At the time I purchased these colorless blenders I was coloring using coloring pencils. I was looking for a product that would blend (smoosh) the colors together. I came across these blenders and read some reviews that these would do the task. Disappointingly these blenders did not do the job I bought them for. I found them to be pretty useless at blending Prismacolor Scholar pencils. However, at the time of developing my interest in coloring I developed an interest in using Copic markers. Wow are they expensive. I color with Copic markers the way a child colors with Crayola markers. May be Copics aren't meant for amateurs like me, and I'm an artist wannabe, but who cares I like Copic markers! Anyway, if you are a heavy marker user you start to realize that to keep up with the high demand in ink usage, you need to buy ink refills.

So you're wondering where on earth is this review going? Eventually I abandoned Prismacolor pencils as my main medium for coloring, and instead I use them as accents or to add detail to my Copic coloring. As my Copic marker and ink collection started to grow, then I realized I can use the colorless blenders on Copic markers. I found that the colorless blenders did not blend the markers very well, and then read somewhere or heard on a YouTube video that they aren't good for that purpose. I found that these colorless blenders are very good at pushing small amounts of Copic color into the page to hide small mistakes, they create certain effects with the ink, and one more thing, I put some ink refill onto the colorless blenders to make my own colors. So I have kept one marker unadulterated, and I have added ink to the other two to create two different colors.

The colorless blenders aren't cheap, but they are very versatile, and they might work (though not for me) on your coloring pencils and smoosh the colors together.

The media could not be loaded. By no means am I a marker expert. However, after doing some research and watching many online reviews, I figured the medium might work pretty well with my art style. These markers were one of the most affordable alcohol brush markers I could find.

What I like about these markers:

I had these markers sent all the way to New Zealand and none of them were dry or damaged. I absolutely love the design. It's clean, smooth, and appealing. I love the logo. They're light and feel nice in my hand.

They are refillable!!! So I don't have to buy the set again, and I can replace the nibs. This is excellent for such an affordable brand.

The flexible, but firm, brush nib allows one to cover larger areas and sneak in small details. The chisel nib is reasonably wide for broad strokes, but the brush nib can do it all with less streakiness.

The less saturated colors are lovely. They layer well on marker paper. You can make new colors easily by coloring over a color you've already put down. Blending is a bit tricky, but doable"”and I understand this is a common characteristic of alcohol markers. They work well with other mediums (colored pencil, inking pens, gel pens).

Things to be aware of:

The blending marker doesn't work very well (I've just used it to create lighter versions of some of the brighter colors by putting the tips together). You will have to layer with the colors you're trying to blend.

No color codes on the barrels either. I am secretly paranoid that I'm going to mix them up because of this. And I haven't noticed if the cap colors are generally inaccurate. I think some may be a bit off, but no specific marker comes to mind at present. Not a huge deal though. Might update if I notice any more.

I've seen that some reviewers on Youtube dislike the octagonal shape because it makes it harder to pop the caps back on, but honestly I haven't had this issue. The flattest side is easy to feel. I pop them on and off without realizing. I do wish that the caps could snap to the opposite end because, even if they can't roll, they can get accident knocked off a table.

Also, I reeeeaally wish this set had more variety. Some of the colors are almost indistinguishable from one another, and are absolutely achievable by layering and blending other colors (RP198 and R5 look the same to me!). I wish these similar, saturated colors were replaced with pastels or natural tones. I really want a nice, bright cyan, a peachy tone, a darker blue, just...more blues, and more purples!! (I'm also kicking myself that I didn't get the blue and skin tone sets!!)

Summary:

Overall, I really like these markers. They are easy to use and work wonderfully with other supplies. I have tried other cheap and mid-range supplies that have entirely put me off of other mediums, (*cough*Reeve's Gouache*cough*), but the quality of Art n' Fly markers makes me inspired to create. The company's customer service has also been pleasantly responsive so far. For now, I think they're a great copic alternatice for students and hobbyists. Definitely worth the spend if you can't find cheaper, quality brush markers.

Good for price

I love to work with these pens during my alcohol ink adventures. They work very well.

Art-n-Fly 48 marker set

Pros
- [ ] no bad/ strong smell
- [ ] comfortable in hand, nice looking barrel
- [ ] both ends are nice to color with, they're smooth
- [ ] they blend and layer well
- [ ] the box has little dividers which keeps the markers up right and make them easy to keep in order if you choose
- [ ] fast shipping
- [ ] I've contacted customer service once before purchasing, and they are both helpful and nice
- [ ] PLAIN GOOD MARKERS!!!

neutrals (facts but not dealbreakers!)
- [ ] caps don't match ink, this isn't a big problem, but it does throw me off sometimes, even with a color swatch sheet (which I highly recommend that you make) (Image 1)
- [ ] they do seem to make caps that match the colors, they're just on the wrong markers (Image 2)
- [ ] the ink is spilled in some of the caps, its bound to happen with alcohol based markers
- [ ] some of the nibs were bent (Image 3)
- [ ] the colored plastic at the top of one of my markers broke (Image 4)

cons
- [ ] TOO MANY REPEATING COLORS; at least three of the browns are VERY SIMILAR, and their caps do not match the color AT ALL. Based on the caps you would expect to get something along the lines of a red brown (93BR), a sienna (BR97), a caramel (100BR), and a sand(BR101), but no; you get a bunch of similar dark browns. (Image 5)
- [ ] this also happens with BG255 and GY167, Y38 and GY173, while I understand that they are somewhat different, I think that they could have easily been left out and replaced with colors like a dark blue and dark green.

Overall, I was really excited to get these markers and expand on my small collection. They are fun and easy to use. The only thing that I wish this marker set didn't have was such a large repetition of the same colors. I feel a little cheated having 3 similar browns, 2 greens, and 2 yellows. In addition to this, while these ALCOHOL BASED BRUSH MARKERS are about $1.66 each, an amazing deal for brush markers, I think that the price should be knocked down at least $5 for the repeating colors.
OVERALL, would recommend these to anyone looking to start their marker collection.