Review: Shinhan TOUCH TWIN Brush Markers

Shinhan TOUCH TWIN Brush markers are made by South Korean art manufacturer Shinhan Art. These are good alternatives to the popular Japan-made Copic markers.

The markers can be bought individually or in sets (from 3 to 60 in a box). Individually, each marker is priced around US $4 - $8 depending on where and who you buy from.

At the time of this review, Dick Blick (USA) has each Shinhan TOUCH marker at US $7.50 and each Copic marker at US $5.85 (discounted). Jackson's Art (UK) has Shinhan TOUCH marker at US $4.40 equivalent. Here in Asia, stationery supplies are more affordable. As you can see there's a big price difference depending on the seller. Anything above US $5 for a marker is expensive in my opinion.

Ink refills and replacement tips are available though to reduce the overall cost of using the markers though. Having said that, it's still best to get markers that you can purchase locally so that they are easier and cheaper to replace.

There are two variations of the Shinhan TOUCH TWIN markers. There's the TOUCH TWIN and the TOUCH TWIN Brush. TOUCH TWIN has a black body and features chisel and bullet tip. TOUCH TWIN Brush has the white body and features chisel and brush tip. You can choose the tips you want depending on the type of art you create.

There's a total of 204 colours available for the Shinhan TOUCH TWIN markers.

The markers have flat surfaces so they don't roll on the table.

The Shinhan markers are larger than the Copic Ciao and Copic Sketch markers.

Cap cannot be posted.

Selling point of the Shinhan marker is the brush tip.

The other end is the chisel tip. Both tips are labelled on the body so that you know which tip is which.

For this review, the markers were tested on 180gsm bristol paper. The markers should work better on marker paper which I do not have.

The colours are vibrant. Since these are alcohol markers, the ink dries instantly. Laying with colours is easy. The strokes above were drawn with the chisel tip and the individual strokes can still be seen clearly.

Creating areas of flat colour is easier with the brush tip. The line art above was drawn with SketchINK, a waterproof fountain pen ink.

The alcohol based ink works great on water-soluble ink too. The alcohol does not react with the water-soluble ink. There's no feathering.

There's also minimal smell.

The markers work great over pigmented inks from fineliners or multiliners. Make sure the ink is completely dry first otherwise the ink could smear. This applies to any ink you use with pens.

The downside to markers is they can get expensive when you get more colours. That's why I prefer using watercolour because you can mix a huge variety of colours with just 3 primary colours.

And since these are alcohol based markers, the ink is likely to bleed through the paper, even thick paper. When colouring, it's best to place a piece of paper beneath to protect other pages. If you use the markers in sketchbooks, you can use only one page.

Conclusion

The Shinhan TOUCH TWIN Brush markers perform really well. They perform similarly to Copic markers.

Whether they are worth the money will depend on the price. Do factor in the price of the ink refills, replacement tips and shipping cost.

Availability

You can find these markers and more reviews at Dick Blick (USA), Jackson's Art (UK)