Master Marker

• New for 2016
• Have a chisel nib and a brush nib
• only availably in sets
• 157 colors

This new marker from the US is called the, not to impressive name, Master Marker. I normally associated that kind of name with something very cheap. And the markers are very cheap indeed. Even with expensive shipping to Sweden they still are among the cheapest marker I ever had. There are some things were the price is reflected but with that said these markers also pleasantly surprised me!

Master Marker

I own the whole collection of Master marker, mainly because the shipping to Sweden, where I live, was ridicules expensive and the difference between buying a 24 set and all of them was very small. It is interesting to have a full collection and see how the color collection actually looks. 

The chisel nib

The brush nib

The reason I wanted these pens were because they offer a brush nib on one side and a chisel nib on the other. That is my favorite combination. I also like that they have a unique barrel. They are much longer than the average marker.

Master Marker case

The set

At the moment (spring 2017) you can only buy Master Markers in either 24 sets (there are four sets available, that overlap each other) or in an 80 set. There are also sets of three but only for black and colorless blender (and you get either of them). The 80 sets come in two different 80 set. The primary set (A) and the secondary set (B). They have however distributed all the colors so that the two sets are very evenly in kind of colors. You get approximately as many greens, blues, red and so one in both sets. If you want all colors, you buy both set A and B. The full set is 157 unique colors and three duplicates: Black, blender and Slate (314). The 80 set comes in a nice plastic case. 

Set A and B

A couple of things that reflects the price

A typical cheap marker sign is that there are two different blue colors that bear the same name, in this case: sky blue. One is lighter and they have different numbers (144 and 76). It really just feels sloppy.

The brush nib is not the worst I have used by no means, but it is certainly not the best brush nib either. It is quite hard but becomes flimsy after some use. I can tell that they might not hold their whole lifetime if you only use the brush side.  The chisel nib is very good though.

The colors

A full set of 157 colors is more than most brands offer. Therefore, there are also a very good variety of colors. Since I live in Sweden, a set of good Caucasian skin colors is always appreciated, and surprisingly rare among a lot of brands. Master Markers have a lot of different tints and shades that are perfect for all kind of skin colors. They are a bit heavy on the green side in my opinion, and it is among the greens I found most colors that just look too much alike. I think that some of the greens could have been exchanged to some more blues. Most collections have a good variety of blues (which  is important because blues comes in so many hues) but Master Marker is lacking somewhat on that front considering the vast range of colors they have. With that said I feel that you will get a good set of colors. A really good thing is that they have all values in all main colors. You get very dark, medium and very light colors. 

Master Marker color chart on paper from Letraset

Master Marker color chart on paper from X-press it 

The Grays

All in all, Master marker have 17 different grays. 8 warm grays, 7 cool greys and one green gray (with the number 5 which feels a bit random since it is the only green gray) and one blue gray (with the number 1). One of the things I always look for in grays is how the value scale looks. They should have the same hue and only change in value, but that is rarely the case. Master markers do have almost a perfect value scale for their warm and cool grays. There is a slight hue change in the warm grey 3, but I think I am being picky to bring that up!

In every sets of gray that I have owned, there have always been a couple of grays that are so close in hue and value that you really don´t need both of them. Master marker is no exception. Warm gray number 5 and 6 is very close and the green gray looks almost identically to cool gray 7. But utter than that I am very pleased with the grays.

The ink

Nothing is more important than the ink, to me at least. The ink isn´t as good as some more expensive markers, but it isn’t bad either. They blend well enough and depending on the paper they have almost no graininess. I have made two different color charts. One on thin layout marker paper (from Letraset), and one on thicker paper from (X-press it blending card). On Letraset’s marker paper the colors look really great, maybe not as vibrant as other more expensive brands, but still very good. On the X-press it blending card the colors became a bit grainy but I have seen much worse.

Color separation  

One color behaved a bit strange (but I have seen it before in other brands and in the exact same color). From a violet color called lavender (145) a pink separates itself and creates a ring around the color sample.

Note the pink ring around the sample

Conclusion

Even though, there are some things that I didn’t love about Master Markers, I don´t think you can get a better marker for the price. You really get much for your money.

Master marker

94 graphic marker mtn Montana colors

• New for 2016
• Have a chisel nib and a bullet nib
• Only availably in sets
• 34 colors 

I decided a couple of years ago to only buy new markers if they had a brush nib. There are so many markers out there that I had to limit my expenditure. These markers are an exception.  Montana’s MTN 94 graphic markers have a chisel nib and a bullet nib, so they shouldn't qualify, but consider the well-known brand and the quality look of the marker made me want them anyway. They have a really nice shaped barrel with a quality feel to it. To open and close the cap is like open and close a door on a nice car.

94 Graphic Marker MTN

Montana family

The colors match the spray paint range with the same name. On Montana’s website you can find the names of (some of) the colors, but on the barrel you have only a number that seems to be completely random. A couple of colors have two numbers, most have three and other has four. All colors expect for two starts whit the digits RV. Two of them, the black and a lilac start with R. The numbers are only on the cap, which is a pain to me that so often put the wrong cap on my markers.

The sets

12 set

So far they are only available in sets and if you are trying to collect all colors it is impossible not to end up with duplicates. They have three 12 sets: set 1 has eleven pastels and one blender, set 2 has ten grays, a blender and a black and the last set has eleven main colors and a black. If you buy the 24 sets you have different combinations of these three 12 sets. The case for the 24 set reminds me a lot about the old OTR markers and the case for the 12 set are very common among many brands.

