From Ohuhu to Artist Loft to, yes, even copic. Today we are going to be taking a look at 10 different alcohol marker brands. We're going to be testing comparing and overall just seen which one is going to be the best bang for your buck. Let's find out! So these are the tests and information that we are going to be going on for each of our alcohol markers, as you can see, we have our first five here and then I have another sheet for our second five. We're going to start off by looking at the price per marker. This is in US Dollars. So I'm going to be giving a range or average per marker then next we are going to be looking at the amount of colors you can get per brand. Does the brand offer a blending marker option? Does the brand have a brush nib? I know how popular brush nibs are so I thought that might be useful for someone who is curious. Does the brand offer the marker to be refillable? Cost-wise it's good to have the option to refill your marker as opposed to buying a whole new marker or even in some of these brands cases a whole set of markers.
Which brings me to the next option. Can you buy the markers singly or can you only buy them in sets? Next up is the availability of the markers. Can you get them in store? Or are they only available online? Then finally we are going to move on to the tests. So we are going to swatch our colors. How I've decided to swatch the markers is I have limited the colors to red Yellow green and blue. I don't know how common it is for the marker to smudge a line So I thought it would be really interesting to see if that is something that could affect the marker. For this test I used a copic multiliner. I figured because this is a material that was made for specifically alcohol markers, it would be the best to test on and it has been drying for a few hours now so I am sure that is fine. Next up. We will be doing a layer test. So how many different shades of the color can you get by layering it? I think you can definitely tell the quality of an alcohol markers ink by how well it layers. You do want to be able to get a few different tones out of one color. And our last test is our blending test. So we're going to see how well we can, I guess, blend from red to yellow to green and then to blue. Okay, who's ready to test some alcohol markers? We're going to start off from the cheapest per marker to the most expensive per marker starting off with Ohuhu markers which recently they have actually released a brush tip marker. These are the colors I'm going to be using it for the test. Now. These are their old markers. These are the bullet and chisel nib markers that I was going to use until I remembered they sent me these brush nib markers. Looking at the barrel, they have the classic gray line Indicating where the brush nib is going to be. They also did this on their old marker despite it not having a brush this one indicated the bullet nib on the marker. Whereas on their updated brush marker they do indicate the brush on the gray side and of course the other end is going to be your chisel nib. So we do have a classic round barrel and we do have Stoppers because it is a round perfectly a round a marker. We do have Stoppers at the end of the marker to make sure that your marker does not roll away. So... This is the Ohuhu marker. Let's see how it performs. A set of 120 markers will run you $58.49 US dollars and that comes to about 49 cents per marker on Ohuhu. That's 50 cents a marker That's that's the cheapest alcohol marker there is out there at least that I have found. As far as colors go, they do have a pack of 120 colors. Do they have a blender? They do not have a colorless blender. Now when it comes to brush nibs yes, they have brush nibs, but they only offer that on a 72 pack so yes, and no? They have brush nibs. Just not for all of their colors. Do they have refills? No, and I think the biggest drawback with Ohuhu is if you run out of one color you can't just individually buy that one marker. You have to buy the whole pack to replace one marker. So unfortunately, no Single markers are not available. Speaking of availability it is online only. That said, let's get to swatching.
