Ohuhu Alcohol Marker Review
Ohuhu Alcohol Marker Review
In this review we take a look at the Ohuhu Alcohol Markers. Ohuhu reached out to me a few months ago and asked if I would like to review their markers, of course I was more than happy to do this. I know that I am very late to the party when it concerns reviewing the Ohuhu Markers, many wonderful reviewers have already reviewed them and so I hope that at this late stage I can add something of value to the Ohuhu Markers.
If you have been following The Art Gear Guide for a while, you will probably know that, for me personally, my medium combination of choice is markers and colored pencils. On the rare occasion that I get to do some artwork just for myself, eight times out of ten I will reach for my markers and colored pencils. I love the fast application of color that the markers provide and the amazing detail accomplished with the colored pencils.
For such a long time now, the industry standard when it comes to markers is the incredibly famous Japanese COPIC Markers, however, rather than COPIC rewarding their long term loyal customers, they are making life even more difficult for them. COPIC Markers are the most expensive on the market and the same is so for the ink refills available. Recently however, COPIC reduced the size of their Refills and kept the price pretty much the same, only a small reduction in price but not in line with the reduction of ink, I have completed my own review on this matter.
For about two years now I have been looking for a COPIC alternative at a much more affordable price point and in the last 6 months to a year, some of the markers currently in production are either on power with COPIC or incredibly close to regarding quality. Let’s see where the Ohuhu Markers fall in comparison to the industry standard markers, COPIC.
Ohuhu Marker Characteristics
the Ohuhu Marker barrels are round and lacquered white, this makes the pigment identifiers visually easy to recognise. Along the barrel is the company name printed in silver leaf “Ohuhu” followed by “Art Marker”. On either ends of the barrel where the lids connect to the barrel when closed, are clearly markers icons depicting the type of nib under that particular lid.
On the lids themselves, there are small protruding bits of plastic which are present to prevent the round barrels from rolling all over the desk or whatever surface you are using. On the very end of each lid there is an alpha numeric number which represents the pigment, as well as this the pigment name is also printed. Finally on the end of each lid where the pigment name is printed, the end is actually color coded to represent the color of the ink.
Ohuhu have really listened to their customers, more so than any other marker company I think at this time. As a marker artist, I much prefer the Brush nib and then the fine nib but I am not a huge fan of the chisel nib, however, there are a lot of marker artists out them that hate the Brush nib and prefer the chisel nib. So Ohuhu have made sure that they have all types of marker artists covered.
Ohuhu have provided three different types of nib combination markers for their customers, providing every artists with their perfect marker. They have provided a Brush and Fine nib combination which happens to be my personal favourite. The other two combinations are Fine and Chisel nib then Brush and Chisel, perhaps the most common of the three
One of the biggest issues with cheaper alternative markers to the COPIC markers is the quality of the Brush nibs, the fine and chisel nibs are pretty difficult to get wrong as they are ridged, although there are higher quality nibs in this line. Due to the flexibility of the brush nibs, I think they lend themselves to more wear and tear.
The Ohuhu Brush nib is without doubt one of the highest quality brush nibs I have used and I included the industry standard brush nib in that; I’d rather not continually refer to COPIC throughout this review as I prefer to just mention the company I am reviewing, but the Ohuhu are such high quality markers in my opinion, it is really difficult not to mention COPIC, but I will try.
The bags that the Ohuhu Marker sets come in are well made carrying devices, sometimes when cheaper type markers are sold they are sold with carrying bags that are not really fit for much, this is not the case with the Ohuhu canvas bags. Inside each bag there is a clear plastic sheet, this is a fantastic touch and something I have not seen any other marker providers do thus far. The sheet is used to place under the paper you are drawing on to prevent ink seeping through onto the next page.
Ohuhu Sets Available
As I have mentioned, Ohuhu have really listened to their customers and provided three nib combination markers to please all types of marker artist. This unfortunately means that there are a lot of sets accounting for the different nib combinations, I only say unfortunately as it can become confusing when purchasing. One thing I will advise and that is to make sure if you want the Brush and Fine Nib combination set of markers, that you double check before purchasing, the images for the sets all look very similar and you really need to make sure you read the product description, especially if buying from Amazon.
