Review: Arrtx Simptap acrylic markers

Review sample provided by Arrtx

Arrtx is a company that sells art supplies and they have recently released new acrylic markers under Simptap product line. These SimpTap acrylic markers are in addition to other acrylic markers that Arrtx are already selling.

Price varies from USD 20 to 34 for a set of 24 markers. These markers are noticeably more affordable compared to the popular POSCA markers.

I guess the product name comes from the fact that you have to tap the back of the marker to push the ink out. This is actually quite a smart design because there are markers where you have to depress the market tip to get the ink out, and in that process you can damage the tip. With this design, the marker tip will not be damaged.

Shaking of the marker is still needed.

You just have press/tap the top valve once and ink will start flowing to the tip. Once the tip is wet, ink flow is pretty good.

The quality seems quite similar to POSCA paint markers which are also opaque. The main differences between Simptap and POSCA is SimpTap only has the brush tip while POSCA has nine types of tips, and POSCA has a total of 66 colours.

At the time of review, these markers are only available in a set of 24. And the markers does not seem to be sold individually so there's no way to replaced ones that are used up.

Colours on the cap are almost able to match the dried paint colours. You can also rely on the see through window on the marker body to see the actual ink colour.

The acrylic ink is reasonably opaque. The marketing mentions "sun-proof" but since there's no pigment information provided, we won't know how archival or fade-proof the colours will be without any thorough testing.

Colour selection could be better though. There's only one red and too many violets and purples. Having brown, skin tone and gray would be good.

As an urban sketcher, I like to use opaque markers to add details to my sketches because opacity of the ink is great for going on top of other colours. E.g. Adding those red dots using watercolour would be difficult unless I use opaque watercolour or gouache. Adding those details with opaque markers is way more convenient.

The box comes with an elastic band, and you can fold the cover back into the elastic band to prop up the box, making it easier to pick markers out of the box.

This was a sketch drawn with ink and coloured with markers. The brush tip is versatile and can be used on the side for covering large areas, and the point can be used to add details or paint in small areas. The ink is also opaque enough and could cover the black lines.

Ink dries quite fast to a matte finish except for the gold and silver colours. Acrylic ink does not have any smell.

Acrylic markers are paint markers so they can work with many types of surfaces.

I'm not sure if you can mix the colours. I probably won't want to try because I don't want to dirty the marker tips.

These markers work well and pricing is reasonable so these are markers I can recommend easily. Main downside is you can't buy specific colours individually. The other downside is the colour selection as mentioned above.

If you're interested to get the Arrtx Simptap markers, you can get them from the Arrtx online store | Amazon US | AliExpress

#arrtx #arrtxmarkers #arrtxsimptap

Update Nov 2024

Arrtx has added little caps for the push buttons on the back. I suppose the caps are there to prevent the buttons from being pushed accidentally. Anyway, those push buttons are already quite stiff so they are not easy to push, and these plastic caps fall off quite easily.