The most fun part. All right. We've got our red. Okay, I think the best way to test their smudge is going to be with a yellow because it will show the best. Let's see. What happens. Oh I feel like if I worked yeah, okay. So we've definitely got some smudging on the thicker Inks, which is why I put that down. What does that mean? I don't know is that normal for alcohol markers? We're gonna find out. Okay, let's do our layer test and see how many layers we can get. So I see a little bit of variety in that red color, but to be honest I'm not really seeing a whole lot in tone change. to be completely honest same with yellow Wow that is- Alright we're already making mistakes. Okay, let's just put a piece of paper over that. What are you talking about? Nothing to see here? Definitely Definitely did not did not happen. Okay, look, I just got really excited and didn't pay attention. Okay. Moving on to our green and our blue. So it looks like as far as variety goes there really isn't that much happening. Okay. Let's move on to our blending. That this is where my inexperience is really going to show. I will admit you guys, not the best, uh, alcohol marker user. We're going to try our best. Let's see if we can't get a lovely rainbow happening. Can we... Maybe but there it is. There is her makeshift rainbow and there is our Tests for Ohuhu. I really don't know what to compare it to at this point. Like I said, I've only ever really used Ohuhu in Copic and I haven't done so side-by-side So it's hard to say at point what Ohuhu is doing? Well, let's continue on and see what's up. Next up is Arrtx or Art Text markers and these are the colors we are going to be testing out for this video. So let's take a look at the barrel. First I do want to note this is probably the most unique marker shape out of all the alcohol markers we are going to be looking at today. They have a just a flat red circle on one end, which is the bullet nib and the other nib, which is a chisel nib. They do not have a brush. They have a very interesting shape that is very unique to them. It is a slant as you can see and this is where the information for the marker is going to be as far as the name and number is so you don't have it on both sides. You just have it on the one side, but the shape of this marker very very interesting. So the price for Arrtx markers to be honest was kind of hard to find. They actually sent me this pack of markers back in April when I was going to make this video which their listings have disappeared. So I don't really know how much they cost But I did find something. For a pack of 80 markers it will cost you 45 US dollars, which is about 56 cents per marker. Well, I could only find an 80 set of markers and nothing more. So maybe they only have 80 colors. They do not have a colorless blender. They do not have a brush nib. They are not refillable and you cannot buy them as singles. Just like Ohuhu you can only buy them in a pack. You can only find them online. But like I said, I couldn't even find them online anymore. So... Rip. I don't know. Okay, let's get to swatching. So right away I will say that the plastic on these barrels does feel very light and cheap and honestly same with the nibs the nibs just feel like cheapest felt nib they could get their hands on it didn't feel good. Okay, let's move on to our smudge test. Okay. Let's see how much layering we can get. I think the lighter colors are definitely helping get some more layering in there. I do find that with Ohuhu A lot of their colors do run a little bit dark in general, which is unfortunate. Again, if you do want to get layering or in general just want to work lighter Ohuhu hasn't quite gotten the lighter colors down. It seems I will say in comparison to Ohuhu and I don't know if it's just because these colors were lighter, They do have a little bit more variety when it comes to layering. That said, let's see what we can accomplish with blending and maybe I'll approach this We definitely get like a nicer orange color. I do have to say I really enjoy the way these colors are layering on top of each other, so we get a really nice lime green with the yellow and the green. As usual I do think the blue and the green or the easiest to blend. I'm sure that is just because they're dark colors and they they have a lot more in common obviously you make green with blue. So I'm sure I would have a better time blending if I used of better in between like an orange or like a lime green because I think with alcohol markers you definitely want to have a few in-betweens and not so much go straight from red to yellow. That said I actually kind of really like the way the color is layered on the Arrtx a lot more you can get a lot more variety when you layer them and you get some really interesting mixing of colors when you layer them. So I don't know. Ohuhu felt better. Arrtx felt cheaper. But I think I actually might like the results of Arrtx better. Next up are the Illo Hue markers, which are new to the Illo sketchbook brand. Here are the numbers I'm going to be using for this test. Let's take a look at the barrel. We do have a square shape so it won't be rolling around.
Again indicated with the gray stripe we do have our bullet nib and the other side we have our chisel nib. Pretty standard. This time. We do have a black barrel. It's really interesting to see which companies indicate the gray stripe being the bullet nib in which indicate being the chisel.
Don't know why they choose what but there it is. Yellow hue markers only come in a pack of 36 and as of recording this video their website is closed for their shop or something? Either way amazon has their pack of markers for 40 US dollars which is about one dollar and 11 cents per marker. Like I mentioned they only have a pack of 36 available so you can only get 36 colors. They do not have a colorless blender. They do not have a brush nib. They are not refillable and you cannot buy them as singles, just a 36 pack. And as far as I know you can only buy them on their website so you can only get them online. Alright, let's swatch these we have our Coral red.
