Ordering Ohuhu Markers From Amazon
Hi there, my name is Amy and I’m a technical illustrator and marker art instructor. I’ve worked professionally with artist grade markers since 1989. I specialize in Copic Markers.
After years of hearing about Ohuhu Markers, I’ve decided to try them.
Actually, I’m going to test them. Are they really as good as Copic?
I mean real testing. I’m analyzing the Ohuhu marker body, the nibs, and testing the ink for lightfastness, color chemistry, staining, lift, and cap accuracy.
You know, the stuff artists should actually care about?
In this series of articles, I’m sharing the good, the bad, and the really, really ugly…
Honest observations from a professional marker artist who isn’t trying to sell you markers.
Today, let’s cover the purchasing process and packaging.
I ordered Ohuhu Markers online
This wasn’t by choice.
I prefer to try my art supplies before I buy them. With markers, simply picking one up and feeling it tells me a lot. I’ve avoided a lot of badly made markers just by holding a sample.
But Ohuhu markers are not sold in stores, at least not near me.
Ohuhu Honolulu Markers 320 Set purchased by the author in May 2023.
Granted, I live in the middle of nowhere but I travelled an hour to my favorite hole-in-the-wall independent art supply store. They carry lots of markers but not Ohuhu. The store owner knew about them but said they’d never been asked to stock them or sent a product catalog. He gets tons of catalogs but never one from Ohuhu. Weird.
Then I struck out at the chain stores:
No Ohuhu on the shelves at Dick Blick, Michaels, Joann’s, Hobby Lobby, or the college bookstore (which sells Copic).
I looked online and saw Walmart.com carries Ohuhu but there were none at my local Walmart.
So I ordered off Amazon.
Ohuhu also sells markers from their own website but given the size of my purchase and that I’ve never dealt with this company before, I wanted the customer service team at Amazon behind me if the box arrived damaged or (yikes!) not at all.
With the order placed, I spent several days worrying that I’d just spent $165 on really bad markers.
Are Ohuhu Markers a money saver or a budget buster?
Now that I have all 320 Honolulu colors, I’m testing every marker the same way I’ve been testing Copic Markers.
lightfastness
color chemistry
value
reactiveness
staining
lift
cap accuracy.
Ohuhu Packaging: securely padded in protective boxes
Despite my worry, the Ohuhu set arrived intact and pristine.
I ordered the 320 set of Honolulu markers in the Brush/Fine Tip version. They also come in sets of 104 and 216. Because I eventually want to test every color Ohuhu makes, I purchased the full set.
The markers come in a zippered canvas bag which was wrapped in a plastic bag, then double-boxed with plenty of cardboard protection.
Thumbs up for Ohuhu’s excellent mail packaging!
They also placed a foam piece on top of the markers inside the bag to keep them from jostling during transit. Nice!
Ohuhu markers are dumped into the bag in random order
Ohuhu Honolulu Markers 320 Set purchased by the author in May 2023.
Here’s where every artist dies a little inside…
When you unzip the canvas Ohuhu bag, you expect to see a rainbow of joy. Instead you’re confronted by mass color chaos.
The markers arrive in a jumbled mess of colors. You really can’t tell what you’re looking at because every color is jumbled with every other color. This photo was taken after I spent TWO HOURS rearranging the markers in kind’a chromatic order.
Am I being nit picky about this?
No!
Chromatically organized markers are a reasonable expectation and it’s easy to arrange this at the factory— if you care enough to make the effort.
NOTE: Even children’s art supplies take the time to arrange their products in chromatic or at least appealing order!
Color organization is important because we can’t get a feel for the color palette when the colors are scattered willy-nilly.
Once re-arranged you can see that Ohuhu is heavy on the pinks, purples, and grays with alarmingly few yellows and greens.
Floral and landscape artists beware! Yellow and green are important.
I can’t help but feel the scattered presentation is meant to obscure something more than the overall palette. I’ll talk more about this when I write an article about the Ohuhu numbering system.
Ohuhu provides a Complementary Vinyl Coloring Surface
I’ve purchased Ohuhu marker sketchbooks before and each sketchbook comes with a complementary vinyl sheet to place underneath your coloring page to protect the paper or the table from marker bleed though.
I’m iffy about Ohuhu marker journals but I’m madly in love with the sheet of vinyl!
In my classes, I teach students to color on non-porous surfaces like acrylic clipboards or glass desk tops. The non-absorbent surface improves the smoothness of your marker blends.