24 set

The colors

94 Graphic marker color chart

There are 34 different colors, which is quite few for a marker brand, even a new one. Of the 34 two blue (or cyan) colors looks pretty much the same, number RV184 and RV245, one is from the pastel set and the other is from the basic or as it also is called: solid color set. In the gray set there are a lot of colors that looks more or less the same and the value difference is far to small.

The ink
So with all this said, it looks like a bad deal to buy them. For me, nothing is ever going to be more important than the quality of the ink. 94 Graphic markers have really good ink. Of course a brush nib would have helped with blending, but they blend beautiful anyhow. I was also surprised how much I could do with so few colors available. The ink is very clear and has no graininess (like white specks that is so common for many alcohol markers). They are very juicy. They bleed quite much which makes them easier to blend but a bit harder to control. I have to say that there is a huge difference between using them on marker paper than on a mixed media paper. On the marker paper they perform much better, which isn´t true for all markers.

94

The aging process of alcohol markers

If you are like me, you might want to have a lot of colors but may not use all of them that much. Some colors will be unused for months or even years. As an example, my bright green colors are seldom the most used colors but I might want them anyway (or get them in sets unwillingly).

If I compare markers to any other art material that I use, they are without a doubt the most sensitive to aging. Graphite and colored pencils are completely safe to store for a long time, and even watercolors and oil paint can hold for many years.

There are two main things that can happen to a marker over time (except for using the marker).

The first thing is that it dries. The cap may not be secure enough or the barrel might even let air in. The oldest markers I have (that I know for certain) are my old Tria Pantone from Letraset. I think that they stopped their cooperation with Pantone around 2007 so they are at least ten years old. The design of the Tria pantone, that now have become Winsor & Newton Promarker, have proven to hold the ink without any problem. However, I have had markers that dried out before I received them, so I feel that the problem of drying has more to do with the quality of the marker then the aging process. In a large time scale I guess that all markers will dry out, but since alcohol markers isn’t that old, we don´t know yet how long that will take.

The second thing is that the dye in the marker seems to loose its color over time. I bought my first Promarker 2008, in 2010 I bought my first Copic, and the following years I bought a lot of different markers. I luckily made a color chart of all the markers I had in 2011 so I can compare with them I have left. Some brands have undergone a great value and hue change. Other brands haven´t change at all.

It is mostly the skin-colors (the Caucasian skin color) and the grays (especially the warm gray) that have undergone a huge change. When the color is fading it is leaving a very light yellow tone or in some cases even more or less a blender. They can still be juicy. I went back to old drawing I have done in sketchbooks with the markers, but nothing has happened to the ink in the sketchbooks. The problems seem to happen in the barrel. 

Worst of all brands are Touch. I have some Touch in the old barrel (I think from two generations back) and interesting enough they had some changes but less then in the new barrel (from 2012). I bought the new one when they first where launched, and I guess some of them are from that year. Almost all my skin colors have lost more or less all saturation; they look light yellow or have hardly any color at all (read more here: http://markersguild.blogspot.se/2013/11/touch-twin-marker.html). There are a lot of other brands with the same problem. Some brands that I know haven’t had any changes over time are Kurecolor, Letraset and Neopiko. I write more about them on each and every brand in this blog. Of course, newer brands (and brands I haven´t had for long) have yet to prove whether or not they are prone to the same problem.

Spectra AD marker from Chartpak

• Twintip: One brush nib and one chisel nib

• 96 colors (including a blender)

• American marker 

• New for 2016

New alcohol based marker from Chartpak

I haven’t bought any new markers for a long time even though I have seen several markers that I do not own.  I am tired of poor quality markers and the disappointment that follows. However a new marker from Chartpak made me immediately interested. Chartpak is one of the companies that manufactured markers back when all markers where xylene based instead of todays standard alcohol based. They are the only company left that still produces a xylene-based marker, the so-called AD marker. AD marker is not a pleasure to use since the smell is very harsh, but it is a quality product. However the hope this being a quality marker started to fade when I opened the package and first saw the top of the markers. I thought they looked a bit like the cheap Finecolor marker but with a black barrel.

Different nib of Spectra

Good and bad

The nibs are good. On one side you have a brush nib that is flexible and on the other you have a bit different larger nib. It looks like an ordinary chisel nib (but a smaller one) and it is cut a little different. The ink however is quite bad. The blending ability is very poor; if you try to blend two colors together they never really blend, instead they look like it is one color on top of the other. Most of the colors look about the same when they are wet as when they have dried. Stone is one of the colors that I experience to change the most, more in hue then in value. 

Spectra, Promarker and Copic chisel nib

Plagiarism or loan

All color names correspond exactly to Blick Studio marker. And they also have 96 colors in their collection, just as Blick does. Even many of the colors them self look almost identically to Blick Studio markers. The warm gray have a lilac tone, just like Blick (I was so hoping that Spectra should have the same warm and in my opinion beautiful gray that AD marker, the xylene based one, has). The other grays also look identical to Blick’s grays. They also use procent instead of numbers for their gray, just like Blick (and Prismacolors). The similarity goes on. You have Taupe, Stone and Latte, three colors that you will find in both ranges. The problem is that they also look almost the same, which is a waste when they offer so few colors. Even if most colors look exactly the same as Blick´s colors there are exceptions. Beach, shell and light peach have a different hue then Blick. Unfortunately the ink quality seems to be the same as well. All colors are quite dull and flat looking. Even the barrel looks like the barrel of Blick Brush marker, (I do not own one of the Blick brush so I can not say for sure) but instead of white (like Blick brush marker is) it is black. 

Poor quality

Some of the caps don´t feel like they are firmly fit. They wobble a lot on the barrel. One of the markers had dried out when I received the markers. After a couple of months five more marker had dried and I didn´t even use them enough for that to happen.

Some of Spectras colors

Spectra