The search begins

So which brand of markers should I go for……. 

 There are so many brands of markers aimed specifically at the craft market these days! 

Of course my first thought went to Copic, but I didn’t seriously consider them as they are wayyyyyyyy out of my budget. I’m a little anal – I know this is not a surprise to those who know me – so I wouldn’t have been happy having Ciaos, I would have wanted the Sketch markers but both are very much out of my league financially, so they were a very quick, very hard pass. Now I know this might sound very dismissive, if I just bought the markers as and when I could afford them that would break it down a bit. But being a fairly experienced colour-in-er-er I want to have the whole set, or as near as possible. So without a major bank loan or maxing out my credit card that was just never gonna happen.

Another brand I dismissed pretty much instantly was Spectrum Noir, I tried these years ago when they first came on the market and they were dreadful (again, my opinion), however, I do believe they changed the pens, including the formulation of ink. Which is a good job as the originals were pretty much an exact copy of the ShinHan Touch markers – to look at, such a shame they didn’t copy the quality while they were at it!. But the main reason I didn’t entertain this brand is because I refuse to buy from the company that owns it, on principal. 

Anyway, I digress, so what other brands to consider? Well there’s a plethora of off-brand markers on eBay and Wish but I’m just not keen on buying something like this without some kind of warranty or guarantee. 

I have a little experience with the ShinHan Touch markers, and I love them, both the brush markers and the ones with the bullet nibs – great quality and easy to use but difficult to get hold of in the UK.

Another brand I tried, and I really wanted to like these, were the Chameleon pens. I get the theory, you don’t need a handful of shades of one colour because you can get a massive range from just one pen, but they are not easy for the kind of colouring I do. They’re great for fairly simple colouring, where the object goes from light to dark, but I have no idea how you would colour a face and hair without it taking hours and hours. They are lovely markers, albeit a little on the long side and I love the idea of the colour tops so you can get a seamless blend from one colour to another but for me, they’re really not much more than a novelty.

 Now, I didn’t want to be splashing the cash willy-nilly and buying lots of different markers to try so instead I did a bit of research online and found some comparison articles

copicthinking

 Jill Cameron Creations

craft and leisure

 amongst others. I also had a look at online reviews for a lot of the markers I hadn’t tried or hadn’t heard of.

 I stumbled across the Arteza Everblend markers by accident, it was one of those spooky adverts that pop up on social media that reminds you that everything you do online is being watched lol. So I popped onto the Arteza website and quickly discovered they produce a vast range of arts and crafts media, lots of pens and paints, pencils and sketchpads etc, but the Everblend markers intrigued me.

I’ll be honest, I was quite sceptical about them, if they were any good then surely I’d have heard about them, wouldn’t I?

So I did a bit of research online and they seemed to get pretty consistent good reviews. You'll have to read my next post to find out what happened next.

thanks for visiting, 

it's always nice to hear what you think so feel free to leave me a comment 

Debz