 Hello everybody and welcome back to the average, today I have got an exciting package and it is some alcohol markers from Artex that they kindly sent me to review for free which is very nice, thank you Artex. That is really nice, look at this box that it comes in, let's have a look at it properly. So it comes with this little carry case which is quite cool, so it has a proper class pier and it looks like this on the front, this comes off so we can reveal what's on the inside, unfortunately it is a little bit dented here but you know I'm not too bothered about that. I never really get annoyed about stuff that happens in shipping because I live quite far away from probably where these are posted so it's kind of understandable. Let's open them up, whoa, these are awesome. So it comes with a thank you, a nice little postcard which is quite pretty actually I like that and ooh is there an artist, no it just says Artex so yeah and it comes with its own little sheet for what's the word, why can't I think of the word, wow I am the worst artist in the history, I cannot even, scamping, sketching, swatches, they come with a little paper for swatching the colours and it tells you each one, let's just look at them, oh my god, they're beautiful, they are beautiful, they feel pretty solid plastic which is quite nice, they come with the lids with the colours on and the number and then it has this little like, I don't know if you could see that little cloud detail around the lid which is really cute and original so we'll give them points for that, that's very nice and it says the number on both ends so it doesn't matter which way you put it back in and I think it does sort of just rest like this if you want it to which is pretty neat because then you can just take the colours like this and I think that is amazing so I don't even know, I don't think I've ever owned this many alcohol markers maybe I do in Copic form but never as like a package like this so I think if you bought these in Copics they would be lots of money like I know that a Copic set of like this many are roughly that many is probably about 100 quid so you're getting for 40 pounds instead of 100 pounds for that you're getting all this but do they compare to Copic markers that's the question I've got some pastel markers that I would like to sort of compare them to you I mean always I believe that you get what you pay for so you know even if these are a little bit not as good as Copics it's still worth it maybe let's well I can't say that yet but let's trust them out so they have a nib point they don't come with a brush pen which is kind of a shame because I prefer using the brush nibs on these alcohol markers there's also a chisel tip which I always avoid using but lots of people do like them I think they are really good if you have that kind of style that you use them with yeah I want to test these out I don't know what I'm gonna draw but I think we'll just do like a chatty video today I keep you guys company on your your drawing drawing day I don't know so I've got my cup of instant coffee I'm afraid to say because desperate times guys and also I've got my lovely I love these they're very very like I have these four beautiful I love these Copic sketch markers that come with brush and chisel tip and they're all like pastel colours and I chose them when I was in Japan I think you guys saw that in my Japan haul video back in the day and yeah so I don't know if I'm gonna compare them because I think that's a little bit harsh because these are obviously top tier and these are affordable versions of an alcohol marker so we'll just we'll see how it goes I've got my sketchbook here sorry if you can hear these seagulls but I have moved locations slightly and I thought I would just draw whatever I want today when we're just gonna test stuff out so okay I'm I want to try this one because it looks like a really nice pastel-y pastel-y so what I mean like a light color yeah I gotta tell you I ain't a huge fan of the nib tip pen but you know I think they blend pretty nicely let's see how they blend together let's use a chisel let's just go for it chisel tip boom yeah these are very nice so I think that is really pretty impressive for the price point if you guys can't afford Copic markers or you know a fan of alcohol markers but you want to chest them out then this is a pretty good way to go maybe you don't want that many though so I don't know I don't know your story guys I know your life you know I don't know what to draw hmm do you know what I do want to draw maybe like some houses because I really enjoyed doing that with my previous horror comic is what I did was I drew loads of lutes of I draw lots I cannot speak I drew lots of kind of haunted houses to get inspiration and I used alcohol markers I used alcohol markers for that whole comic so I think it would be nice to revisit that idea because I know for my horror comic I have been saying sorry about cars guys this is gonna be a very relaxed video though so yeah that's just gonna be the case what I was saying was that I haven't really explored using anything else other than gouache for the horror comic style and I know that I did all my other comic with alcohol markers and pen and like a black pencil and I think that could be something nice to revisit I know I said I wanted a completely different style but if I have experience in something