7 EASY ways to make a Tombow Dual Brush Pen Color Chart

I love creating art with my Brush Pens and always refer to my Tombow dual brush pen color chart to pick the hues I need. Color swatching is a great, satisfying way to spend a snowy afternoon creating your rainbow on paper.

tombow dual brush pen color chart

ALSO READ: Everything You Need to Know About Brush Pens + 4 sketchbooks to buy!

tombow dual brush pen color chart

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How many Tombow markers are there?

There are 108 colors.

3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD MAKE A TOMBOW DUAL BRUSH PEN COLOR CHART:

  1. You can see how all the colors look on paper at a glance quickly. Makes it very easy to pick and choose my markers to use on any sketch
  2. I have found that the marker cap color doesn’t always match the watercolor perfectly. So the watercolor chart gives me a great idea how the actual color of the Tombow Dual Brush Pen will end up with on my paper.
  3. This chart also gives me a great idea about what colors I can avoid. In general, marker numbers ending with 0 or 1 are too light in nature and don’t watercolor too much. The color doesn’t really change with the addition of water.
  4. You won’t accidentally buy duplicates! Check your color swatch before buying new markers.

7 ideas for your tombow dual brush pen color chart

1: Create a washi tape resist grid:

Watch the video: I show I created the Tombow Dual Brush Pen Color chart using washi tape for a grid here www.instagram.com/tv/BuoRoZOHkTM/

This chart idea is my most favorite one and hence is up at No 1. The chart will take a good 30+ minutes to make, but the lines are all crisp and beautiful! This is my most used and referred color chart and I used all 108 Tombow Dual Brush Pens here.

I used a sheet from my Canson Mixed Media XL sketchbook and then used super skinny washi tape to create a grid of 12 by 9 to match the marker arrangement in the accordion case.

And then it was time to paint! I simply scribbled color into each area and painted over it with water. Slowly but steadily I filled in all of those 108 little rectangles.

tombow dual brush pen color chart

Here is how my watercolor chart looks! I cannot even begin to tell you how happy these colors make me. 🙂

tombow dual brush pen color chart

2: Create a quick grid of circles

In this video, I show you how I created each of these three watercolor swatches and why I created 3 different ones https://youtu.be/n2cE05HvR-Q

  • Draw a light pencil grid on your paper. I used a sheet from my Canson Mixed Media XL sketchbook
  • Write down the pen number using an OIL based pen- like this MONO twin permanent marker
  • Add marker on top of the written pen number, paint with water to make a circle shape within your pencil grid. The circle shape is much more forgiving than trying to paint a square or rectangle neatly 🙂
  • Watch this video to see me paint this chart https://youtu.be/n2cE05HvR-Q (at timestamp 4:36)
tombow color chart

3. Create a color swatch of your most used colors only

For this watercolor chart what I did was I chose my most used pen colors – I didn’t make a swatch of all the 96 colors. Some of them are really light in nature and don’t work well for watercoloring, so I just left those out.

tombow color chart
  • I used the Canson Watercolor paper to create this swatch. 
  • Write down the pen number using an OIL based pen- like this MONO twin permanent marker
  • Scribble some color on top of it and paint over it with some water. The color changes a lot- it kind of softens and spreads nicely with the water!

When you purchase your 96 color set of Tombow Dual brush pens, it comes with a marker stand. This stand is portable and very compact but make sure you use the Xtreme tabs while assembling the stand. Otherwise, the stand can fall apart easily.

Tombow-96-marker-stand

4. MAKE A COLOR STUDY CHART:

Work with any 10 marker pack to create a color study chart. This is great to learn how the colors mix and blend. For this chart, I used ONLY the Dual Brush pen, Bright pack. There are 9 colors in this pack and these are my most loved colors. And these were the first colors I had before I got the entire 96 color set and so I have used these the most.

tombow color chart
dual brush bright set

What I did here is I wrote the color numbers in the column and row headers. Then I added the color to each row and column and mixed them with my wet paintbrush. I created this little Tombow color chart on a Strathmore watercolor card

This is a nice way to see how the colors mix and it’s so great that you are able to create so many different hues and tones with just a handful of markers. 

