Any of you who have read about my illuminated manuscript series (if you haven't, start here) are probably aware that I've had problems from time to time with colors bleeding through from the other side of the page, which is a bummer. I do now have a small collection of markers that are “safe”, but I thought it would be nice to have more of a variety, so I went searching for a larger selection, entering “water based markers” and “no bleed” as my search terms. This marker set from Jusart seemed to fit the bill, having received good reviews. Some people cautioned about bleed, but since most didn't, I rolled the dice (the set was pretty inexpensive, so no worries taking a chance).
My set arrived, and I must say, it is very nice! Everything is organized in a zippered case, there are more colors than you can shake a stick at (okay, 60), and there are some cool extras – extra nibs for the pens, a swatch chart to fill out yourself (just like the more expensive sets!), and an actual mini coloring book with some pretty sweet designs:
I noticed upon flipping through that the coloring book has extremely thick pages – it's basically card stock. So yeah, the markers are not likely to bleed through that, but...would my sketchbook paper stand up to them? Sketchbook paper is heavier than, say, copier paper (~60 lb vs. 20 lb for the copier paper), but it's certainly not thick like some of the coloring books, which are closer to 80 lb or even higher.
First things first – I swatched some colors. The markers have dual nibs, a brush tip and a fine tip, and the swatch chart cutely has a spot for each one, so I dutifully switched from brush point to fine point when filling the large and small areas, respectively. With some larger sets, I've seen people complain that some colors just don't seem different enough, but even the closest-together colors were visibly different when swatched, so that wasn't an issue.
Time for the moment of truth: testing for bleed. Obviously I didn't want to put these markers into immediate service in the illuminated manuscript sketchbook and find things out the hard way, so I used my other sketchbook, which has the same paper, as a guinea pig. I've been mostly using just one side of each page in this book, so it was no danger if bleed were to happen, and since it's the one I use for Inktober drawings (more on that here), there's no shortage of black and white line art to color in. I chose my cheerleader (Inktober 2021, Day 6, “Spirit”) as a good subject for some bright color, and went to town.
The verdict? Well, these colors are pretty slurpy, and the brush tip is not as precise as a bullet point, so I strayed outside the lines a bit. I'm not super fond of that, but coloring the background mostly obscured it. The color went on extremely patchy, which is typical of water-based markers; going over it a second, even third, time evened things out a bit. Having a nice variety of colors enabled me to add layers of darker hues for modeling and shading. But the most pertinent factor, here – the reason I ordered this 60-color water-based marker set when I already have Ohuhu's amazing 360-color set of alcohol-based markers – is whether my illuminated manuscript would be safe from bleed.
So, once I was finished fully coloring the picture, I flipped the page over, and, sadly, there was some bleedthrough. Just some, mind; it had basically been the places where I had placed several layers of color, either for shading, or, in the case of the background, to try to build up enough color to obscure where I'd initially gone outside the lines.
So, does this mean these markers are useless? Well, they definitely do bleed with what I consider to be pretty normal use, so that's a fail. However, since I supplement my markers with colored pencil for the illuminations, I think it may be safe enough to use them, as long as I just do one layer and sort out the shading and opacity with the pencils. I also think I will have to stick to using the fine point, as most of my illuminations are pretty small, and I can't go blundering about with that big, sloshy brush tip. So with a caveat, maybe they will be okay. Obviously, I would rather color with reckless abandon, but I do have to remind myself that this project is for practice and for fun, and not to make it less so! The markers will certainly be useful for coloring one-sided work without fear, and that is, as we say in the review business, not nothing.
More product reviews:
https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2026/03/review-of-colored-pencils-and-drawing.html
https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2023/06/himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-1-sky.html
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