then maybe it shouldn't I shouldn't totally disregard trying that I mean it worked for me last time and I really enjoyed it so maybe it would be a wise option even though I am taken with the idea of doing it all in gouache paints I'm not sure it's the best approach so let's see maybe now that I have a lot of alcohol markers given to me would it be a good idea to use them for my horror comic let's find out yeah so I want to do I want to blend them together because I think that is a great thing about alcohol markers basically if you haven't heard of alcohol markers before they are made with believe it or not alcohol so when you put them down they mix together and you don't have those lines like you do with felt tip you remember in school when you'd have cheap felt tips and you'd kind of do it like this to get it not to have so many lines like that but with alcohol markers you can just blend them together and they should not have like such harsh lines I mean they can do but you it depends how you kind of work it and you can layer them which is also a very nice thing they also come with like a blender marker which they have provided here so I'm gonna test that out so the blender marker I believe is just more alcohol I am not 100% sure on that so don't quote me but yeah it's just a way to mix colors together and sort of ease them out because but I'm not a pro at it so you can see here that I'm not very I'm not the best at alcohol market but yeah you can go in and use like lighter colors to sort of blend out more nicely I wonder how everyone's doing I hope you're all staying safe and in your houses and just chilling was this whole horrible horrible situation passes us I'm currently working from home which is a very very weird feeling because it's just like totally different I actually went into the office and got all my equipment from there like my iMac that I use and yeah since doing that it's sped up the process but it's just been a bit of a panic it works been pretty rough week but we'll get through it guys do you know yeah so I'm just drawing this house I've seen on Pinterest basically whenever I get a bit stuck on what to draw I really genuinely just go on Pinterest and make like kind of a mood board and save lots of things together I'm gonna check this is going through the page it is I'm gonna use this because I don't swatch stuff mix stuff together and take inspiration and I think it used to really work for me on Instagram but since they changed the algorithm it kind of took away that aspect so now all I see is pictures of people's babies and things and I'm like mmm I like you guys but I want to use Instagram for inspiration not like your holiday trips and I mean I do like that aspect of it but when I need to get some inspiration for drawing or you know just want to see what everyone's up to art wise any who thought it was a ramble yeah like I said this is gonna be a rambly video and it's kind of different to the videos that I would usually do so I hope that you just stick on stick on what stick me on in the background of whatever you're doing and just draw along with me maybe or I don't know whatever your life presents really really really do not like this color combination that I've picked out and usually I feel like I have a good sense of color if that is okay to say like but this time I'm like what the heck is this ugly green and blue combo in gray I don't know but yeah this is this is life you know sometimes you pick your pick bag color choices so I really like these markers so far I think they're pretty close to Copics considering the price point yeah I like them I like them just to show you the Copic markers so these are the ones I like because they have this brush pen and they are very very smooth but yeah there's not that much difference from this to this so that's kind of nice the only thing is the brush tip what am I saying the brush tip is something that I enjoy but we can get used to these nips also the nips are like handy if you want to do little details which can't really just kind of hard to do with the Copic markers with the brush so there we go that's there's a plus obviously when you have alcohol markers whatever you lay down does bleed out slightly and these are bleeding out a little bit but that's normal so you've just got to bear that in mind when you're using them like when you place down a line if you want it to be a detailed line then just bear in mind that it's gonna bleed out slightly but that can be kind of nice for the style if you work with it don't go against it just kind of use it for your advantage advantage why am I speaking like that which I haven't done that with the road oh well done now but yeah the good thing about alcohol markers is that you can layer them up so if you think like one bit is a little bit weak you can just go back in and it will absorb into the page but it does give like a nice little effect of like a darker area and usually in mind do you mind and usually this just works out if you want to add a little bit of depth or you know a little bit more definition to a certain area to draw the eye that's really handy so there you go guys that's just the pro tip of the day I apologize it's not the best tip okay right I want to draw some trees in the background here because I think like it will add a little bit of this is a very very light green this is why people do swatches you know