've used a fine tipped pen before as a pre shading method and as Rippel said, to my dismay, the ink eventually bleeds through. Perhaps there are better pens to use, such as what Hawkeye has shown. But one thing I can tell you for sure....don't use a Sharpie. I tried that on several models, concurrently, and bled through each one, leaving me with a models fit more for a kindergarten classroom. That experience was bad enough to steer me away from using pens and markers...permanently. Get it? Permanently.....like, permanent marker?.........I digress.

If you mean using the ink on the plastic before painting it is called pre shading and it can be done as you describe but I have found that the inks may continue to bleed through and are not able to be covered correctly by the color coats. I have no idea about doing it after you paint.

I'm working on a Hawker Hunter in NMF right now that I found using a wash unsatisfactory to highlight panel lines and inspection panels so I switched over to a marker. Not just any marker, but an Archival Pen. One used to write on photographs. This one is .02 and is black but they are available in other colors as well.

These I picked up at Hobby Lobby, but should be available in other craft stores along with the other drawing (pens & pencils) supplies.

I simply draw where I want, doing a couple of lines of inspection panels and wipe off with a water dampened paper towel. Remember to wipe in the direction of airflow or gravity. Then any streaking (weathering) will look realistic. Lower panels can be done with red to replicate hydraulic fluid seepage and leakage.