Kuretake Zig Clean Color Real Brush 24 colors set, Brush tip marker pens, for Professional and Artist, coloring, drawing, calligraphy, lettering, Made in Japan

These brush pens are so much fun to use! Whether you're a student, hobbyist, or professional artist, these are a fun tool to add to your collection. I'm a professional graphic artist, and almost all of my work is done digitally, so I only dabble in traditional mediums for fun. However, my kids and I love to make art together, so we have quite a collection of art supplies in the house. Most are student grade, but as my kids are getting older and learning to take care of their artists tools, I'm starting to add in a few higher grade supplies. These are one of those tools that I added in thinking I could use them with the kids. I actually had these in my possession more than a year before fully realizing their potential. I bought them on a whim because they were on sale for a great price. Maybe it was one of those flash sales that Amazon has? I don't even recall what I was looking for at the time that caused these to pop up in my search, but they were only $22 at the time, which was a great price. As an impulse buy, I didn't read much of the description and only glanced at reviews. Overall positive reviews for a pack of 36 markers at only $22, SOLD. Had they been alcohol markers I'd have thought I'd won the lottery. Even now, I would absolutely pay full price for them, realizing how much fun they are to use and how versatile they are. My kids and I have colored with them on occasion, using them just as regular markers. They blend well as-is without the addition of water, the colors are intense, and it was fun to use a marker with a real bristle brush tip rather than a felt tip. These are a great tool for learning how to maneuver and control a bristle brush tip, with the convenience of a pre-filled ink marker. I would highly recommend these to a budding lettering artist, or anyone interested in learning more precision brush control. The colors are bold and saturated, and mostly true to the colored plastic cap on the bottom of the marker when used by themselves without water. Of course the colors will be lighter/brighter when blended out with water. I've since seen artists make their own paper sample to glue to the top caps, which I may do as well. Out of the box: My markers were all individually wrapped in shrink plastic, and packaged in a plastic box as shown on Amazon. I have since tossed my box and I wish I hadn't. As I said previously, it's been more than a year since I bought these. The box got tossed or lost along the way, and they have been stored upright in a section of our spinning art carousel. Only 2 of the 36 markers have become dry in that time, which could easily have been one of the kids not getting the cap on securely. I'm hoping that I can revive them by soaking in water for a few minutes, but I've not tried yet. Unwrapping each marker is a bit of an ordeal. There is a perforated section in the wrapping on one side of the cap that make it marginally easier. If you don't care about leaving a scratch down the body of the markers, do yourself a favor and grab a razor blade to slice them all open quickly. Jennifer McGuire tutorials: I recently stumbled across a tutorial on YouTube by Jennifer McGuire, and she has 3 videos dedicated to this product. Her first video gives an overview of the pens, shows how you can use the brush tips to create wide or fine lines, similar to calligraphy. In her 2nd video she shows different ways you can blend the pens both with and without water. This video shows her painting on cards that she stamped in black pigment ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. Her 3rd video is a Q&A segment where she addresses some questions she received via her blog. My experience: Seeing Jennifer blend the pens using a water brush was fascinating, and really excited me to give these markers a new try. I wanted to try out the markers exactly as Jennifer had used them, on a stamped and embossed image. However, we recently moved and I have no idea which box my rubber stamps are in. I did have a pad of inexpensive watercolor paper handy. I grabbed some cold press Strathmore watercolor paper, my Zig Clean Color Real Brush pens, a water brush pen, and sat down at the kitchen table like a little kid with a new box of crayons! I scribbled and doodled and blended on watercolor paper for only a few minutes. I was instantly hooked. I wanted more! But I'm not a very good freehand artist. Thankfully the recent boom in the adult coloring book craze makes free images easy to find. My first attempt is the floral design attached (design by Marie Browning available at the Tombow website). I printed this coloring page on that same inexpensive Strathmore watercolor paper using my home office inkjet. My printer has dye based inks, so the black lines did bleed a little bit when adding water. If you have a pigment ink printer, there will be little or no bleeding. I'm not certain about a laser printer. Coloring/painting on an image printed or drawn with waterproof inks or pencil is ideal. For my subsequent attempts, I lowered the opacity of my coloring page images in Photoshop by about 50% so that my lines were light gray instead of black. There was significantly less line bleeding on these pictures, and an untrained eye probably wouldn't know the pictures were done over coloring pages. The flowers with the dragonfly were colored and painted using strictly the Zig Clean Color brush pens and a water brush pen. My other 2 samples came from a website that has coloring pages for state birds. Random. These were the ones I printed on watercolor paper with gray instead of black. The red-breasted robin was painted using only the Zig Clean Color pens and traditional watercolor brushes. The red cardinal with dogwood branches was done with a combination of Zig Clean Color pens and also Koi brand watercolor cakes by Sakura, using both a water brush and traditional brushes. Blending colors: Colors can be blended easily straight out of the pen, or with water. Using water, they actually blend quite a bit further than watercolors, as they are a water based ink and not paint. As with traditional watercolors, work with your lighter colors first. Allow wet areas to dry before coming back with more layers of color. These are water based inks and not true watercolors, so if you touch upon the edge of a darker or brighter color with water, bleeding will happen. Sometimes this creates surprisingly beautiful affects, but sometimes might not be the look you're going for, so take care in areas you'd like a sharp edge between colors. The inks do blend well with traditional watercolor paints and I had no trouble using them together. I recommend working in small areas at a time. The markers blend easily. When you work quickly, most or all of your maker brush strokes can be blended out. If you allow an area of pure marker ink to dry, your brush strokes will not be as easy to blend. A lot of water can blend out a dark color to a light pastel. In an area you'd like to keep saturated or dark, just a little bit of water can smooth out marker brush strokes and give your project a more traditional watercolor look. I have also colored on a scrap of watercolor paper and used that as a paper palette to wet, mix, and draw out colors to the level that I want. Color selection: Layering colors hasn't been a problem if I allow wet areas to dry before adding more ink for a deeper saturation. The inks also mix well to create new colors, using basic color theory. These markers come in 80 colors and it certainly would be fun to have all of them, but not necessary. There are a lot of shades of gray and tan/brown/taupe in this set which makes toning down the brights and blending new colors easy. I'm happy with the 36 pack and have been able to blend colors to get the look I want. If I were to add colors to this set, I would have liked to swap out a couple of the neutral earth tones for another cooler shade of yellow, and another red in a warmer tone. The Carmine Red is very cool when blended out. The marker named brown is a very warm rusty color, so mixing brown and carmine red was key in coloring my red cardinal bird. I've borrowed a color swatch image made by Melissa Miller of Mel's Card Corner to show the colors you get. Durability: I don't mind my kids using these because the real brush tips seem pretty durable and return to their pointy shape easily. You can sample colors directly from one brush tip to another, which is really cool. You can even rinse the tips with water after blending colors to return the brush tips to white, then color on scrap paper to draw out the original color. Markers you can rinse with water?!? Fabulous. In conclusion: So these are fun for crafting and smaller projects, or in conjunction with traditional watercolors. Even without water, the markers themselves are moderately wet compared to other makers, so only use them on heavier paper such as watercolor paper or card stock. Pilling, bleeding, and ripping is sure to happen on standard copy paper, or low end coloring books. They would probably work well on higher end coloring books that have a heavier paper, such as Johanna Basford's series. In any coloring book, I would test on a copyright page before diving in on a beloved illustration. These are not going to replace traditional watercolors, but they are fun to experiment with and I think you can create some beautiful art with these. I don't know that I would attempt larger projects with these, simply due to the fact that they are a marker that are not refillable and eventually the ink will run out. Running out of a color in the middle of a project would be frustrating. You can buy the pens individually on certain websites to the tune of $3.50 to $5 per pen. I've yet to see them in any brick-and-mortar store, so you'll have to order them online.

