 Hi guys, it's Sandy and today I have a really quick video for you on marker maintenance. When to change your Copic Nibs, how do you know if you need that versus does it just need to be refilled and I'm going to talk about a few things as well as show you how to do both of those. This marker definitely needs refilled. It's got a whitish tip on it and that's usually a sign that it just needs more ink. This one doesn't color very well and that's usually a point at which I would definitely refill it because it should look more like this. It should get really good coverage. Here's one that I'm going to change the nib on because it's got that little tail at the very tip end that you can sort of see and there's also little bumpies on the side where it's almost like the nib is starting to break down and that's a point when you often will want to change it or if it just starts to feel soft when you color with it. It just doesn't have the normal feel that your Copic markers tend to. So here is my BG45 which also needs massive ink because the nib is all white. So I'm going to show you how I refill my markers. I use the refill bottles, the various ink bottles and match up the color number on the end to make sure I get the right ink in there. And I use my Copic tweezers. These are a really inexpensive little tool but great to have around. Just pull it from the base of the marker and yank it out of there and I just put drops directly into the marker. There's all kinds of needle systems and things that you can use and measuring things out. And I don't do any of that. I just put drops in. If it's a marker that's this dry it'll take 30 to 40 drops, usually toward 40 if it's super super dry and less if it's not as dry. So gauge by exactly how much ink you think you need and then I just drop it straight into the nib and I have a little Kleenex around there to keep it from dripping down on my hand because I usually go faster than I ought and I'm not as steady as I ought so I get a little bit on there but easy to wipe that off. And then I put the chisel nib back in. You always want to fill from the chisel end. You don't want to mess with this brush nib end because you could damage it. But you can see that the white is all gone and it's even looking a little bit on the shiny side because now it has ink in it and it's not feeling like what I normally would think of for my markers. I like them when they kind of go on like butter. They just go on really smoothly and so I refilled a little bit more, put a few more drops in it and now it's starting to feel a little bit better. I'm using 99% alcohol and only for maintenance and the 99% works better than the other percentages but it works for cleanup only. Don't use it for anything that you're going to go into the markers or mix with the color. You don't want to mix that with your Copic color. And I'm using my various ink colorless blender bottle to try something on a marker that I did refill but it still didn't color quite right. It just felt like there was something funky about the nib but before I replaced it I thought I'd try this tip and see if it worked. So I put it in the corner of this and I just massaged it because the blog post that I read I think it might have been by Debbie Olson or Sharon Harness, one of the Copic ladies and they said that the pores can get clogged. So it did absorb a bunch of the colorless blender so I got this kind of watery color but after I got rid of all that look how perfect it is and I didn't have to change the nib or anything. And here is just so you know there's a label on the side of the bottles in case you take a couple lids off and you need to match them back up. They are labeled on the bottles themselves. But here are some Super Brush Nibs. I'm going to change a couple so I'm going to show you just one of them and you use your Copic little tweezers to pull out the nib and you could put it back in with the tweezers but since it's clean I just use my fingers and press it in until it's seated well and I cleaned off the outside while I was doing all of this and did that with the alcohol. And then just waited for a few minutes for that ink to wick out to the end of the marker. You don't have to turn it upside down or shake it or anything it just normally wicks out and then you can test and see whether or not it's enough color. This felt like it was a little on the soft side so I added more ink and you can see it works just perfectly now. Yay for that! So I have one final couple tips for you and that is that I mark all of my Copics with washi tape so I know they're mine. They're not marked for any other reason than possession and that's a really good thing to do if you craft with other people or if you go to classes or anywhere where you might share markers with other people because they all look the same right? The other tip is that this little gray line that you can see on each of the markers that marks the Super Brush nib end and so you don't even have to mark your markers with washi tape in order to know which side is the side you want to use. So that's all I have to share with you today. Remember fast, hope it was helpful, leave your questions in the doobly-doo and I will talk to you later. Bye bye!