The Best Fineliner Pens to use with Alcohol Markers

We recently were contacted by Anspire who is a very talented digital artist and has recently delved into more traditional art.

She has been doing a comparison of various fineliner pens used in conjunction with alcohol markers and thought our readers might be interested in her findings.

Naturally we were delighted to hear from her and she has some surprising results.

Hello,

My name is Anspire and I make art and videos about all sorts of creative stuff. My latest obsession are alcohol markers and I am proud to announce I have collected all Spectrum Noir pens. I also own a few Copics and plan to expand my collection.

I am a primarily digital artist so when it came to traditional art, I was a complete beginner. It was not long until I finished my first few drawings and I realised my fineliner was feathering and smudging as I was coloring. Alcohol markers were obviously different from water-based ones and didn’t behave the same way.

A couple ruined drawings later, I decided it was enough and I went online and browsed Tiger Pens for options. I picked nine pens to review, all in black but in different sizes and waited for them to arrive so I could make my comparison video about with fineliner pens fare well with these types of markers.

Below is what came out of it, and if you are interested in the full version, you can find it linked at the end.

Fineliners tested with Copics

Pen brand	Size	Price*	Did it smudge?	Did it feather?**	Compatibility
Pigma Micron	.05	££££	Yes	No	None
Kuretake ZIG Millenium	.005	£££	Yes	No	Low
Edding 1880	.02	£££	Yes	No	Low
OHTO Graphic Liner	.01	£££	No	No	High
Staedler Lumocolor permanent	S	£££	Yes	Yes	None
Staedler Lumocolor non-permanent	F	£££	Yes	Yes	None
Uni-pin Fine Line	0.05	£££	Yes	No	Medium
Berol Finewriter	N/A	££	No	No	High
Stabilo point 88	0.4	£	No	No	High

* ££££- more than £2; £££ – more than £1.50; ££ – between £1.50 – £1, £ – less then £1

** Feathering happens when the ink does not smudge but moves around on the paper, making lines thicker and blurry.

Fineliners tested with Spectrum Noir

Pen brand	Size	Price*	Did it smudge?	Did it feather?**	Compatibility
Pigma Micron	.05	££££	Yes	No	None
Kuretake ZIG Millenium	.005	£££	Yes	No	Low
Edding 1880	.02	£££	Yes	No	Low
OHTO Graphic Liner	.01	£££	No	No	High
Staedler Lumocolor permanent	S	£££	Yes	Yes	None
Staedler Lumocolor non-permanent	F	£££	Yes	Yes	None
Uni-pin Fine Line	0.05	£££	Yes	No	Medium
Berol Finewriter	N/A	££	No	No	High
Stabilo point 88	0.4	£	No	No	High

* ££££- more than £2; £££ – more than £1.50; ££ – between £1.50 – £1, £ – less then £1

** Feathering happens when the ink does not smudge but moves around on the paper, making lines thicker and blurry.

Overall, three pens stood out, all of them on the cheaper side.

Pen brand	Size	Price*	Did it smudge?	Did it feather?**	Compatibility
OHTO Graphic Liner	.01	£££	No	No	High
Berol Finewriter	N/A	££	No	No	High
Stabilo point 88	0.4	£	No	No	High

I must add all pens feel and look great but for the sake of this post which only looks at how well they fare with alcohol markers, the other six were incompatible.

If you are interested to hear more about each one and see how they did for yourself, please check out the video below: