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mysticsparklewings · 5 years

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Ohuhu Brush Marker Review

Ta-da! A surprise addition to the supply test storm: Ohuhu Brush Markers! Ohuhu as a brand made waves (pun intended ) over the past couple years for having alcohol-based markers of pretty decent quality at exception prices; often working out to $0.50 or so per marker in the sets. However, I didn't cave in to the buzz and nice price tag for one reason: No brush tips, only a chisel and bullet tip, and I have a rule about not buying alcohol-based markers without brush tips unless the deal is so good that I can't possibly resist. The brush tip just means that much to me. And you know what? After hearing about them for so long I almost reconsidered. Almost. Then I heard through one of my favorite art Youtubers that Ohuhu was planning on bringing out brush-tip markers this year (2019) and I instantly went and followed Ohuhu wherever I could to make sure I got the official announcement as soon as it came out. Which ended up being a nice prank on myself because even as the announcements and initial launch rolled out, I still managed to miss the first US launch for the 48 set in June and had to wait until the restock in July before I could order them off Amazon. Like, the listing was completely gone after they sold out the first time. But I knew from all the reviews already flooding in on Youtube that the price was going to be as good as I was hoping: $34.99 for the 48 set, roughly $0.73 a marker, which is practically unheard of for brush tip alcohol markers that are still decent quality in terms of construction, ink, and the brush tips/nibs themselves. And then the irony depended because Ohuhu went on Instagram and surprised everyone by restocking a day early, on July 19th instead of 20th as originally planned. And by the time I went to order mine on the 21st, they were already back-ordered by a couple of days. But it's okay because we went on vacation and they were waiting patiently in the mailbox for me when I came back, so the extra waiting didn't totally kill me. (I can't let myself watch the toaster or printer while waiting for whatever it is to come out; anticipation just drives me crazy sometimes.) The set does come in a pretty nice and sturdy-feeling canvas zipper bag, which looks like the same bag a LOT of brandless Copic rip-off markers come in, at least from afar as I've seen some instances where in-person those bags are more of less sturdy nylon, cheapy fabric. And while I do like the bag, for the most part, my one issue is that there isn't really any way to contain the markers so that you can organize them a certain way and they'll stay in that order. And maybe that's not an issue for some people, but it is for me. I actually had to swatch these twice because I messed up a couple of swatches the first time because I got confused about which marker I was grabbing because of this issue. The set also comes with a plastic sheet curled around the inside of the case that's meant to be put under the page you're coloring on so the ink doesn't bleed through to the paper underneath, which I thought was a nice touch, but after being in the bag like that it will take some serious time to flatten it out to be usable. And lurking towards the bottom of the back is also a pre-made chart, which isn't super accurate for the colors, but I appreciated as it gave me an "official" order to put the markers in for swatching. (And if I end up putting them in a different storage system then that's the order I'll put them in there too.) Naturally, I did get to swatching straight away after opening them. And like some others that have way beaten me to the punch in talking about these markers, I agree that the set is lacking some really pale/pastel colors and some really dark/muted colors, but more so on the pastels. And for me personally it's also lacking some yellows (which is an unusual thing for me to say because I feel like a lot of art supply sets often give you too many yellows) as well as I could do with some more peachy/lighter skin tone colors and the browns in the set are all leaning a little on the warm side for me. Also, a colorless blender would be nice to have, but that can be supplemented with a plethora of choices from other brands, so I'm gonna let that slide. And, I mean, it feels fair to me since Ohuhu has like 120 colors in their non-brush tip markers, which I'm unsure if that includes a blender or not, but my point is that I'm almost positive this is just the first 48 colors and there will be more, and likely a "full" set to come, and a lot of other marker brands don't include the colorless blender unless you get the full set and you have to buy it separately anyway. Actually, thanks to a now much more watchful eye on their Instagram, I do know they plan to launch a 72 set in September with more colors, so that's a step towards my theory being correct. And for the record I haven't decided if I'm going to dive right into that set like I did this one or not, so I do already have 48 colors out of it, but it'll probably depend on how much the set costs (overall and per marker) and how soon it feels like (or if there's hard evidence of) when they're going to launch the next set size up, which will probably be 80 or 100 (but I'm betting more solidly on 100). But that has little bearing on the here and now, so back to the set I actually have on-hand. I ended up drawing this funky crab after not really know what to draw to put these to the test--as I haven't yet perfected making galaxies with my alcohol markers (and I also don't usually find that fair since you need a lot of transition shades in markers to make that work, and when I test markers more often than not I'm working with a smaller set that doesn't have a ton of colors to pick from for that), and the drawings for my marker tests really only have the requirements of there having to be some layering and blending involved to get a feel for how the markers handle that--and so as I usually do when lacking inspiration, I went to the internet. I was just scrolling through Twitter and happened upon this picture of a purple crab that I just really liked for some reason, and thus I decided to draw it. He was fun colors and just looked so cool and somewhat cute for a crustation that I couldn't resist! Plus, his colors worked for the assortment I had to work with and would give me plenty of opportunities to test blending and shading, as well as a little bit of texture work. My little underwater friend here doesn't look exactly like the reference photo, but I wasn't going for a 1:1, I was really