The barrel feels alright, but the felt tips kind of feel a little cheap...? Our smudge- So it looks like it actually smudged a little more than everything else which is kind of surprising. I think I'm starting to get the impression that just in general alcohol markers smudge ink.
They do seem to have a nice layering aspect to them which is good. Obviously the darker your pigment is the less it's going to layer. So I think it's always good to have lighter options. Okay, let's do our Our blending test which... Oh boy.. To no one's surprise the green to blue gradient was the easiest and most successful but to be honest it's actually the best-looking so far so he would've thunk you pay twice as much for your product and you get a better quality Product. And if you couldn't tell that was sarcasm. Next up we have illustrator markers by spectrum noir and here are the colors I'm going to be using for this test. Now let's take a look at this unique barrel shape at first glance this marker doesn't look like anything interesting. It is a little bulky and when you look at the end of the marker it is very Hexagonal I suppose you can say it's it's kind of got this shapely awkwardness to it because of that weird shape and instead of indicating our brush nib with like a grey mark, there's this double sort of plastic II bit at the end and it indicates our Bullet nib on that side and just a regular Single mark is our brush nib. So that is the illustrator by spectrum noir. For the price for spectrum noir markers It really varies, again, depending on where you buy them, but overall it seems like the average price that I found was about $1.33 to $2.88 Per marker. It really depended on your pack. You're set. As far as colors go the biggest amount that I found was 168 available.
Do they offer a colorless blender? They do. Do they offer brush nibs? This is another one of those Yes, but no answers. Apparently they do not sell or markers with brush nibs. However, you can buy a brush nib and replace your nib So yes, and no? It costs more. Are they refillable? Yes, apparently they do offer Refills. And can you buy each individual marker separately? Yes. And where can you buy them? You can buy them in store and also online. I think it's really good to have the product available in person because sometimes stores even let you try the marker before buying them, which is really nice. So let's get to swatching. The nibs on these are way more flexible than the Ohuhu nibs. You can see by the little tail on my swatch that they're just way more flexible than the Ohuhu, which to be honest. I don't know if I like them being flexible. Let's test our smudge. So one pass through.
Many pass throughs. Which eventually maybe I should have counted how many it took but anyways, there it is Alright, let's do our layering test. I love that you can see the little tail on Each stroke as I go through and restart. Okay time for the stupidest test.
We have- Oh! But see with a brush nib, you can actually get some lovely wispy strokes, which I have a feeling will make it easier to maybe maybe gradient, maybe not. Wow. That green to yellow to blue gradient... Chef's kiss. It's it's great. This so far it seems like it's definitely if you want to get a nice gradient and I don't know what the layering I think the layering in the Illo and Arrtx was the best but the gradient quality on Spectrum noir compared to the others are- It's just incomparable. Next up is the brand artist loft which I have seen become really popular in the past few years. Now this is the brand from Michaels, the crafts and art store. These are the colors we are going to be using. Looking at the marker itself, we have a basic triangle shape so that it doesn't roll away easily. Our gray mark, very classic, indicates the chisel nib and the non marked end is our brush nib. Nothing special but let's see how it is. This particular pack I bought was six markers for $21. They also have twelve packs $3.12 a marker, but they also sell them individually for $3.50 a marker. I'm not 100% sure but on their website they did have the option of Seventy six different colors so we know there are 76 colors. They do offer a colorless blender. They do have a brush nib. They do not offer refills. And they are available as single markers. And if you want to buy them they are, like I mentioned, a Michaels brand Art supplies. So you either have to go to michaels.com or go to the Michaels store only. Ok, let's swatch them. Ooh! Ok, so compared to the spectrum Noir their brush nib is incredibly stiff. Which to be honest I actually think I prefer this much stiffer brush nib than say the spectrum noir super flimsy one. Ok, let's test our smudge. OOh. It smudged on the first pass through. That's not good. So, of course the more we pass through the more it's going to smudge. Yeah artists soft has a very different feel in comparison to the other brands so far.
