ShinHan Twin Touch Marker Review: Copic Marker Substitute

copyright 2011 moira richardson

Love Girl, a photo by literarytease on Flickr.

I'm taking Doll Dreams with Adriana Almanza, and the last tutorial for the class is shading with Copic markers. I couldn't afford to get all the recommended colors in the Copics, since they are $5 each, so I took a note card and did color swatches in order to buy the equivalent colors in ShinHan Twin Touch markers. I read a recommendation for on a forum for the ShinHan markers, and now that I've tried them, I can see why they were recommended.  I only have two Copics, so I'm not the best person to compare them, but you can see from my picture that the Twin Touch markers blended quite well enough for my purposes. Since the Twin Touch markers are $1.89 each at Jerry's Artarama, they are a more economical option for the beginner artist.  I'm sure they aren't as good as Copics, so someone used to working in Copics might not like them, but if you are brand new, I bet you'll never know the difference.

 The main difference between the Copic Sketch and the Twin Touch markers that I see is that the broad nib on the Twin Touch markers is wider than on the Copic Sketch markers. The brush tip is less "brushy" and more of a fine point. This is actually something I like better, since I have a harder time getting the line I want with the Copics. You can vary the line more with the Copic, so if that's a feature you like, you might miss that with the Twin Touch markers. I've heard that the Twin Touch markers are not refillable, but since I haven't been using Copics long enough for me to have to refill those, I'm not sure I care that much about that option, at least not yet. If you want to try Copics, but can't afford them, I highly recommend you give the Twin Touch markers a try.

I wanted the markers primarily for doing skin tones on my doll drawings, so I bought these colors:

Cool Gray #1, 2, & 5
Bareley Beige 29 [sic]
Baby Skin Pink 133
Pale Cherry Pink 135
Fruit Pink 28
Blush 136
Yellow Ochre 101
Raw Umber 102
Pale Pink 9
Mauve Shadow 146
Spectrum Green 172
Pastel Blue 67

This is a good selection for shading lighter and medium skin tones. I got the blue and the green in order to be able to do eyes. I bought the shades of gray in order to add shading to any of the colors, plus I think I'll end up using them for shadows on text and other things. The Mauve shadow might seem odd, but the purply color adds warmth to the finished blended skin tone. I believe that ShinHan makes white and black markers, but Jerry's didn't have those colors in stock yesterday, otherwise I would have gotten them. I have plenty of white and black in the form of Sharpie poster-paint pens, so I don't feel like I really need them in the Twin Touch markers. You might want to add them to your list though if you don't already have other black and white options.

For paper, I am using a Canson Mixed Media sketchbook. The paper is 98 lb. I put a scrap sheet of paper behind my image for an bleed through, but I didn't get much, if any on this image.

Gluten Free Review: Udi's Gluten-Free Bagels

I've been gluten-free since January 5th of this year, and one thing that I've been struggling with is breakfast. I'm just not an oatmeal in the morning type of girl. I don't have a problem with oatmeal, and I do have it for breakfast occasionally. Since going gluten-free, I'll have a bowl of oat bran with fruit some mornings, leftovers from dinner on others. One morning I totally, no lie, made myself some risotto. I was having greek yogurt with gf granola, but I've been having issues with dairy, so I'm staying away from it as much as possible. Really, I'm more of a bagel with cream cheese person. When gluten went bye-bye, so did my preferred breakfast.

I'd heard such terrible things about gluten-free breads: they taste like death, they have no taste at all, they have a metallic aftertaste, they are very expensive, they go bad very quickly, etc. I wasn't planning on every buying any pre-made gluten-free breads, especially after discovering the Bob Red Mill's Homemade Wonderful Gluten-Free Bread Mix was, in fact, rather wonderful. Plus, I never ate very much bread anyway, even when I ate gluten. But when shopping yesterday, I spied these gluten-free bagels from Udi's. They were expensive, $6 for 4 bagels, but I'm already used to gluten-free items costing more. They looked like real bagels! So we brought them home.

They look like stale bread when you split them open, and I must confess I didn't have high hopes when I put one in the toaster. When it popped up and smelled like, well, bread, I was happy. I slathered it with low-fat cream cheese flavored with sun-dried tomatoes (I make my own using tomatoes dried from my mom's garden!). It was good! Great, even! Hurray! The texture is very similar to a "real" bagel, and they toasted up very nicely.

At $6 for 4, I won't be having these daily for breakfast, but I'll definitely be having them occasionally as a treat. I bet these would be great for sandwiches, too, so I'm sure Nick will be happy about that... if I don't eat 'em all before he has a chance to find out! If you are interested in trying them yourself, you can get a $1-off coupon by visiting the Udi's website.

I was inspired to search for gluten-free bagel recipes, figuring I could probably make these myself, so I will be experimenting with bagel-making in the near future. I'll post the results here, once I've tried. Do you have a favorite gluten-free product?