It’s been a year and a half since I published my first impressions on my brand-new Tooli-Art paint pens.

Initially, I used the pens daily, but my artmaking pursuits shifted gears to crochet and clay craft, and my paint pens remained undisturbed in their dark drawers for a few months. Then, around July this year, I started using them again, which brings us to this post.

But before we begin, the usual disclaimer: this is not a sponsored post. We purchased all the art supplies mentioned in this post, and all the impressions or thoughts are my own. 😊

I own two sets of Tooli-Art paint pens: an 18-piece set including primary colours, black, and white, and their 36-piece Skin and Earth Tone set. I purchased the Skin and Earth Tone set in April 2022, and then proceeded to purchase the 18-piece set in July 2022.

I also still own the 8-piece Posca Classic Colours set to which I compared the Tooli-Art pens in that initial post. And, despite having shown signs of drying, my black Posca pen still works after a good shake (though the white pen has always been a dud).

As the care instructions suggest, I store these pens flat in drawers, and I always give them a shake before use. I mostly use paint pens on paper or canvas, but I’ve also used these on baked polymer clay, wood, fabric, and ceramics.

Okay, with all of that out of the way, let’s get to the gritty bits.

I still love (some of) my Tooli-Art pens and I stand by the general takeaway of my initial review—Tooli-Art is value for money. But we’re going to have to address that ‘some of‘ inserted in the last sentence.

Because some of the pens have stopped working. And it’s so random that I can’t pinpoint the cause. This problem isn’t isolated to a specific pigment or colour family and has nothing to do with how frequently a pen is (or isn’t) used. Additionally, I’m very particular about securing the caps on my pens and storing them neatly in drawers, so they haven’t dried out because I didn’t take care of them. And since many of the pens continue to work without issue, I can’t blame weather conditions.

The functional pens still do their job beautifully, but I’ll admit that the others are a frustration.

To illustrate my point, I swatched red, blue, and yellow pens. Because the Tooli-Art pens aren’t labelled, I can’t give you their exact colour codes, but I believe the red and blue ones are from the 18-piece set (Scarlet Red and Indian Blue), and the yellow is from the Skin and Earth Tones set (Sunflower).

I marked cellulose-based watercolour paper without shaking the pens, shook the pens for 30 seconds and marked the page, and finally shook the pens for a minute, depressed the tips, and scribbled on the page again.

As you can tell from the photo, the red pen works perfectly, the blue is a bit stubborn, and the yellow has given up.

Next, hoping the pens would work if they warmed up, I drew a series of lines.

The red continued to do its thing, the yellow died, and the blue got better with each line.

Thankfully, most of the pens in my sets are similar to the red and blue pens. They might need a bit of coaxing, but they’ll do what they’re supposed to in the end. Unfortunately, about 1 in 4 pens are like the yellow.

Now, considering the size of each Tooli-Art set compared to the price of Posca pens, I still believe Tooli-Art pens are great value for money. Currently, a set of 12 Posca paint pens will cost around $36, while you can purchase a 30-piece set from Tooli-Art for $39 (these prices are subject to change).

And the useless white marker in my Posca set proves that their higher prices don’t eliminate faulty pens in their sets either.

The working Tooli-Art pens are still the same quality as the Posca pens. Their pigment doesn’t fade over time and I get the same vibrant colour payoff each time. A few of the lighter hues are slightly chalkier than the darker colours and remind me of the consistency of gouache rather than acrylic paints, but that isn’t a problem IMO.

So, though I am disappointed with some of these pens, I can’t in good conscience condemn the entire brand. I’ll replace the faulty Tooli-Art pens in the future, just as I’ll definitely purchase Posca products again.

If you have anything to add to this post, let’s chat in the comments! I’d love to learn from your experiences.

Until next time!

Yolandie