Everything You Need to Know about Dingbats Atopens
Looking for artist-quality brush markers at an affordable price? We recently started carrying the Atopens from Dingbats, and we can’t recommend them enough.
The Atopens have a fineliner tip and a brush end, so it is best to store them horizontally. Pictured here are yellow, pink, black, and blue from the primary pack and a Dingbats Earth Collection notebook.
The Atopens come in two packs of six double-ended markers: primary and pastel. Each marker features a hard bullet tip and a brush end so you can write to-do lists and flourishes alike with ease. The brush tip is also a bit shorter than other popular brands, so it can easily fit between the standard 0.5mm dot grid in many bullet planners. They are filled with water-based pigment ink and are acid free. Because there are two ends of the marker drawing ink from the same source, you should be sure to store them horizontally.
The ink is archival quality and waterproof when dry. That doesn’t mean you can’t use them for blending and different shades using the popular “watercolour technique” though! You can blend like you can with other brands while the ink is wet, which is especially easy using a water brush.
The Atopens are also fade-proof and bleed-proof, so you don’t have to worry about your hard work withering away after a year or two. Importantly, they’re also odourless, which is fantastic for those of us with really sensitive allergies.
These pens are perfect for if you’re starting calligraphy because their ends are springy enough to get great line variation, but they’re solid enough to keep complete control over the marker at all times. The fineliner end also helps you fix tiny mistakes you may have made in the process of learning!
Though brush markers are perhaps most known today for their uses in modern calligraphy (rightfully so!), there are also so many other uses for your Atopens. Brush markers are also great for drawing because the amount of pressure you place on the tip completely determines how wide your line will be. Whether you’re adding some extra spice to your envelopes or breaking in a new sketchbook, the Atopens are a great companion to have.
Swabs of both sets of Atopens here were done on a Dingbats Earth Collection notebook. You can find out more about Dingbats notebooks here.
Unlike some other brands of dual-tip brush markers, the ink in the Atopens is pigmented and free-flowing, so there is no shaking or hard-starts necessary to get going. The pastel pack is also just as highly pigmented as the primary pack, so you won’t have the experience of feeling like you’re writing with water that has been slightly dyed.
The primary pack has all the standard colours that you might use on a daily basis: black, red, pink, blue, green, and yellow. If you know your colour theory, you also know that this pack is perfect for blending every colour you could possibly want, and all you’ll need for that is a water brush and a palette!
The pastel pack is perfect for bullet journalling. It features colours that are great for blending, but are also easy on the eyes: candy pink, island coral, powder blue, clover, butter, and English lavender. These colours are also great for using in textbooks as highlights and pens to jot matching notes.
We tested the pastel pack in quite a few different notebooks that are popular with bullet journalists in the store, and you can see the swabs below. From left to right, you can see swabs on the Midori dotted notebook, Leuchtturm1917, Hobonichi Techo, ClaireFontaine My Essentials, and Maclellan Books A5. Please note that all photos have been colour-corrected to give the best possible representation of the colour on the page, but factors like screen brightness may make the colours appear slightly different than they are in real life.
On all of the brands we tried, including the Dingbats Earth Collection notebook, there was absolutely no bleed and just a little ghosting. For how much ink was on the page, we were very impressed!
Which colour of the Atopens is your favourite? Let us know in the comments!