Akashiya Fude Brush Pen Sai, 20 Color Set (CA200/20V)

I'll get the bad out of the way first: It's a rather odd mixture of colours - I suppose that, in 20, they're trying to give an all-round selection.It's better than others where you have to buy a "summer colour pack" and an "architectural colour pack" and a "designer colour pack" - so you end up with the colours you need but have 4 lots of about 6 colours (duplicated across all the packs).So this is only a MINOR quibble.Now the good:The brush-pens are about 6 or 7 inches long and about 1/4 inch diameter. The brush tip is an inch long taper from about 1/8 inch at the base to a fine and strong (as in, it keeps its shape well) tip.I'm not sure I'd use them to lay down a large sky wash but they are gorgeous for lightly starting trees and bushes, even a lake area, and then water-brushing the colour away from the stroke to make the delicate colours we love in watercolour.These are bloody fantastic! The colour goes on smoothly and cleanly. Bright and vibrant colours.Then you can brush over them with a water-brush pen and the colour softens and flows superbly - that rich colour becomes a translucent beauty on the paper.For the price of them, they are truly great fun to use. A small quibble might be that the first lay-down of colour can "stain" some thinner and cheaper papers (so that when you water-brush them you do have a darker brush colour than stays where you originally started)I don't mind that - if you start with a long stroke around a shadow area then brush out from that you end up creating a beautiful translucent highlighted area with the original starting stoke still being the shadow area. I'd suggest not using a paper that is too absorbent - the initial colour stroke might stay behind a little too strongly absorbed.They arrived from Japan in a padded box, very speedy delivery (especially for end-of-year time).I strongly urge you to try them - the price is decent and they are surprisingly good!

Fair price and fair delivery time, and these brushpens are beautiful! Super easy to use and gives beautiful watercolour effects.The range of colours is limited to only 20 but I find them sufficient, you can mix colours and they blend nicely. The colour might be a bit harder to "shift" if the paper is dry and the brushpens can soak up water instead of laying down colour if the paper is too wet, but I don't like working with very wet paper so I just slightly dampen the area I work with and it goes wonderful. To be honest if you are used to working with very wet swatches then you might as well just get a water colour palette instead.They are great for quick drawings, with intense colours which do fade out nicely when diluted. The brush is made of bristles rather than some other brands' brush shaped felt-tips, which are really nice to work with, allows great control.When I did art in school, I never liked working with watercolours, simply they never work for me, but these worked amazingly. It gives me confidence in watercolours again. So if you have problems using watercolour palettes, these are great for you to start with.The picture is my 3rd time using them, after not drawn anything for 5 years....

have recently wanted to get into japanese style watercolour and ink techniques. My daughter bought me these as a birthday present. They are phenomenal.It's immediately obvious that they are different to western watercolour colours, but this just makes the more interesting. Do bear in mind that these are essentially water brushes, filled with watercolour medium. They are both vibrant and subtle at the same time (how do they do that?) and are an absolute joy to work with. `i am fervently hoping that, once they run out, refills are available, or I'm going to be able to refill them myself with my own diluted watercolours, since the brush heads are second to none for detailed and more 'open' work. I am thrilled to have come across these. Beautifully packaged and a nice note from the seller, offering to source any Japanese product `i might want. And, believe me, there will be a lot, since I've come to realise that Japan is streets ahead of any other country in the quality and range of their art products. Absolutely delighted!

Pens are amazing, shame I was only sent 19 instead of 20

Updated 16/1/2016A good selection of colours, which are water soluble. Neat, the colours are quite strong and blend nicely with or without water. The yellow and light pink are almost fluorescent so a little goes a long way. To get translucency from the paper on a line drawing or stamped image you only need a little colour round the edge in the shadow areas pulled out with the brush - only a thin line with deep colours produces a nice effect.Interestingly these Japanese pens state 'made in China' in small letters on the bottom right hand side of the back of the packet, so it's a Japanese company but the pens are manufactured elsewhere apparently. There is a company website so Google it if you're curious.I now also own six Zig Clean Colour real brush pens and the two brands play nicely together and with other watercolour dye based markers. This means that you can get colours that you feel you can't get by without. These Akashiya Sai pens are an economical way to start a collection. The Zig pens are more expensive but can be purchased individually at reasonable cost from UK online pen specialists. It's cheapest and more interesting to get mixing though, so dig out your palette, tile, old CD, laminated sheet or some other resistant surface .I can't comment on the light fastness of the colours but I've heard it's not great. I've drawn and painted on acid free cold pressed watercolour paper in an album and so the drawings are rarely exposed to light.If you have Tombows' or other watercolour markers (I have Letraset Aquamarkers) you probably don't need the Akashiya Sai... but they are a joy to use and hard to put down.

Die Stifte sind wunderschön! Gerade die hellen Farben heben sich deutlich von anderen Filzstiften ab, da sie wirklich hell und zart sind. Mit diesen kann man gleichmäßig ausmalen, sie drücken kaum durch und machen keine streifige Optik. Nach einem Jahr sind sie nicht ausgetrocknet. Ich habe inzwischen eine weitere Packung gekauft und verschenkt.

Diese Pinsel wirken wahre Wunder. Lassen sich mit Wasser wie typische Wasserfarben beeinflussen, aber mit ungleich sättigender Wirkung. Mir macht es sehr viel Spaß mit diesen wahren Wunderpinseln zu malen und zu vermalen. Man muss sich erst an die unglaubliche Farbkraft gewöhnen - aber hat man das einmal im Griff, kann (fast) nichts mehr schiefgehen. Absolut empfehlenswert!

Ich liebe diese Pinselstifte. Ausgerüstet mit einem Wassertankpinsel kann man praktisch überall damit Auqarellieren oder aber auch die Stifte unverdünnt zum Farbauftrag nutzen. Die Farben leuchten und sind sehr kräftig. Der Stift nimmt gut Wasser auf aber man kann auch erst nach dem Farbauftrag mit Wasser rüber gehen. Wer ein wenig Ahnung mit Aquarell hat sollte mit diesen Stiften kein Problem haben :)

こちらの冬をお試しに購入しました！大人の塗り絵で試し塗したのですが色塗り下手な私でもそこそこ綺麗に塗れました！直接塗るのも良いですが、筆に水を含ませて塗ると色を薄めたり、グラデできたりいろいろできます！水筆とかもあると便利かもです！

Il prodotto rispetta le aspettative ma c è qualche difficoltà nel sfumare i colori forse con la pratica sarà più semplice....non so