I have supplied a list of sets available from Ohuhu, however I have missed one or two sets off the list only because I didn’t want to over load you with sets. If you would like to view the full catalog of sets you can always check out the Ohuhu home page. Above is a grid showing all the sets available, I thought this would be a much easier method of displaying them all. Read the titles and any you like the look of simply click and you will get to see the set.
Ohuhu Color Set Palettes
There are obviously quite a lot of sets as you can see above, but I would just like to talk about the type of sets there are and one small issue I have with the sets or lack there of. For the most part, the sets comprise of what I would label traditional colors, which you will see in the images of the palette I have provided below.
However, where so many of the cheaper COPIC alternative sets had gone wrong in the past, in my opinion was the lack of light tones. In the COPIC color system there are a lot of incredibly light tones, which on white paper are incredibly difficult to see, nevertheless they are so vital for marker artists to preform light gradients, shading etc. This is what was lacking from the other brands however Ohuhu have provide an entire 48 set of just pastel tones. When Ohuhu reached out to me they sent me a 48 set of traditional colors, but there just wasn’t enough of the right colors for me to provide artwork and so I purchased the 48 Pastel tones.
Ohuhu also provide Skin Tone sets, a 36 and 24 count of various nib combinations, of which the skin tone sets are equally important for portrait artists and manga artists. However, the one group that is missing from the sets is a set of Greys. There are Greys in some of the other sets and the larger the set size the more greys you get. For example, in the 48 set I received there was a 0.0 Cool Grey, Cool Grey 4 and a Cool Grey 7, then there is a Warm Grey 1 and a Black. As you can see not a lot of greys but of course it was only a small set of 48, which is the reason why I had to borrow a few greys from my other marker sets for the particular artwork I completed. I do think that Ohuhu should consider adding a set of Greys
Ohuhu Marker Performance
I was also fortunate enough to have received one of the Ohuhu marker pads and it was in this that I completed the swatch. As you can see from the images below, the first two images are from the 48 set of what I would call traditional colors, the remaining image is the 48 pastel tones which I purchased myself.
I briefly spoke about the brush nibs that Ohuhu have used and in my opinion they are of the highest quality. the brush nib tapers into a thin point making it easy to perform detailed and thin strokes. With the Ohuhu Brush Nibs there are also reversible, which means that after a time of using your Ohuhu markers, if the brush nib should maybe fray or lose its point, you can simply remove and reverse the nib providing you with what is essentially a brand new brush nib.
If you head across to my YouTube video review of the Ohuhu markers you will get to see the blending test that I conducted, it is best to watch the test and see the results yourself. I conducted this test in the Ohuhu marker pad and the controlled flow of ink from the markers makes blending effortless, there was little to no streaking. Occasionally when blending or just filling in an area with cheaper inks or dyes, streaks will be visible and this might make the process a little bit more difficult to achieve a flawless blend or coverage.
With the artwork I completed using the Ohuhu Markers I absolutely loved using them. Sometimes I talk about ink flow and what I mean by this is occasionally cheaper types of markers will practically spill the ink onto the paper or the opposite is true and the nibs are dry, requiring the artist to frustratingly work the markers vigorously. With the Ohuhu markers, the flow is perfect, not too fast nor not too slow and using the right paper permits you the time to blend the ink.
In the case of the artwork I provided, I completed this on Hahnemühle Bristol, which sports an incredibly smooth surface, but I will be doing my own in-depth review of the Hahnemühle paper collection very soon. In general, regarding the performance and quality of the Ohuhu markers I was unable to find fault
Ohuhu Pricing
When it comes to competing against the industry leader for markers, quality and price are the two fundamental issues artists will consider, I have already spoke about the quality and in this section I will leave the pricing up to you.
