If you’ve been getting into using pens in your art and coloring projects, you may have discovered that there are way more types of pens out there than most people realize. You’ve most likely tried your hand at gel pens by this point, but have you heard of dyeware gel pens?
Dyewear gel pens are rollerball pens with a water-based gel ink solution that gets its color from the dye. This is opposed to regular gel pen ink, which is colored using pigment suspended in the gel.
You might be wondering at this point how much difference it makes whether ink is made using pigment or dyes, and if so, you’re not alone. Even colorists who use pens regularly don’t often know the details about the types of inks they’re using. Well, let’s take a quick look at the types of pen ink out there, and which types are best for what.
Types of Pen Inks
We’ll get into the mechanics of different types of pens a little later, but for now, let’s start with the inks themselves. We’ll start with gel ink, since it is the star of this article, after all.
Gel Ink
Gel ink is a relative newcomer in the world of pen inks, hitting the market in the ’80s with Sakura Color Products Corp gel pens out of Japan. Gel pens quickly took off among scrapbook artists, colorists, and letter artists alike, not to mention pretty much every girl in junior high school. Gel ink is a water-based ink that includes a thickening agent that turns it into a gel, rather than the runny mess of many water-based inks. The gel ink sits on top of coloring surfaces, rather than sinking in. It tends to stay where you place it, which means no bleeding through the paper or feathering and spreading past the lines on your coloring page.
Most gel pen inks contain colored pigment, resulting in a rich, bold color that sits on top of the page, but occasionally, you’ll see an eyewear gel pen that uses dye as its base rather than pigment, meaning that the color is absorbed into the surface. As far as use goes, many colorists report not being able to tell the difference between regular and eyewear gel pens. There doesn’t seem to be a strong reason for using dye rather than pigment in the dyewear pens, but it’s possible that it just hasn’t caught on yet, and that we’ll all be switching to dyewear gel pens in the future.
Water-Based Ink
Water-based pen ink is a combination of water and pigment or dye. This ink is very liquid, and while it provides a smooth writing experience, it can be quite messy, depending on the pen used.
The two pens that are most likely to use water-based ink are:
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- Fountain pens
- Rollerball pens
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Water-based ink needs a high-quality pen that will accurately control the flow of this runny ink. Care also needs to be taken when using it, since it tends to bleed through paper and feather quite a bit.
Oil-Based Ink
Oil-based pen ink was created as an answer to the messier water-based inks. Ballpoint pens use oil-based ink, which is pigment or dye mixed with oil. Oil-based ink is thicker than water-based ink, which helps alleviate some of the problems people have with the quickly-flowing water-based inks. It also sits on top of the page, eliminating bleeding and feathering, which is a huge step up from water-based inks.
However, it can have a tendency to clog, which can be annoying. Gel ink was made as an answer to both the runniness of water-based inks and the clogging of oil-based inks, providing a happy middle ground.
Dye Ink Versus Pigment Ink: What’s the Difference?
Alright, let’s dive into the pigment versus dye debate, now that we’ve gone over the difference between the types of ink bases:
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- Gel
- Water
- Oil
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Both pigments and dyes can be made of either natural or chemical particles, but the difference is in their size, which affects how they’re mixed with the oil, water, or gel to form the ink.
Do you happen to remember your high school chemistry lessons? If so, you’ll be familiar with the concept of the solution versus suspension – that’s what’s going on here.
Pigment particles are larger than dye particles, so they form a suspension, whereas the smaller dye particles combine with the ink base, forming a solution.
So what does this mean on a practical level? Well, a few things, actually:
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- Dyes penetrate the surface they contact. Pigments sit on top of it
- Pigments are bolder and more opaque, and dyes are more transparent
- Dyes are more likely to feather
- Pigments are more permanent and water-resistant
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You may have noticed that dyes tend to have similar properties to water-based inks, soaking into and spreading out over surfaces, and pigments sit on top like gel inks typically do. So in a sense, it seems like dyeware gel pens are almost like a water-based ink gel ink hybrid, containing the best of both worlds.
Where to Find Dyewear Gel Pens
Dyewear gel pens are not very common, so finding them can be tricky. Of course, there’s always the obvious places to check:
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- Art supply stores
- Craft ships
- Amazon
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But if you’re not convinced that you need to try them just yet, especially if you haven’t even gotten to know regular gel pens all that well yet, you might want to grab a variety pack that contains both regular and eyewear gel pens.
Tammit Gel Pens Set
The 120-piece Gel Pens Set from Tammit has every type of gel pen you could ever dream of:
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- Regular
- Eyewear
- Metallic
- Neon
- Glitter
- Pastel
- Fluorescent
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If you’re new to gel pens, this is an amazing set to get started with. It even comes with a refill for each pen, doubling the value.
This set is perfect if you’re looking to compare the different types of gel pens side-by-side to get a feel for their different qualities, but you’ll notice in the reviews that many people struggle to find a difference between the regular and eyewear pens, so it’s hard to say whether there’s a huge amount of contrast between the two.
Check out more of our gel pen articles here!
What About the Pens Themselves?
As you can see, a huge part of a pen’s performance is due to the type of ink it’s filled with. But what about the actual structure of the pen itself?
You’ll be surprised to find out what the difference is between the three types of pens discussed here today:
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- Rollerball
- Ballpoint
- Gel
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Ready? The difference is nothing. All three types of pen use more or less the same idea: a small metal ball affixed to a reservoir in such a way that the ink coats the ball as it’s pushed along a page. The ball also keeps the ink from drying out when not in use.
The ballpoint pen wasn’t invented until the 1930s, which means that people were still using the messy and cumbersome fountain pen through the 1920s. Since then, the rollerball came along in the 1970s, and gel pens the decade after that.
How to Color Using Gel Pens
Coloring using gel pens (eyewear or regular) can be a lot of fun, and since the ink glides so smoothly onto the page, it’s a terrific option for people with hands that quickly become fatigued or sore.
Here is a quick rundown of some useful gel pen coloring techniques. You can always color with gel pens just as you would with crayons or colored pencils, of course, or you can try:
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- Use pastels on dark surfaces
- Use metallic and neon colors as accents
- Layer over other art mediums
- Use techniques such as cross-hatching and stippling to cover large areas quickly
- Use water to smudge or blend ink before it dries
- Use similar colors for shading on colored pencil works
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The more you experiment with gel pens, the more you’ll see how versatile they can be. Taking a look at online coloring forums is also a fun way to get inspiration for your gel pen art.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have a better idea of the different types of pen ink and the different qualities of each, you’ll have an easier time deciding which to choose for your next set of art pens. Always remember that there’s no need to settle on just one type of art tool – after you try a few different kinds, you might find that the pens you want to use change depending on your mood or the particular project you’re working on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use regular or eyewear gel pens for coloring?
Both regular and dyewear gel pens can be used for coloring as well as drawing and writing. They’re preferred by artists seeking rich, bold colors that won’t bleed into the paper.
What surfaces do Dyewear gel pens work best on?
Dyewear gel pens can be used on the same surfaces as regular gel pens: paper, cardstock, cardboard, wood, and even fabric. They work well in both light and dark colors.
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