which markers can be refilled???

[fleischhacker]

Hi
I'm wanting to use markers similar to pantones that blend well on paper.
In Australia we have Tria, Copic or Prismacolor, wondered if the Tria ink might be suitable to refill any of these?

Especially the Prismacolor as this is cheapest option, and have some old pantones, so far all i know is both take alcohol based ink just dont know if prismacolor could soak up ink and just choose similar shade.

thanks
JayJay

[MEP]

Letraset's Panton Trias are refillable and the Copics are refillable.

I don't believe that PrismaColor makes a refillable marker (mine sure aren't), but I could be mistaken.

I would not recommend putting Pantone inks in Copic markers (or vice versa). They use different ink mixtures (there's a lot of wiggle room in "alcohol-based"), and they also use different materials for their tips. The ink might not flow properly when used in an off-brand marker. Additionally, if you buy a Copic marker (with Copic ink already in it), you'd have to flush it out completely before putting a different ink in it or the two inks would mix together and produce... well who knows what -- certainly not the color you were expecting though.

I suppose you could experiment with mixing inks and markers, but it would get pretty pricey pretty quickly unless you already know what you're doing (assuming that it would work satisfactorily at all).

On a related note, does anybody know if Letraset makes Pantone markers that are NOT Trias? I really don't like three-tip markers because they dry out so quickly (and the smallest so often winds up being uselessly dry since it can't wick ink as efficiently as the other two).

[fleischhacker]

Hi

Letraset also makes a Promarker, thats 2 ended, not sure if comes in same pantone shades for refill thou.

Refill Ques - wouldn't Prismacolor if empty be just a source for ink to go thru, with similar shade - has anyone tried this?

Pantone Blender - does anyone use these, or tried with other markers on bleedproof paper?

In Aust most of these markers are triple the US price.

thanks JayJay

[MEP]

Well, you'll still be mixing Letraset's and PrismaColor's inks together, even if the marker does soak up the ink. When a marker is "dry", it's not totally dry, there's just not enough ink left to soak the nib anymore. There will still be old in in the marker and it will still effect the final color of whatever ink you add to it.

They may both be alcohol-based, but they're not using exactly the same recipe for their ink solutions. Even if you found a similar shade from both brands, there's no guarantee that the ink won't wind up looking terrible when mixed together. If you're lucky, it will just be a different shade than you intended. If you're unlucky, it won't be uniform at all (if say, the inks didn't mix together at all, like oil and water).

You're welcome to try it, but I don't think the results will be at all predictable nor will you be able to maintain a consistent shade of ink over the course of multiple refills (assuming you can get a pleasing shade out of even one refill).

I haven't used blender or extender myself, so I wouldn't have much to say about it other than, it is obviously designed to work with Letraset's ink chemistry and not with others. That's not to say it won't work with others, but the results may be unpredictable. Unpredictable isn't always bad -- anyone who's cross-processed a batch of photos knows unpredictable can be fun -- but designers tend to like having some control over how their tools behave.

If price really is the problem, you might want to consider doing all of your color work on the computer. Scan in your work and color it in Photoshop or Painter (Painter's academic pricing is pretty good, unlike Adobe's which is still pretty pricey). Then you have a full spectrum of colors available without all the fuss and muss of refilling markers all the time or the enormous amount of space a full spectrum of markers and inks would take up. Buying a full spectrum of markers at any price gets expensive pretty quickly, and you have to buy more markers or more ink eventually no matter what. When you consider the long term price of markers (or even the short term price of a broad set of colors), using the computer for color work starts to look a lot more appealing. I have a practical selection of grey markers that I sometimes use when sketching out rough thumbnails and want to represent some value, but when it comes to color, I reach for my scanner and Photoshop.

That's not exactly an answer to your question, but it's something worth considering.