Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was surprised with how much I enjoyed using these markers. That being said, there are both pros and cons. Granted, this was my first time using markers for any kind for art, so I don't have anything elae to compare these to. Nor am I a fabulous artist. First, the colors! They're very vivid, and have some gorgeous shades in there. There's an adequate variety of orange/yellows, browns, pinks as well as reds. The variety of blues and greens is phenomenal, though I do think they went a bit crazy with the greens. There are so many of the greens that some shades barely have a difference and don't feel necessary. The skin tones are all on the paler end, so you're out of luck if you want a nice healthy olive skin tone without wandering into the realm of the darkish browns. Pretty satisfied with the greys, there are both cool and warm shades. Though I do wish the set came with an even lighter gray, I'll survive without it. The purples however are where I run into my first major complaint. There's a lovely light lavender shade and then four dark purples. Sadly there are no medium purples that I so sorely want for blending. The 'pale lilac' marker I suppose might be meant to be a mid purple, but it's too pink to really be of any use blending the cooler purples. I think this set definitely needs more purples. They do bleed. I've been using these in my sketchbook with 70lb paper, and they go through it like it's tissue paper. I just put a sheet of cardstock behind the page I'm working on and that solves that problem. They also spread a bit more than I expected. I keep having issues with the ink spreading embarrassingly outside the lines when I'm not careful. They blend fairly well. If you work quickly enough, you can get some pretty smooth transitions. The more shades of a color there are, the easier it is to find the right ones do those transitions (curse those purples!) I would definitely recommend sitting down and swatching all the colors. The caps aren't very accurate to what the colors look like once they dry on paper, and it's very handy to have the sheet nearby when trying to pick out what shades you need. The markers themselves are made well enough? The caps on the fine tips are a little difficult to get off, but not impossible, and I know at least they won't be drying out. The tips on the fine tips aren't all that fine. To get lines very thin, I generally use the edge of the broad tip and it seems to work better. For the casual artist who doesn't have the budget or desire to blow all their money on the fancier alcohol based markers out there, I think this is a fabulous choice.