I want a darker green than that so let's get number 50 which looks like a very dark green these also don't I mean they do have names but they don't have them on the pen which would have been nice so 50 is they got the names here that you can reference them if you want to forest green let's go with forest green then I want to just do a little bit of like a darker grass grassy knoll over here just to make sure that it's in the background you know maybe it'd be a good idea to do some like haunted houses and sketch those right now because I want some inspiration for my horror comic and obviously the inspiration right now has been like motels creepy old motels and stuff but maybe I want to just explore ideas a little bit more I have been writing the story out a little bit and what I know now is that the characters there's gonna be two characters so there's gonna be the main character and there's gonna be like a little girl traveling with her I haven't really decided her name yet but her name her age but I want her to be like maybe 11 12 kind of mature but enough to know like what's going on but not mature enough to be able to kind of deal with stuff herself if that makes sense without an adult around but yeah I'm still thinking about names for these characters so let's see I really want you guys to be involved in this process a little bit more so if you guys want to name a character then just comment down below and give me your name suggestions and ideas so what it is is that one of the characters is in the aunt of this little girl this young lady I don't know her age yet probably a young teenager and they are traveling together because she's sort of rescuing her from not a very nice father and they're going somewhere else and that is my new idea and I think they can have a really good back and forth conversation wise whereas before I felt like just having that character by herself it was a little bit boring and I think it works have two characters together so I have decided that they will be two characters and if you would like to name them both or name one of them then let me know this takes place in roughly the 1950s in America again we're going to have that sort of like timeless quality but give me names down below and I will you know tell you if I use them and thank you very much so yeah that's the story I can't really tell you more about the characters to help name them because I haven't got that far yet I mean the aunt is kind of a little bit bitter but not bitter but just kind of wise and yeah I guess bitter and a smoker and just sharp and then the young girl is full of zest and life and she's just just full of optimism about certain situations so if you would like to name the characters and then comment below and I will look them up if you got that far into this video because this video is a logo yeah I just want to keep guys company whilst I draw because I haven't really done a draw along with me video since forever it's just gonna be very very relaxed and so yeah with my old comic I used a pencil for the lines and then I colored them like this and I think I do really genuinely like that style and I do kind of miss drawing with it so they can just be like that fun little example of that yeah my first impression of these is that they're quite nice and I enjoy them they're very good for the price point and yeah I like them I'm just gonna draw more more houses I think that's okay with you guys okay so I'm not a huge fan of the way that this drawing turned out but that is no fault of the alcohol markers I would say that is just me warming up so I'm going to draw some more spooky houses and let's try it out I mean this is just my sketchbook and usually I've found that I've been very been more sketchy in my sketchbook if that makes sense more rough because usually like before I would just I would have finalized pieces in my sketchbook because that's just the way I like drawing but recently I've been drawing more on separate sheets of water color paper and stuff so for me it just made sense to I'm gonna use the chisel tip a little bit more because I don't tend to use that and I think it will be nice to try and explore using that feels tip is great if you want like straight lines very easy to get like a perfect straight line with them which is very nice I think that's why a lot of like architects and people who design products use use the chisel tip a lot which makes sense probably makes sense to have swatch these out before just going for it because as you know not always the the colors aren't necessarily match the the lid but in this case I think I think they're pretty good they're pretty on point so that's that's good usually with cheap alcohol markers they don't really tend to bother with the lid or the color of this indicator matching what the actual color is so it's nice to know that at this price point they they have put four into it and they do care I also think that this whole idea of it being a carry case that you can just place down is really nice too I'm very impressed with the whole design and concept here very impressed I'm trying I want to get a little bit experimental here with these because I think that there is room to be a little bit a little bit weird with these which you know I'm a little bit weird with my artwork so that makes sense doesn't it I hope that this will be a little bit of a longer video than usually