Ohuhu’s sheet of vinyl is perfect because it’s portable. I was thrilled to see they included a vinyl sheet in the marker bag. My only gripe is that the protector could have been cut larger, a full page size like A4 or 8.5x11” would have been better. Heck, I’d pay for a larger one!
But they didn’t have to put on in the bag at all, so I do really appreciate the gift-with-purchase.
Thanks, Ohuhu!
Ohuhu Swatch Cards are A Joke!
Ohuhu includes four swatch cards which sounds great until you touch one.
First, the paper is not identified— makes it easy for them to choose the cheapest paper and switch when another paper can be found cheaper, eh?
And they’re definitely switching and swapping because my cards do not match. One is printed on bright white, the rest are ivory-white.
But wait, it gets worse. The swatch cards are printed on an absorbent paper which is a big no-no with alcohol markers. The paper is also extremely toothy— toothy paper over time will wear-down your marker nibs. Whatever this awful paper is, it’s not a paper I’d recommend to students and a marker company should be ashamed for encouraging customers to use this kind of paper.
How hard can it be to call up a marker paper company and say “hey, we’re giving our customers free swatch cards. If you cut us a deal on the paper, we’ll print your logo in the corner and recommend your paper to our customers.”
Heck, Ohuhu SELLS marker sketchbooks!!! How much money are they missing out on by not promoting their own paper?
The printing on my cards is poorly done, as if the machine was running low on ink. One card has an ombre’ effect where the top third is dark and fades to light gray at the bottom.
The swatch squares are small and the text is uncomfortably hard to read. I’ve done a fair share of pamphlet and poster graphic design and these swatch cards were intended to be printed on cards 2-3 times this size. Ohuhu simply shrank the image to fit four to a page without scaling the text and strokes for readability. Doofus move, Ohuhu!
Now for the kicker which says a lot about Ohuhu: the swatches are not arranged in either numeric or chromatic order. Basically, the swatch cards are as badly organized as the markers arrive in the bag.
My recommendation: Burn the free swatch cards and purchase a download file online— find a swatch chart created by someone who cares about Ohuhu more than Ohuhu cares about Ohuhu.
Grading the Ohuhu ordering experience and packaging:
“Easy as Pie” a Copic Marker illustration by the author, Amy Shulke, 2023. 12x12 inches on Strathmore Bristol. Details with Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils.
Ordering was quick and easy through Amazon and I felt a sense of security that I wouldn’t have had ordering through Ohuhu. Call me chicken but markers this inexpensive make me nervous. Amazon gets an A+
Ohuhu packages their marker sets securely and my order arrived without damage. There was enough cardboard and foam to keep the markers from shifting at all PLUS they bagged the canvas bag in plastic to prevent water damage. Ohuhu gets an A for packaging
I did not appreciate the jumbled mess of colors inside the canvas bag. Not only is it a let down to see markers out of order but it also hides the fact that the Ohuhu color palette is long on colors I rarely use and short on markers I need. I’ll discuss Ohuhu’s deceptive moves more in future articles. Ohuhu organization gets an D+
I love the Ohuhu vinyl page protector. I have one from an Ohuhu sketchbook and was thrilled to receive a spare in my set of markers. Ohuhu gets an B for the page protector because with a bag this size, the protector could have been a full 8.5x11”.
Ohuhu’s swatch cards are terrible! It’s the wrong kind of paper, the print is badly done, the writing is too small, and the swatches are not organized. Ohuhu gets an E for swatch cards. In fact, I’d rather they just give a link to print from home!
And to follow up:
Earlier in this article I mentioned that I can usually tell whether a marker is high quality by feeling the weight, shape, and plastic in my hand?
I was worried about buying Ohuhu markers sight-unseen, without feeling the the quality first.
Now that I’ve held an Ohuhu Marker in my hand, would I have purchased them based upon my decades of marker experience and my artistic Spidey Sense?
NO
Ohuhu Markers feel like a low-grade marker.
The kind of marker you buy for kids, not an adult hobby and really not for serious marker art.
After years of using artist-grade illustration markers from the major pioneering brands, Ohuhu markers feel like a waste of my time.
But now that I have them, I’ll test them anyway because maybe modern markers are meant to feel disposable? Maybe this is what today’s artist market wants?
I’m giving Ohuhu Markers the benefit of the doubt but there’s a cricket on my shoulder telling me this isn’t worth it.
And hey, guess what?
