Hello fellow artist
Each year I gift myself some art supplies as a combined birthday (Dec 2) and Christmas present. My goal is to learn some new art skills over the following year.
Last year it was oil pastels and this year I decided on alcohol markers.
Any tips before I buy something?
What brand do you recommend? What paper should I use? Are there additional supplies that you’d say are a must have addition?
What kind of projects are you using alcohol markers for?
Tagging @gozer our resident alcohol marker expert 
Thank you!
I like the Ohuhu markers. They’re a midline brand (not super cheap and crappy, but not the super expensive copic markers either) with great coverage, a ton of colors, and reasonable pricing. I highly recommend getting a small set to see if you like them before investing in a ton of markers.
I LOVE the look of alcohol markers for coloring things and drawing. You can get some beautiful depth. However. They are not lightfast. Anything you make with them will likely eventually fade or dull, some colors faster than others. So I use them for cards or art I intend to scan to make a print of.
For paper, I’ve used them on regular card stock, mixed media paper, watercolor paper, yupo, and vellum. You can scribble with them on yupo/plastic, give a spritz of isopropyl alcohol, and create color blends and effects like alcohol inks. Two things to note: they dry QUICK (which is good and bad. And they tend to bleed through most papers (other than Yupo) so always have a backing sheet of plastic behind the paper you’re working on.
I’m sure Gozer will have a ton to add to this! She’s the alcohol marker queen.
Straight drawing is all about the paper. Make sure you get marker paper or you wont get the blend. Marker paper has a layer that delays the absorption a bit so you can work on the surface before it soaks in.
I am a huge Copic girl, but you want to make sure you love the markers before you invest that much on them. @LovelyMiss might have something to add. She is amazing with the markers!
I concur with everything @Tapestry and @gozer said!
I also like Copic, and probably wouldn’t start there. They are $$$. They are refillable, and the nibs are replaceable, so you can reuse the barrel forever, so I think if you love alcohol markers they can be a worthwhile investment. But they’re kind of a unique medium that has a learning curve, so I see a lot of people lose interest.
To start, I picked up a pack of Blick alcohol markers on sale, tried them, and liked them enough that I quickly upgraded. I would probably recommend trying a different brand than Blick. I liked the ink and coverage, but a few tended to leak.
I like to use the Strathmore cold press smooth watercolor paper. It’s totally biased and about personal preference, though. It’s just the paper I had when I was learning, so the techniques I developed and continue to use were based on that paper! I dabble with others, but go back to that one over and over.
My favorite tool is the colorless blending marker. I do not use it as advertised. 
I go hard with it and that’s how I get a lot of the effects I like and want.
I have only really used them to draw and ink art and then scan it. I have bottles of alcohol ink that I’ve used for other things, like making coasters and inking on non-porous surfaces.
Well now I’m dying for a mini tutorial on how you use your blender! I confess to almost never reaching for the two blender markers I have.
@Tapestry, @gozer, @LovelyMiss thank you so much!
That was so much useful information. I’ve looked at copic markers some time ago but they seemed a bit pricey. I think I might go for Ohuhu. I’ve seen those in lots of videos and kind of already looked in that direction.
There a different tips available. What do you use? I like the concept of brush tips, but I had some cheap hand lettering markers and they frayed really fast.
This is the starter set I got (which is probably more colors than most starters but I’m a color-bug and love having lots of options to play with):
And if your in the market for some nice liner pens, I really love this set from Ohuhu as well (I use them contantly):
https://a.co/d/io9V9tD
As for tips, I prefer a bullet nib or fine point over a brush, but that’s just me.
Annnnd after my starter set, I saved up and got these:
https://a.co/d/8VXXx2B
If there’s a craft resale shop near you, you could see if they have any alcohol markers. And many art stores sell individual markers so you could just get a couple.