It just- The brush nib feels way different and I... I don't think it's even a good thing. Speaking of cheap. These colors are very dark and they are not Layering well at all. I don't think I see any Difference at all between any of those layers Wow. They are the most expensive on this page, but so far they seem to be the worst-performing. Oh gosh. Our blending test. Infamous blending test. Wow that yellow created quite a toxic orange. Oh my gosh, it just won't blend at all. Oh, no, if you are familiar with my channel You guys know already how I feel about the brand artists loft. So I feel like I I don't really have anything to say you guys know how I feel. I'm trying to be more positive, but uh, all right artists loft is speaking for itself. I mean... This is something else right here. Ok, you know what artist loft might be horrible, but they still can blend green to blue at least they have that going for them. And I don't even like alcohol markers but this was painful to use it felt like the cheapest the layering everything about artist's loft was the worst. And it cost What? Seven times as much as the Ohuhu marker and it performed horribly. I didn't mean for this to turn into an artist's loft drag video, but artist loft. I hate you and I will continue to hate you. You guys are the worst. Let's move on. Actually real quick. I just wanted to show you guys these are the nibs of the yellow markers that I used to blend our rainbow. Artists Loft is the only one that has a disgusting amount of green residue.
The rest of these... completely clean. Artist's loft is dirty and gross and- Whatever. Moving on. Oh I almost forgot one last test. We have to look at the bleed on the back of this paper. Oooh. Okay, this is actually spectrum noir which so far is a really good quality marker. Artist's loft of course bled the most.
It seems like maybe Ohuhu didn't do super bad. Arrtx- Arrtx is a surprising wildcard for me. I feel like as a random brand on Amazon that you don't hear much about. It's doing pretty good. It's doing pretty good. Okay, let's move on. Moving on to spectra ad not to be confused with spectrum noir. These are the colors I will be using. Let's take a peek. It looks like we are going back to a black color barrel. I got to wonder what makes them choose black or white. But either way, we have a more rectangular shape looking at the end, but it still has many sides to it which I feel like makes for a weird hold. That being said the indicator for which side is the brush is very subtle again. It comes down to the texture of the marker so you can see this is a more Just regular clothes here, but we do have a very small indention Indicating this is the chisel nib. And then the regular is the brush nib. It's a very subtle probably hard to notice Change but I guess you can just look at the symbols if you really want to know. You can get a 24 pack which comes to $1.83 per marker. I've even seen them being sold as singles on websites for as much as $5.70 so... but I will put them down for $1.83 - $5.70. So it really just depends on if you're buying them as a pack or an individual. I've seen as many as 95 but I'm not 100% sure on that.
They do offer a colorless blender. They do indeed come in a brush nib. To my knowledge I don't think they have refills and yes, you can buy them individually. And as far as availability you can buy them in store or online. Alright. Let's get to swatching. We have red and it looks like their brush nibs are the very soft nibs that I'm not a super fan of but it seems like the only other nib type that firmer type was from artist loft. Okay. Let's do our smudge test.