I am on my third set of these brushes. I do a lot of adult coloring, and they make each page a joy. I have arthritic hands, so the brushes are lightweight and easy for my hands to use. The colors are varied and rich. I like the size of the brushes, which are easy for my hands to grip. Given that I use the brushes daily, they last a considerable amount of time. I wish they were not so expensive. I also wish that the company offered certain colors in sets--like the light blue, yellow, or light purple. I seem to go through these colors very quickly.

These brush markers have bright colors and are thin and easy to use. The thin tip makes it easy to write and they are pliable enough to create bold marks and fill in large spaces as well. They blend and shade well.

I've had these markers for about a day and a half now and I LOVE them!! I used to be really into watercolors, but it was kind of a pain to set up everything (the pans, the palette, and the cup of water), these markers make things so convenient!! I love the line variety I can get with these markers as well as the consisent ink flow. Some people have complained that these markers are too dry and not juicy enough, but I personally enjoy the effects I can get from dry brushing. I also love the color variety; I never had pinks and purples in my old pan set! The brush tips are really nice as well and they spring back to a point easily when the bristles are spread. These markers feel like such good quality and have a good weight when you hold them. The ink spreads easily, but for more consisent coverage I would recommend either coloring a whole area lightly and then blending with water, or mixing inks on a palette, glass bowl, tile, etc and then picking up the ink with a brush. For my work I am currently using a pentel aquash (?) brush in super fine (one of those brushes with a reservoir built in) and it works great for me! I will say that if you are looking for control and drawing fine lines and you are a beginner these probably aren't going to be easy to use. The tips are very soft and these markers require a steady hand to get consistently fine lines. I would recommend these for someone pretty experienced in watercoloring, but I think they could be just as fun for a beginner assuming the focus isn't on painting fine lines! Overall I love these markers and I can't wait to experiment with them more! I have attached some pics of some art I've made with them so far. (My instagram is @opalaque btw if anyone wants to check me out!)

This is an unbelievable product. I just need more of it 😀

Fund to use with watercolor brushes. The saturation is really strong for a water based ink.

As much as I love these watercolor pens, they are better suited to illustration, or coloring in something. They do not serve particularly well as a substitute for water colors with brushes and paint, as the colors do not flow and blend as well as they do with a brush, and mixing with water. I'm sure there is a good purpose for these, and will enjoy them when creating small pictures that need to be filled in as opposed to be created by the flow of the paints themselves.

איכות מעולה. אהבתי.

These markers are just beautiful, and so easy to use. You can use the vibrant colour in so many ways - directly from the marker nib, or splash onto a palette and mix with other colours, or guache, or dilute with water. You have so much control, that even without previous exposure you can dive right in and create your own masterpieces!

Necesito practicar para mejorar, pero son de muy buena calidad y muy finos al momento de trazos delgados. Servicio y entrega como siempre excelentes.

Très bon crayons pour des dessins aquarelles etc. Les couleurs sont variées plusieurs tons de la même couleur de base, au top.

Excellent service and quality of the product, it was on time and if there is any issue they take care of the situation immediately. Definetly I will buy with them again.

Great markers! Nice assortment of colors too. Good price. Took nearly 4 weeks to arrive but the price is worth the wait.