Also a quick note- you can add more water to each color mixing to achieve a lighter shade of the color. I always keep that in mind while choosing my color scheme too.

5. Tombow Dual Brush Pen color chart, Celebrate 10 pack

Here is another coloring mixing chart, this time using the Tombow Dual Brush Pen, Celebrate 10 pack. I’ve created a color mixing chart from scratch with just a piece of watercolor paper, a pencil, and a ruler.

  1. Since there are 10 colors of Dual Brush Pens, I created a 10 by 10 grid on my Watercolor paper. Space out your rows and columns evenly and draw your grid 
  2. Add in your colors! Mix the two colors corresponding to the row and column directly on the paper using either a Water Brush or the Colorless Blender Pen N00.
  3. Work in batches for best results. I would say 3 or 4 blocks at a time. This will give you enough time to mix and blend the colors before the marker sits on the paper for too long.
  4. Once you’ve filled out half of the chart above the diagonal, you’ve basically seen all the color combos there are. Its amazing to see how many newer shades of color you can create with just these markers!

6. Color in my Free printable to make a color swatch + mixing chart

Tutorial + Printable here: FREE Color mixing chart printable in 2 sizes+ How to use it!

In the tutorial, I show you how to create a Tombow Dual Brush Pen color chart + color mixing chart onto one piece of paper. And yes, you can print this onto watercolor paper!

7. Tombow Dual Brush Pen Decades

In 2022, three new 10 packs of Tombow Dual Brush Pens were released- Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. I had fun color swatching them in the video below!

Tombow Dual Brush Pen Decades 10 pack

What do Tombow numbers mean?

Each Tombow Dual Brush Pen marker has a 3-digit color number printed on the barrel.

Tombows
  • You’ll notice all the reds start with number 8 and all the blues start with number 4 or 5. The first number denotes the color family or
  • Darker color pen number end with a 7,8, or 9
  • Lighter color pen number end with a 1,2 or 3
  • The Grey markers are numbered with a N followed by 2 digits.

Tombow Discount Code:

Enter “smitha15” at checkout to get 15% off your order on the Tombow USA website.

Explore all of my Tombow Dual Brush Pen Art Tutorials:

  1. Learn how to use your pens for Painting a winter scene
  2. Paint a winter watercolor page in your sketchbooks featuring cute moose!
  3. Unboxing Tombow VIP Club Boxes

CONCLUSIOn

On a day when I just need a creative outlet and don’t want to worry much about color and composition creating a color mixing chart is the perfect way to play!

In conclusion, I highly recommend that you create your own Tombow Dual Brush Pen color chart. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 pens or all 108. The color chart will help you explore more hues and you will learn how to mix more colors with the markers you have.

The process of creating a color chart is so relaxing and stress free. There is no expectations- all you need to do is put color down and paint. Fill in those squares, circles or the grid. Its repetitive, mindless and super satisfying!

Hi I’m Smitha! I live in Minnesota with my husband and two daughters. You’ll always find me painting florals in my sketchbook. And I love the sheer joy of making something with just my hands! But my bigger love is capturing it all on camera Read more.

Thanks for stopping by today! If you learnt something from this tutorial, do share this post with a friend or on social media! Tag me @smithakatti #smithakatti I’d love to see what you create!

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8 Comments

  1. I love to read your blog and watch your videos! Of course I had to rearrange my Tombow markers like you showed. I only have the 96 color set, not the newest 12 set yet. My eyes may be playing a trick on me but I don’t see 515 or 027 on the chart. Please check and let me know where they should go.

    Thanks so much!

  2. What are the colors that are in the 108 set but not in the 96 set? Which numbers are the new colors?

  3. This is just what I have been looking for! I just discovered your website and I am really excited to start getting to know and use my brush pens in new ways.
    Thank you so much!!

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