because like I said it's gonna be a very chilled video and we're just gonna chat so I'm hoping that you guys are enjoying this type of video if you don't let me know it's fine I don't need to be like this all the time I'm just doing a one-off thing of this because I've had a very long week and I think we all have really to be fair I think we've all been a little bit not down but just like a bit stressed out with everything going on so I think it makes sense for me to just it was either gonna be no video today or just this really chilled basic editing video that I'm doing right now and I hope you guys don't mind because I wanted to speak with you sort of you know I'm not really speaking with you but I am a little bit and I hope you don't mind that this is the yeah I keep saying the same thing I think I'm like just repeating this um it's like I said it's a little bit weird as you wouldn't see this in real life but it just works I think behind this I want to use my colored pencils because I I just love like colored pencils and and alcohol markers together I just I just love that kind of aesthetic and I love using them so I was gonna go back to Japan at the end of April and obviously that is not happening anymore because of everything going on it's a bit of a downer but that's life sometimes and I'm just trying to stay positive and keep my head up I think everybody is at this stage and then you know I'm gonna focus more on trying to do my own projects even though work has been crazy and especially trying to work from home has been crazy but you know yeah like this idea of like slightly crooked lines within it's not because I can't draw I just like crooked lines in my drawings no I think it just adds like a little bit of charm to have like these windows that look a little bit wonky wonk there's the correct term guys wonky wonk so yeah I am I really like these markers I'm so glad that I'll text them to me I'm really lucky it's part of the perks of you know working two years on YouTube um okay so I'm gonna do something weird now I'm gonna do the background in a really dark gray it looks really ominous but I do like the way that it looks anybody just joining this channel and have actually made it to this point in the video I just want to say that I am quite experimental with stuff I do and like quite rough with things I don't really think things out I just kind of go for it so if that's something you like then um welcome that's just how I like to do things because then it kind of takes the pressure away a little bit and also I get more into like the design of all the process of doing some of this stuff so I need to use a lighter color maybe I use like this pale sort of skin white skin color see how that looks showing definitely like a lot of texture in my work I feel like it adds visual interest when I'm doing stuff and just something I enjoy like a lot of people probably don't enjoy that in the stuff like they probably like smooth clean lines and smoothness but honestly I prefer it I like not when looking at other people's stuff like I like when I like other people's stuff I like it but um for me I like to use a lot of texture okay house number two done you know what like maybe you can add a little bit of pop of color here hmm maybe that's too dark let's go with the light a one first and then we can build it up if it's too dark so just getting bigger and bigger with this piece I'm gonna run out of paper I don't know why I've done it like that like yeah lock out this section they're a massive house for no reason just because I am dumb okay now it's time to go darker let's see how this works so yeah I'm just gonna do some trees in the background and I think I want to add like pops of color to all of these because I think like that's more my style than this kind of gray stuff that I've been doing so I'm just gonna be a bit quirky with it because I think that's kind of cool that style um yeah I want to do like a darker blue in the background of this one that definitely adds something to it like this style a bit more blue here yeah I like that so I'm gonna do some more pops of color around that's a great thing about alcohol markers is you can just definitely layer them like whatever and it works quite nicely okay guys so I think that is a really cool page and yeah I think I'm done here I really like the way that I did in the end it got a little bit more experimental which is more my style and more my thing and I really love these markers I'm definitely gonna use more of them and sketch out some more stuff if you like to see some random sketches and things like that then please follow me on instagram because I like to post up lots of images that I've done from videos and also other stuff and I like to do different stories and things I'm hoping to post more on there so if you follow me there then you can get some inspiration from me maybe and we can chat and stuff and I yeah I don't know about you guys but if you like alcohol markers then maybe they're worth testing out I think they're a good cheap alternative to copy markers and they work really nicely and they look pretty damn good too so that's it from me I hope you guys are staying safe and well during this time and I really look forward to our time together or my talking to the camera to you together if that makes sense so I will see you next time hopefully and yeah good luck everyone bye