Hand Drawn Legends?

[frew]

I have a set of blank keycaps and I was thinking it would be fun to hand write/draw the legends on to them.  If I do it I will label the fronts instead of the tops since it's unlikely that I can get something that will last unless I do some kind of etching.  I was thinking I could maybe use a paint pen but I'm not sure what is best for PBT.  I read through this thread: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=27976.msg531185 and was thinking I might be able to use the Gundam Pens or w/e they are called.  Just not sure about how they'll look with PBT.

Ideas?

[MTManiac]

your own stealth keys, I like it!
I have no experience with this, but I have faith in the community's knowledge
You will need to post pics of your build though!!! 

[Findecanor]

I suggest that you go to an arts and crafts store and ask for a pen with a mild alcohol-based type of ink.
Then, if you mess up, you would be able to wipe them clean with alcohol and start over.
If it is on the front, it should not wear.

[frew]

I got a few pens today and tested each color (it was two sets, hence some of the odd colors) on some spare keycaps I have:



I'm surprised at how well it came out.  I can't be very delicate with the pens since the tips are fairly large, but I can distinguish the keys just fine.  Even the black is visible in a well let room.  I was surprised how well the gold and silver worked, the other colors are almost all multiple strokes, but the gold and silver are single strokes.

The only color I would def not do is purple, it's too dark and I may just not like purple 

This is my current setup

I think I will do some orange, green, white.  I *might* do some black, silver and gold if I can come up with good uses (thumb clusters?) but I don't want to make too much of a rainbow

[frew]

Ok so I did most of the keys.  The only real mistake was on the > key.  Alcohol doesn't really clean off the paint well at all.  The keys that are unmarked are either no-ops (the bottom row is almost entirely unused) or it's the wrong keycap (I need to move a few I think.)  Also, a few of the bottom rows are multi-key macros, which I don't expect to ever label.  Anyway, here are the pictures, for some reason my camera phone failed to pick up the color entirely, I'll do more later I guess?

[Puddsy]

That actually looks pretty cool. I was skeptical at first, because it looked kinda weird, but now that it's on a keyboard I like it.

[ijprest]

Ghetto!  I like it.  I'll definitely try this when I get my ErgoDox & blank keys.

What pens are these?

[SeriouSSpotS]

It is definitely different

[frew]

Ghetto!  I like it.  I'll definitely try this when I get my ErgoDox & blank keys.

What pens are these?

They are called craftsmart fine paint pens.  They were the only options at the craft store near me (Michaels.)  As you can see you can't really write fine lines with them, but I am pretty happy with the end product.  Makes typing non-words (hotkeys, video games) not as painful.

[DamnDan]

Maybe you should try cutting the pen tips at an angle, and by this making their tip smaller. But even though the legends are fat, they look great