Before I provide the prices, I would like to give a little bit of perspective. The largest set that Ohuhu sell on their site is the 216 set, Brush and Chisel nib, if you wanted to buy 216 COPIC Sketch markers which also sport brush and chisel nibs, here in the UK you can buy a single COPIC Sketch marker for approximately £6 and that is quite cheap. In total you would be looking to pay £1,296, so now I will display the prices of the Ohuhu sets. I would like to say one thing before I do, when I am discussing words like cheap and inexpensive, I am using these words in context to COPIC prices. I wanted to highlight this as I am not saying that the prices listed for the Ohuhu markers are cheap, because for those of us who struggle week to week financially, £5 is a lot of money and could be the difference between food on the table or hot water for the week.
Its also worth noting that with the vast majority of marker companies, any marker sporting the brush nib is going to be slightly more expensive than the bullet and chisel nibs.
UK Prices
Here in the UK if you wanted to purchase any of the Ohuhu sets you would be expect to pay the following.
The largest 216 set of Brush and Chisel nib Ohuhu Markers would cost you approximately £149.99, a million miles away from £1,296. The Ohuhu 200 Fine and Chisel Set is £99.99 The Ohuhu 160 Fine and Chisel set £69.99, The Ohuhu 120 Brush and Fine set £89.99, The Ohuhu 120 Brush and Chisel set £89.99, The Ohuhu 72 Brush and Chisel set , The Ohuhu 48 Pastel Tone Set , The Ohuhu 48 Brush and Fine set £31.99, The Ohuhu 48 Brush and Chisel set £25.49 , The Ohuhu 36 Skin Tone Fine and Chisel Set £19.99, and finally The Ohuhu 36 Skin Tone Brush and Chisel Set £36.99
US Prices
In the US if you would like to star using these amazing Ohuhu markers and would like to pick up a set, you can do so at the prices below.
The Ohuhu 200 Fine and Chisel Set $89.99, The Ohuhu 168 Brush and Chisel set $119.00, The Ohuhu 160 Fine and Chisel Set $64.99, The Ohuhu 120 Brush and Fine Set $89.99, The Ohuhu 120 Brush and Chisel Set $72.49, The Ohuhu 72 Brush and Fine Set $49.99, The Ohuhu 72 Brush and Chisel Set $54.99, The Ohuhu 48 Pastel Brush and Chisel Set $36.49, The Ohuhu 48 Brush and Fine Set $34.99, The Ohuhu 48 Brush and Chisel Set $29.99 , The Ohuhu 36 Skin Tone Fine and Chisel Set $19.99, The Ohuhu 36 Skin Tone Brush and Chisel $34.99
As things currently stand I have no prices for the EU, Canada and Australia, as soon as I have collated them all I will add them to the review.
Ohuhu Marker Conclusion
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I am always on the look out for a genuine marker that can replace the COPIC markers, or at least offer the same level of quality. With the COPICs they have 356 colors which in all honesty can be incredibly overwhelming and can confuse artists especially those new to markers. For me personally, providing the right balance between high, mid and dark tones is met, a 150 set or 200 set of markers is perfect.
I look for the type of nib on offer, the quality of the brush nib if it is present, the total number of colors, there has to be a good selection of greys and skin tone and of course those light or pastel tones. Ohuhu have it all and more.
COPIC only offer a brush and chisel combination as well as a fine and chisel combination. Ohuhu offer both those combinations but they also offer Brush and Fine, the holy grail for all marker artists. In my opinion, I would go as far as saying that if Ohuhu can provide a good separate selection of greys, I would consider them superior to COPIC. I know this is a huge claim but I have laid out the reasons why I feel this to be the case.
If you would like to watch the other elements of the review, you can do so by following the relevant links. You can watch the Ohuhu YouTube Review where you can also watch the blending ability of the markers. I have also provided a speed drawing of the Charlie Brown and Snoopy artwork along with a page here on The Art Gear Guide displaying images taken from the artwork at various stages of completion.
If you are reading this review before October 1st 2021, follow the link to take part in winning a brand new 144 set of Koh-I-Noor Polycolor
