I've mentioned on a couple of threads just recently, how much I love my tombows. I'm not an artist, but I get beautiful results. I buy mine on ebay or Michaels with a coupon. (I do need a new black one, but that one was my edge inker for a while until I got one specific for edge inking). I love them
I also use Berol (which can be found on ebay
33 Berol Brush Pens 11 Colors 70 Off with Free Shipping Fantastic Deal | eBay) as well as American Crafts. Yes, these are extremely less costly, but they work for me. The only thing about the berols is that there isn't a black, but I personally don't mind, because I purchase my blacks separately.
If I was an artist, I know I would buy expensive markers, but I'm not. I love all my markers. My american crafts, I found at Tuesday morning. I just got them as fillers, but now, I have an array of colors that I can blend and do beautiful coloring and blending with. I found with blending it's more the paper than the markers. I still use a Copic blender. Yes, Yes, I know..... I'm a cheap butt.... I admit it, but like I said if I was an artist, I would spend the money.
I hope that my answers were useful. I agree with above, you can go to the frugal crafter's website and see some videos on her marker uses. She is actually an artist and she uses regular markers too. When I first got back into this, I couldn't believe the cost of Copics, so when I saw her use the Tombows I knew that until I could rationalize purchasing Copics I would use them. Now, I prefer them.
My apologies, this wasn't going to be a long post, but apparently I don't know how to do a short one....lol
Tombow markers and inktense pencils
