What Are the Best Cheap Gel Pens?

Published: January 27, 2021

What are the best cheap gel pens? And what are the worst? Watch as Steve and I run the “Battle of the Cheap Gel Pens”. We test 10 different lines of inexpensive gel pens to see who comes out on top!

Our goal in doing this gel pen test was to find the best affordable gel pens for Colorists. During the tests we frequently compared these inexpensive pens to the top rated Sakura Gelly Roll pens. Our purpose in doing that was to find the best Gelly Roll alternative–something that is affordable but performs well.

Battle of the Cheap Gel Pens!

TIME STAMPS

Links to important points in the video…

Introduction: 00:00:00
Enter Our Gelly Roll Giveaway: 00:01:30
Gel Pen Testing Worksheet Download: 00:02:10
Why We Did this Gel Pen Battle: 00:02:34
How We Did the Tests: 00:04:02
How to Label Gel Pen Sets: 00:07:00
How to Use the Testing Worksheet: 00:11:16
How to Score the Gel Pens: 00:23:34
Testing the Tanmit Gel Pens: 00:32:34
Scoring the Tanmit Gel Pens: 00:39:32
The Bottom 3 Gel Pen Brands: 00:47:07
The Middle Score Brands: 00:53:05
The Top 3 Gel Pen Brands: 01:00:53
Our #1 Recommended Gel Pen Set!: 01:08:17
Gel Pen Buying Advice: 01:10:24

HOW IT WORKS

• First, we researched and purchased several popular brands of cheap gel pens including Arteza, AEN Art, Shuttle Art and more!

• Then we swatched all of the pens using our downloadable 72 Swatches Chart found here: https://www.coloringbliss.com/72-swatch-chart/

• Next we carefully designed a gel pen testing worksheet specifically created to discover the strengths and weaknesses of these tools. We also established a system to score and rank all 10 brands. If you’d like to test your own gel pens, you can download the testing worksheet here: https://www.coloringbliss.com/gel-pen-testing-worksheet/

• Finally, we tallied all of the scores to come up with the best and worst affordable gel pens so we could present the results to you.