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I love them! If you are just going to use them as a marker they color beautifully. They are great watercolor markers...very vibrant color, but if you want it to be softer just add more water. They work great with blender pens. Serious, love! There's a gal who use to have a blog whose color work with these markers is just stupendous!! She hasn't blogged in a while...think she lives in Canada. I'll see if I can look up her name.
I had the entire set (they use to make 144 colors; only 96 colors currently, I think). I loved them... until I discovered Copic markers. But the Tombows were the best thing available at the time. However, if they still cost around $3/marker, I would rather have 1 Copic Sketch marker rather than 2 Tombows. But lots of people love them.
A couple of tips if you decide to go this route:
If you like to make your images look realistic by shading and blending, you will have trouble with your paper pilling. I solved this problem by stamping my images, letting them dry, spraying them with a matte sealer and then coloring.
Buy the Tombow blender pens. I tried a Dove blender because I thought it would be cheaper since they're refillable and you can replace the nibs. Ugh! Don't bother! The Dove nibs are hard bullet tips and almost impossible to shade with (at least for me!). The Tombow blenders have the same brush tips as the markers and make shading and blending so easy.
You will need to color small areas at a time, then shade before the color dries and blend with the blender pen. I always held my shading pen in my left hand while I was coloring, so that I could shade quickly.
Buy a blender pen for each color family; for example, I had one pen for pinks/reds, one for yellows/oranges, etc. You don't have to do this, but you will save time, effort and money in the long run. You can use one blender pen and rub it on scratch paper until no more color appears, but you will waste a lot of blender ink this way and will be replacing your blender pen much more quickly.
If you're looking for dye-based markers, Tombows are certainly the ones to get. But I wouldn't trade my 10 of my Copics for the entire set of Tombows.
__________________ Linda E
Caution: You are entering an artistic zone. This is not clutter - this is creating. These are not pajamas - it's my work uniform.
I absolutely LOVE my Tombow Pens! I love that you get a huge range of colours in the largest set - from muted to brights to pastels etc. Before I bought Tombows, I used watercolour pencils and I actually use both when colouring my images now. Copics have never been an affordable option for me because they are super-expensive where I live in Australia at $6+ each! I have found Tombow pens so versatile because you can use them in so many ways: direct to paper; scribble on an acrylic block and then add water so the colour is softer then colour in your image; colour directly on a rubber stamp and then stamp as normal or spritz with water first then stamp for a softer impression. I certainly prefer colouring on the acrylic block and adding water because I can have my colour stronger or weaker as needed.
In the past week, I have been experimenting with the Tutorial HERE on SCS called "Embossing Folder Stamping" where you colour onto an embossing folder, spritz with water and then stamp using the embossing folder. My first attempts using Distress Inks looked OK but just too bright for me and adding more water made me lose any clarity on the image - so I coloured with pastel shades of Tombow pens onto the folder. Because it doesn't matter if you get other colours onto your nibs because you "scribble" out the unwanted colour on a separate sheet of paper, I was able to mix the colours on the folder and get some beautiful gradients of colour then spritz with water and then lay my watercolour paper on top and stamp. I absolutely love how it turned out - so soft and pretty - and should finish the card this week and pop it in my gallery. I'll try and remember to add it to this thread so you can see what it looks like. I do have other cards in my gallery that are coloured with a mix of Tombow pens and watercolour pencils.
I was initially quite frustrated with using Tombow Pens but I had the same frustration with watercolour pencils and Prismacolor pencils (using the Magic Coloured Pencils technique) - it is just a matter of experimenting and practicing. I have never used Copics so have no idea what the advantages are compared to Tombows are - or whether you can't really compare them because they are a different medium (?).
Last edited by JoBear2; 05-24-2014 at 04:23 AM..
Reason: left out a word!
Kathy, thanks for fixing your link, because in checking it out, I found a link to "A Touch of Grace". Jerri does the most beautiful work with Tombows I have ever seen. I found her project that took my breath away the first time I saw it, as it did when I found it again: A Touch of Grace � Spellbinders Jeweled Ornaments
Ruthie, check out the gorgeousness on these 2 blogs - these ladies may make you decide that you need Tombows after all!
__________________ Linda E
Caution: You are entering an artistic zone. This is not clutter - this is creating. These are not pajamas - it's my work uniform.
I love my Tombows! I have the entire set and love the ways you can use them. They work well on regular cardstock if you don't add a lot of water and they are wonderful on watercolor paper. I also like scribbling down some color and picking it up with a paint brush and watercolor with them that way. The darker colors are good for direct pen to stamp application and are handy when wanting to only stamp a partial sentiment. I have had them for over a year and have used them quite a lot and they are no where near drying out. I have a fair amount of Copics as well (about 80 markers) and love them as well but I don't think you can really compare them to Tombows as they are not the same medium at all. Versamark Onyx Black ink works well when using Tombows and doesn't bleed with water. I think they are a great marker to have!
This is an older thread, so maybe I shouldn't be asking my question here. Sorry if I am breaking the rules. I have recently purchases two small sets of Tombow brush markers and am wondering if I should store them horizontally, or vertically. Can someone help me please? thanks!!
Tombow Brush Pens & Markers
