Buying for someone artistic this year?

Copic has 5 gift ideas under $55 to inspire artists, mentor beginners and organize well established collectors of Copic markers.

Our Comic Illustration DVD will provide tips for turning your pencil drawing into an inked image with depth. From here you can color your image traditionally with Copic markers, or follow along with Travis as he demonstrates coloring an image with our airbrush system and shares his masking techniques. A great summary of the process involved in taking an illustration from start to finish.

A set of 4 refillable inking pens is a great idea for touching up stamped images and lining fashion and product design, as well as for anime creation. The 4pc set of black lining pens comes in 2 sets, each with different sizes of nibs. Not sure what width this artist will need? Try them all out in our MLB2 disposable set of 8, also under $55. (0.35 is the only size not available in our disposable bodied pen).

For someone starting out, our Ciao, basic 12 set of markers is great. The Ciao markers are two sided markers, have our flexible super brush tip on one end, and are refillable. This is a gift that will stay useful for years to come. Over 140 colors are available in this style of marker.

Our Copic Block Stand holds up to 36 markers, fits Sketch, Copic and Wide style markers, and is stackable. This guy makes for easy scanning of colors and access to just the marker you need. This is a great tool for people who have too many markers to keep track of otherwise!

I was working on this poster yesterday for our stores and I thought I’d share it here. Surprisingly, many people don’t realize that all of our markers are refillable. This means you can save a ton of money on markers in the long run. If you are using any of our marker types (Copic, Sketch, Ciao, Wide) then the below chart will show you how many refills you can get from one bottle of Various Ink. They are available in all 334 colors. If you are using Ciao, Copic or Wide (which don’t come in all colors) you can buy the empty markers and fill them with any color you like.

Getting a refillable marker that is high quality and has as many color options is tough. If you are switching over to Copic’s, hopefully you already know about the refill-ability of our products. Don’t forget our Mulitliner SP Ink Pens are refillable too.  Make sure you recycle your old pens when they dry out. If you are looking for something interesting to do with them, I came across this article on diylife.com on “15 Uses for Old Pens“. Also check out the Pen Guy. He is trying to collect 1 million empty pens. He is putting together pen recycle stations and distributing them in the California area. I’d be interested to see more of these around. According to this article, Bic sold it’s 100 billionth ball point pen in 2005. If you laid that many pens end to end it would circle the earth 348 times. That’s nuts.