One pass through, not bad. Let's do several pass throughs. Oh, wow. So it doesn't seem like it is really smudging too much at all. Moving on to our layer test I think I'm actually going to use the chisel nib just because the consistency of flatness, I think will be a better test than using the flimsy brush nib. We don't seem to be getting too much variety once we get past that second layer. They seem to be pretty... single toned. Okay. Here we go. Let's try making a rainbow. Again should be a little easier with our brush nibs. I feel like the green to yellow was doing okay for a second and then it wasn't whatever that means. The green to blue isn't horrible, but I have definitely had better luck with other brands so far. It's not the best colors to blend together but it's not impossible to get a better blend. That said let's move on. Moving on to prismacolor premier Markers, and these are the colors we're going to be using. Let's take a look at the barrel It looks like we are going back to a round shaped barrel and we are depending on these little notches on the caps to keep our marker from rolling away. Now the indication for our bullet and chisel nibs is this stripe here. So our thicker stripe is going to be our chisel nib and our thinner stripe here is going to be our bullet nib. Now I do know that these come in brush form but I didn't find any so... we are going with the chisel nib on this one. I guess it just depends on where you buy them, but it can cost anywhere from $2.50 to $7. And again, the $7 is going to be the brush nib variety, which I couldn't find. So far this is the most available colors. We have 200. They do offer a colorless blender. They do have brush nibs. I don't today, but they do have them. As far as I know they are not refillable But you can buy them as singles and they are available in store and also online. Moving on to swatching we have our crimson red. Wow a big fat chisel nib. The biggest chisel nib so far. All right smudge test time. Good. So we have one two- Oh my gosh! It barely smudged! I'm so impressed. I will say their chisel nib is very thick and sturdy, but I I really like it. Like I feel... I feel confident with this big boy. As far as layering goes there's not a whole lot of variety happening, but there it is. and let's move on to Blending. I laugh every time because I feel like this test is a bit of a disaster. Okay. Seems like with the blue and the green I worked it just a little bit longer and I was able to get a nice gradient. But okay, so the green of the blue worked pretty decently in the end. It just had a little bit more work to do. Overall. I really like the thicker bigger more confident chisel nib and I was quite impressed with how little it smudged but it didn't really layer well, and the blending was only okay between the green and the blue so I don't know how I feel about this. Next up is the Masters Touch fine art studio. This is the Hobby Lobby brand of alcohol markers. If you don't know what Hobby Lobby is, It's an American craft and art store. So here are the colors we're going to be using today. As you can see the barrel is ribbed for your pleasure. Kind of a weird um and different- I don't know. No one else has bumps like this on their markers. So I think is kind of silly I suppose. Well, let's say this is their way of not having it roll away, but it is a triangle shape So it's not going to roll away. I don't know what these these bumps are for cuz you don't even hold it on the cap. But anyways moving on. We have our classic gray stripe here to indicate our brush nib and our other end being of course a chisel nib. So there you go, let's test out masters touch. We don't have that store here in Canada, So I was able to pick up a pack while I visited my family in America. I bought this pack of 6 for $30 US dollars and on their website they have them at $5 per marker. As far as the amount of colors goes, again, I'm not sure but I've heard of someone picking up a 80 pack of markers. So maybe there's at least 80 colors out there. They do offer a colorless blender. They do have brush nib. They do not offer refills. And you can buy them individually. Again because this is a Hobby Lobby brand, it seems like you can only buy them in store at Hobby Lobby. I'm not really sure if you can buy them on their website. Again, I'm in Canada. Okay. Let's test out our smudge and let's test out our layering. As usual not a whole lot going on in the layering department. These colors seem to be running a little dark. Everyone's favorite test. Let's try some blending. So far not great. But it seems like every brand, almost, is able to blend a green and blue. So, let's see what they've got. As long as you can blend the green and the blue. I think I think we're okay. And yeah seems like it's a pretty good job at blending that green and blue. Good job. For our third most expensive marker, I don't know that it's really up to snuff for that price. Next up we have the Windsor and Newton Pro markers, which were actually sent to my p.o box by a fan, The demon foxy. So thanks again the demon foxy for sending me these markers. These are the colors we are going to be using today. So taking a look at the actual marker I think this is the only brand that uses a very different shape. This is a very pointy end compared to a very blunt and to indicate which tip you're going to get. So from the pointy one, We're going to get our bullet nib. And from our blunt and we are going to have our chisel nib. Again, depending on a little notch on the cap from having your marker or roll away. Let's test this bad boy. You can