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Reorganise your day with the Eat & Create set: With Mepal Lunch Box & Bullet Journal for free - for your creative break
€29.90
There are both water-based and alcohol-based brush pens and markers.
Water-based pens are significantly less odor-intensive. But they also have other advantages: Their ink does not bleed through on most types of paper. Water-based inks are therefore suitable for bullet journaling. If you use inks that do not bleed through, you can also draw or write on the next page in most cases.
Water-based ink can be divided into ink with dyes and ink with pigments. The advantage of water-based inks with dyes, such as the ABT Dual Brush Pens, is that they are ideal for watercoloring. For watercoloring, we recommend the use of Watercolor paper. Water-based inks with pigments, such as our Fudenosuke, are water-resistant after drying and are therefore suitable for outlines.
Alcohol-based colors are waterproof, so there is usually a very wide range of different shades - a separate pen for each shade. However, alcohol-based colors can be layered on top of each other by layering different shades of a color family. For alcohol-based pens, it is also advisable to use special paper that absorbs the color as little as possible and is coated accordingly to prevent the color from bleeding through. The advantage of alcohol-based pens is that there are no unpleasant dark edges when coloring in large areas.
I get perfect, very smooth results with alcohol-based pencils because there are hardly any smudges, structures or streaks. I also like to combine watercolors and go over them again with a brush pen.
Chen-Long Chung, Manga-ka und Illustrator
Oil-based markers are perfect for outlines
Oil-based colors like the MONO twin are waterproof and smudge-proof. The pen is therefore ideal for robust outlines and contours and in combination with colored brush pens. The pen dries very quickly and the oil base means it adheres to metal, wood, stone, ceramic, plastic and fabric, for example. (Note: MONO twin is not suitable for writing on CDs).
Do you want to create a sweeping stroke that resembles a brushstroke? The tip of the pen determines the result. Brush pens combine the advantages and characteristics of pens and brushes. With their flexible brush tip, you can write or paint dynamically and it feels like a brushstroke. This is great for hand lettering, for example. But brush pens also have the advantages of a pen: the colour (or ink) is integrated into the barrel. This allows you to draw and write evenly without smearing.
Felt-tip pens with two tips have the great advantage that you can use the pen for different techniques in exactly the same colour. If you want to write as well as draw or paint, you only need one pen. With Tombow, all pens share a common ink tank. This means you can never run out of one tip before the other.
