“What’s the difference between Various Ink and Copic Refills?”
Sometimes people will say “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” and then snicker when you ask a question that’s obvious to insiders.
Various versus Refill isn’t a stupid question! It’s an excellent question. For many years, people have been blogging and making videos using the terms interchangeably.
Now for the first time in history, there’s an actual difference!
Why are some bottles marked “Copic Ink” while others are labelled “Various Ink”?
Let’s look closer at what’s going on.
Copic Ink, Copic Refill, and Various Ink are all the same thing. For 30 years, the official name was Various Ink. In 2019, Copic changed the bottle design and labelling. For clarity, they retired Various Ink in favor of Copic Ink. “Copic Refill” is what most people say but it’s not the actual product name.
The name is on the bottle
And it all depends on which bottle you’re looking at.
I’m writing this article in August 2020. Right now, new bottles are on the market but old bottles are still on some store shelves. People will still be using the old bottles for years to come.
Different bottles with different names is confusing.
So let’s get specific. Old names lead to confusion for new beginners. A lot of blogs, articles, tutorials, videos, and even local stores or online shops are about to sound very dated.
The New Look of Copic Ink
This is the redesigned bottle for Copic refill inks.
New refill bottles are labelled “Copic Ink” and the Copic website now uses this name exclusively.
The new 12ml bottles are cylindrical; they fit easily into your hand and feel very much like a pen. Combined with a built-in needle nose dispenser, this design is supposed to make the refilling process more accurate and less messy.
Ridges have been added to the cap to keep the rounded bottles from rolling off your desk or table.
The bottles have been controversial because:
The new bottles only hold 12ml of fluid. The previous bottles were over twice the size at 25ml.
The retail price for the 12ml bottle is almost as much as previous 25ml bottle.
Copic and their US distributors now enforce rules on retailers. Sellers must abide by the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price or lose their authorized retailer status. The higher price per milliliter is no longer a suggestion, it’s a mandate.
The new bottles are thinner plastic and the caps (as of today) do not seal as well. This is leading to many “exploded” delivery boxes where the bottles break open or leak during shipping. One retailer I spoke with says that no amount of bubblewrap prevents faulty caps from leaking and she can’t predict which caps are unreliable. I’m predicting the caps will be redesigned, based upon this shipping issue.
The thinner plastic bottle plus less air-space in the bottle is leading to big messes as people attempt to refill markers the first few times. I’ve got more than 20 years of experience with Copics and even I had ink on my hands and desk after my first try. At this point, I’m actively wishing for a complete redesign of the redesign!
I can’t see into the future but at the time I’m writing this, there’s a lot of grumbling about the new bottles. I will update this article if the new design gets dumped for a new-new design.
As with the old bottles, the new Copic Ink refills come in all 358 colors.
This is the Old Refill Bottle Style
This is the 25ml bottle which is no longer being manufactured.
Note that the label says “Various Ink”.
Official Copic literature published before 2019 exclusively used the term Various Ink.
As you explore Copic information online, notice that older articles and videos use the term Various Ink.
Various Ink is the same as Copic Ink.
As an instructor, I’m also predicting that many teachers, professional artists, and long time Copic fans will have issues with the name change. We’ve been saying Various Ink since 1987 and that’ll be a hard habit to break.
warning!!!
As you shop for Copic Ink refills, if you see a 25ml bottle for sale, please do a little mental math.
By my estimation, Too! (the parent company of Copic) stopped using the 25ml bottles in early 2019.
Any ink sold in a 25ml bottle was manufactured before 2019.
Copic ink has a guaranteed shelf life of three years.
Please make sure you’re not purchasing expired ink. The color has likely faded with time and the composition may have degraded as well.
.
And by the way…
Because I’ve had students ask this before…
All styles of Copic Marker use the same refill inks.
Use YR04 Copic Ink to refill a YR04 Sketch, a YR04 Ciao, or a YR04 Classic.
Don’t let the names confuse you.
Various Ink = Copic Ink = Copic Refill
They’re all names for the same product.
I hope this clarifies the inevitable name confusion. There are lots of excellent articles, tutorials, videos, and blogs created before 2019 and the information is still valuable and correct.
The only thing that’s different is the name.
Amy Shulke is a professional illustrator who has used Copic Markers since 1990. She teaches artistic coloring classes online at VanillaArts.com and locally in south-eastern Michigan.
Marker Novice is Amy’s completely free resource devoted to beginner marker education. For intermediate/advanced artistic coloring articles, see her Studio Journal here.
Other essential Marker Novice articles:
A Little Vitamin O?
A great excuse to use orange markers!
Orange coloring images are on the rare side. Most people don’t pull out their YR Copics until October and it’s for yet another pumpkin. But orange is a fun and appealing color, it deserves more attention!
Amy Shulke’s "Tangerine Basket"
Sample shown uses Copic Markers and Prismacolor colored pencils.
Package includes PNG digital stamp with easy print PDF option plus recipe, full color sample, photo reference, and grayscale guide.
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