get a 96 pack for $500 US dollars. Which is $5.21 per marker. You can get a 24 pack which comes down to $3 a marker or you can buy them individually for $5 a marker. So it really just kind of depends. Until now. For now. I'm just going to put $3 for up to $5.21. They offer a variety of 148 colors. They do have a colorless blender. They do have a brush nib. They do not offer refills and you can buy them individually. And they are also available in-store and also online. Swatching our colors we have our berry red. I actually really like these colors so far. They're actually pretty bright. Alright our smudge test. Oh. Once it started going it really started to smudge. Let's do our layering test. Probably the best for layering on this particular page so far and you know what time it is. It's our blending test. Oh gosh. I got so much alcohol on the page here. We have a little bit of color bleeding happening. Also, not really sure I you feel about the way this chisel nib feels. It feels a little Scratchy. Alright, um. Overall, I don't know how I really felt about those. Those were kind of weird. I liked the colors. They looked nice, but then they they felt weird and didn't blend too well. I do- I don't know what's happening right here. What is that? And last but certainly not least we have our Copic Sketch markers. Everybody knows them. Everybody loves them. Here are the colors. We are going to be testing today. Now looking at the barrel Copic also has a very different look to it. It has an oval shape which I feel like a lot of companies don't seem to use but of course they do have that classic gray stripe on the barrel to indicate that is the brush end of the marker. And of course the other side is our chisel nib. Very smooth sleek design, you can't go wrong with Copic. Let's see how it is. Is it worth all the hype? Is it worth $8 a marker? I've seen a pack of 72 sell for both $575 and also $421. So that's anywhere from $5.85 a marker to $8 a marker. I've also seen them for as low as $4 a marker. So we are just going to say copics cost anywhere between $4 to $8 and I've even heard people say they're more. They are also available at 358 varieties of color. The most colors of any alcohol marker. Of course they have a colorless blender. Of course, they come in a brush nib. They are one of only two alcohol markers that are able to be refilled and of course you can buy them as a single marker. And of course copics are available in store and also online. All right. Let's get to swatching. We have a strong red. I was gonna say it's the best at not smudging but I actually think it might be the third least smudgy alcohol marker. Prismacolor really killed it. And the spectra ad also did really well. Alright moving on to our layering test. I think Copic markers are probably one of the best when it comes to layering at the same color you can definitely see a change up to three even four layers. Okay, everyone's favorite test, the blending test. Let's do it! Or at least let's attempt to do it. Ooh! I mean we're getting a lovely orange. Like woah. The amount of Red I was able to lift off the paper. I am actually pretty impressed with. I don't know what's normal with alcohol markers. But there's a definite orange in between that red and yellow. I mean, wow. Wow, so the Copic marker is picking up a lot of color on the yellow marker, which is really scary but I always thought that was like a bad thing, but apparently Copic does it. And finally one last test. Let's see how much they bled. Oh my gosh, okay. These are way more vibrant than our other piece of paper. What does that mean? Does that mean... the more you spend on the marker the more pigment you get because there's a very clear gradient between this side working our way to the Copic markers. You can see a lot of bleed a lot of pigment come through. So I don't know anything about alcohol markers. I thought maybe you didn't want bleed, but heck maybe you do want bleeding because it shows that there's a lot of pigment in your marker. I am using Strathmore marker papers, so there's that. All right. Well. That is our marker test. But how do we feel overall between all ten of these brands? To be honest, I was actually really impressed with the way Ohuhu works at just 50 cents a marker. I mean, can you go wrong with that? Even Arrtx I was really impressed with it. I think the only ones that I was like really disgusted by was of course artist loft. I mean artist loft. Come on. What are you doing? And maybe I wasn't super impressed with Windsor and Newton Pro markers. Spectra ad was okay I guess but Yeah, I don't know. I you can't go wrong with Ohuhu. But if you want a really lovely blend I think prismacolor will be alright, of course Copic. Spectrum Noir Okay, wait spectrum noir I really liked. That was a pretty good one though I don't like how soft the brush nib is. But yeah, I don't know. You make your own decision. How much are you willing to spend? These are the results. I mean, I don't know. I-I don't know. I'm more of a watercolor person. To be honest as my collection of alcohol markers grew from subscription boxes I was just really curious as to how each brand performed compared to the others. Did price really matter? What are the strengths of some of them? It was a fun test. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Stay golden! Hey you! Yeah, you! Are you a patron? Do you want coloring pages? Do you want secret sketches? Do you want early access to my videos? Check out the link in the description. Until then Thank you so much to all my patrons. You guys are seriously the best. Bye!
