Tombow Dual Brush Pen Review – Should You Buy The Tombow Markers?

Tombow Markers Review

Are you on the fence about buying the Tombow marker pens but unsure if they are worth the price? Read my honest and full Tombow Dual Brush Pen review below to make up your mind.

The Tombow markers are very popular water-based brush pens, used by many bullet journal enthusiasts and modern calligraphy artists. However, these pens aren’t the cheapest.

Today I am going to review a brand new set I got from Amazon. I am going to test it fully to find out what are the pros and cons of these Tombow dual brush pens.

But before we put these pens into action, let’s learn a bit about the Tombow brand and how these pens compare to other famous pens in the market.

I am in no way affiliated with Tombow, this is my honest review based on my experience with these pens that I purchased myself!

Tombow Dual Brush Pens Overview

What are Tombow dual brush pens?

Tombow has some of the most popular brush pens for calligraphy. These dual pens have 2 nibs, one on each side of the pen. On one end you will find a nylon fiber brush tip while on the other end there is a finer felt tip.

The great thing about having these 2 nibs is that you can create different designs using the same pen as the brush nib allows for bold strokes by adjusting the pressure on the tip while the fine tip is perfect for writing and fine details.

The Tombow ABT Dual brush pens are also water-based which is particularly advantageous to bullet journal lovers because water-based markers tend to not bleed through the paper as much as alcohol-based ones. We will be testing these markers below and checking out how they perform.

They are sold either individually, in small sets of 10 pens or in big sets:

How many Tombow brush pens are there?

The complete Tombow collection has 108 dual-tip Brush Pens and can be bought in a set that comes with a marker case.

Another popular set is the 96 pen set, this does not include the newest 12 colors added to the collection. However it is already plenty of variety – this is the set I have!

The price difference between the 96 and the 108 sets is more than double if you compare Amazon price to the Tombow website (which I don’t think is worth the price!).

If you really like one of the new colors you can just buy it individually.

But I know how sometimes you really just want to have the full collection! If that is the case you can upgrade to the 108 collection yourself by purchasing the Candy Set and the Vintage Set separately. You can also purchase the marker case on its own!

Want an easy way to see all the colors and what you have in your collection? Click below to find our Tombow color chart printable.

Where to get Tombow Dual Brush Pens?

The best place to buy these pens is Amazon because the products are way cheaper over there than they are on the Tombow site.

Buying the 96 pen set + the vintage set + the candy set + the marker case on Amazon is still cheaper (by about USD$100) than acquiring the 108 set collection from the Tombow website!!!

But also the individual sets are cheaper on Amazon, and they are sold by Tombow there too, so I fail to understand the price difference!

The only possible reason I would think of going to the Tombow site to purchase them instead of Amazon is in case you live outside of the US and the shipping becomes prohibitive, then perhaps the international or Europe-based site would be cheaper.

Tombow Dual Brush Pens Set Review

Now, let’s get down to business and put these babies to test, shall we?

I am interested to see how they perform in comparison to other pens doing the same job, test on different paper, check their ease of use, packaging, price, bleeding, blending, etc.

Read below to find the results.

• Color variety

The color variety of Tombow brush markers is fantastic, as I highlighted above, there are 108 pens in the full set, all of which are different colors.

Some colors are pretty similar though as you can see from the chart above. I am a pen addict and having all these colors make me happy but maybe you don’t need to get the full set.

Luckily Tombow was really thoughtful with the design of the small packages. They are put together with colors that are related to a theme.