going for the general idea/structure and some heavy stylization. Although I definitely could've stylized it even more, I like where this hits between realistic and stylized a lot. And originally I wasn't really sure what to do with the background and I changed my mind several times even while working on, but I like how it ended up turning out, even though I probably could've done a bit more to give it some more depth and dimension. But the crab does pop really well and stand out from the background very nicely this way~. (I also used a few tri-tone colored pencils in the darkest part of the seaweed/grass and on the bigger rocks and to cover the sky for a little more interest since as I mentioned I felt like I was lacking certain colors and I did want to do some fun things with the background without the crab blending in or the background taking over.) I have in the past used stippling/pointillism/dotted shading to ease the transition where I was having trouble before, and while the back-most of legs and gradient colors on the claws of the crab I started blending regularly and switched over for that reason, the rest of him wasn't giving me much trouble in trying to blend the colors and the stippling (or whatever you want to call it) was really more for the scaly/crab shell texture from the reference photo. I'm not really sure it translates into that texture properly, but at the very least it does look pretty cool in the final product. And I like the mostly unintentional juxtaposition of the dots on the crab next to the dots/texture for the sand/rocks he's standing on. And I have to say that, though I did kind of except thing since the brush tip makes my life with markers in these departments infinitely easier, they did blend and layer quite well. While I was pretty happy with the selection of purples in the set, I was a little concerned about getting the right tones that I wanted, especially how some areas on the crab are a very vibrant purple with a blue-ish undertone. But lightly layering one of the light blues over the purples worked that out better than I was expected it to. I've had some minor issues in the past with marker layers looking very obvious--like you can see the two or three colors trying to separate out on top of each other--but these don't seem to have that issue, which is great! And when the colors are in the right range/family, they do blend very easily into a smooth transition, which is also good news; the key is just having the right colors. The only thing I'm really worried about with these markers is the brush nibs, surprisingly. They're pretty similar in feel to a Copic marker, but I noticed they do have a bit more of a spongey/foam texture, which is not a bad thing by itself. The problem is that I've heard tell of a few people heavily using their markers (and keep in mind the markers have only been out for roughly two months at this point) and the nibs have already started to collapse/fray on them. I didn't have any issues while I was working on this drawing or swatching, but my markers are brand-new and I haven't used them much yet. Plus, I'd heard about these issues before getting mine, so I was intentionally gentle and careful so I won't be speeding up the degradation process. To be fair, even Copic and other high-quality alcohol marker brush nibs can and will degrade after so long and so much use, but one of the reasons you don't hear good things about the Artist Loft markers from Michael's and other cheap Copic knock-offs like them is because the nibs often just don't hold up for very long at all. I've barely touched the 6 set of those that I have and most of the brush nibs are already collapsing. Ohuhu has made this potential burden a little bit easier by making their nibs dual-sided; meaning if the exposed brush tip starts to fray or collapse, as long as you catch it before it's too far gone, you can pull the nib out, flip it around and stick it back in and you have a fresh one. I can't say I've ever seen a feature like that before in markers, and it's honestly a really cool idea to me, as it saves you having to buy a new replacement nib--or new marker of replacement nibs aren't available--at least once. The other downside is though that Ohuhu, at least right now, doesn't sell replacement nibs for when both sides of your existing one are gone. Granted, depending on how much you use them and how careful you are, this may not be a huge issue as the nib may only end up lasting about as long as the ink inside the marker and you'd need to buy a new marker anyway because they're not refillable. (Yet). Except the catch there is the markers aren't available individually/open-stock. Yet! Here's the thing, again like with the colors, I'm hesitant to put the nibs and the refill inks and the open-stock things as nails in Ohuhu's coffin just yet because this is just the first set of the brush markers they've released. And even more so, they built up the colors available for the original markers over time and, at least seemingly, made the brush tip versions after everyone kept saying that's what would make the markers better, that that was what they wanted. People asked Ohuhu for brush tips, and it did take some time, but they made them. (And I honestly have no way of telling if they made the markers by popular demand or if they were planning on making them anyway and just hadn't gotten around to it until now, but I'd like to assume better of Ohuhu as a company and say it was by popular demand.) And thus my theory is that if enough people mention and ask about things like replacement nibs, refill inks, and being able to buy the markers open-stock, then give them enough time and they very well might deliver on that like with the brush tips in the first place. We just don't know enough to say for certain if those will be a thing or not right now. At least in my opinion. So overall, I'd say the Ohuhu markers are definitely worth the price and especially if you're new to alcohol markers and want brush tips, I'd give them a try. I really wish these had been around a couple of years ago when I was first dipping my toes into this medium because they're not as ludicrously expensive as other options but are still good quality. They may have their shortcomings right now, but those things could very easily change and in that case, they'll be an even better value for the price. Honestly, I really am happy to have these in my collection and I'm looking forward to using them more. And with that, I shall leave you and the crab whatever your thoughts might be on the Ohuhu markers ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

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