This post is all about Copic Various Ink vs Copic Ink.
Your Copic markers are running out of ink and you think it might be the time to replace them right?
Before spending your money buying completely new markers, you should use that money to get Copic refill inks instead. Believe me, it’s a great investment and it’s way more economical.
Copic offers refill inks for every color in their color spectrum. So that’s 358 colors in total! You can either get Copic Various Ink or Copic Ink.
Let’s see what their differences are.
Copic Various Ink
Copic Various ink refills come in bigger bottles, filled with 25 cc of ink. This is how many times a Copic Marker can be refilled with one bottle of Copic Various Ink:
Copic Classic: 9x (refill 2-3 cc each time)
Copic Sketch: 12x (refill 2 cc each time)
Copic Ciao: 15x (refill 1-1.5 cc each time)
Copic Wide: 6x (refill 3-4 cc each time)
There are scales on the bottle itself, which are super helpful indicators so you don’t just have to eyeball it when refilling your markers. However, the body of the bottles isn’t transparent, so it’s kinda hard to read the level of ink.
The Copic Various ink refill bottles are rectangular. The caps however, are square in shape, which are similar like the caps of Copic Classic markers.
You could easily mix up Copic Classic markers and Copic Various Ink bottles because they have similar-looking caps. Since I only own Copic Ciao and Copic Sketch markers, which have round and oval caps, the square shape of the caps don’t bother me that much.
Read here if you want to know more about all types of Copic markers.
The nozzles are shorter compared the nozzles of Copic Ink refills. If you take out the nibs of your marker to refill, you want to make sure to drop the ink inside the reservoir, not around it. Unless you’re being super careless when refilling your markers, the shorter nozzle would work just fine.
My approach is rather a simpler one. Instead of taking out the nib, I just drip the ink directly on the nib a few times. This approach is a bit more time consuming, but less messy.
Here’s how I refill my Copic markers:
Copic stopped producing Various Inks, somewhere around the year 2019. Although some shops still carry them, you can be sure that they are old stocks from 2019.
Here’s my Copic Various Ink collection, some of them are still sealed (about only 1.5 ml dissipated after 5 years).
Copic Ink
After Copic stopped the production of Copic Various Ink, they introduced Copic Ink. They are basically the newer generation of Copic refills. They are a smaller and more compact version of Copic Various ink, filled with only 12 ml (12 cc) of ink.
Copic kinda changed the unit too, from cc to ml, for whatever reason.
The refill botte has scales on it, and the body of the bottle is now translucent. A huge step forward if you ask me! It makes it so much easier to see how much ink is left in the refill.
This is how many times a Copic Marker can be refilled with one bottle of Copic Ink:
Copic Classic: 5x (refill 2-3 ml each time)
Copic Sketch: 7x (refill 2 ml each time)
Copic Ciao: 9x (refill 1-1.5 ml each time)
Copic Wide: 3x (refill 3-4 ml each time)
Copic completely changed the design of the ink bottles. They are now round in shape, even the caps are round. It kinda throws me off sometimes when I draw because there were so many times where I accidently grabbed a refill instead of a marker.
They now have longer nozzles. If you use the pulling-the-nibs-out method to refill your marker, they’re perfect for you; not so perfect if you refill the markers like me.
Due to its shape and length, Copic Ink isn’t stable enough to stand on its own unlike Copic Various Ink. It isn’t that big of a deal since the ink won’t drip if you lay it down while being uncapped (not that you should do it though!).
One thing that can be clearly seen on the plastic wrapping of the refills is the rather bulky safety data leaflet of the ink, which is a nice bonus, especially if you’re worried about harmful chemicals or are allergic to certain type of chemicals.
For the most of us, the leaflet would probably end up somewhere in the trash can anyway (I’m pretty sure you can find the safety data information on their website, or have it emailed to you if you contact their customer service).
Mixing Ink
Copic sells empty markers and empty ink bottles so if you’re feeling creative, you can even mix your own ink and create your own custom marker! How fun is that?
Conclusion
Personally, I would prefer Copic Various Ink refills over Copic Ink but that’s because I’ve already built the perfect storage system for my Copic Various inks. Mixing both types just feels wrong somehow.
One of the things that makes Copic unique compared to its competitor is the refills, which are available in all 358 colors. In fact, this is also the reason why I chose Copic markers instead of the cheaper ones in the first place.
We know full well how expensive Copic markers and their refills can get. However, this is only true if you’re buying Copic products anywhere else outside of Japan. I
n Japan, you could get Copic stuffs for almost half the price. So if you’re planning to take a vacation some day in Japan, remember to pay a visit to any Tokyu Hands department store and go crazy!
As a foreign visitor, you could even get a 5% coupon. And if you spend more than ¥5000, you get a tax exemption on top. So you can save a huge amount of money if you plan your visit well.
Here is a video of my huge Copic haul in Tokyu Hands in Tokyo, Japan in 2018:
