Art Supplies Our Team Would Buy With a $50 Budget

Introduction

What would you buy if you had $50 to spend on art supplies? We asked four members of our own team that question, and the answers turned out to be refreshingly practical. Instead of chasing a single expensive tool, each person built a small, complete kit that covers sketching, coloring, lineart, and the finishing touches that pull a piece together.

This article walks through two of those kits. The first is aimed at casual drawing and marker coloring, with a few alcohol markers mixed in. The second is a portable sketching setup designed for drawing away from home. Between the two, there is a lot of useful inspiration for building your own starter or refresh kit.

How We Approached the $50 Budget

The common thread across both kits is that paper and small tools matter just as much as the headline products. Each team member prioritized supplies that solve a specific problem: paper that will not buckle under wet media, a sketch color that will not muddy finished artwork, erasers for different jobs, and pens chosen for the exact line quality they want. That mindset is worth borrowing whether you are spending $50 or $500.

A Marker-Focused Kit for Casual Sketching

This kit comes from someone who usually draws digitally but has been getting back into traditional markers. Since alcohol markers are not the most affordable supplies around, the strategy is to cover the bases for casual drawing and sketching affordably, then add a few alcohol markers where they make the biggest difference.

Fluid Watercolor Pads

Good paper is the foundation of the whole kit. While marker paper is an option, watercolor paper works well with markers too. Fluid’s Watercolor Pads are portable and great quality for the price, and alcohol markers do not bleed through in regular use. The paper is designed for wet media, so each sheet is glued along two edges, which keeps it from warping while you work on a piece.

Pilot Color Eno Mechanical Pencil

Because the sketch will not be erased before coloring, a colored lead makes sense here. The Pilot Color Eno Mechanical Pencil in Soft Blue is the pick: blue sketch lines blend in with the finished piece without making the actual colors muddy. Sketches done in gray graphite can end up muddying the colors once you start layering markers on top.

Kuretake ZIG Clean Color Dot Markers

For base colors, Kuretake ZIG Clean Color Dot Markers in Mild shades work great. They are light but still vibrant enough to let drawings pop. They can be used sparingly for adding shadows, or as base colors with depth built up using shades like Powder Blue, English Lavender, or Baby Pink.

Copic Markers

Alcohol markers earn their place in the kit for shadows and depth. The favorite here is V93 Early Grape for its warmer tone, with BV02 Prune and BV13 Hydrangea Blue as go-to choices for bluer shadows. Buying just a couple of well-chosen colors keeps the budget reasonable while adding a lot of depth to marker work.

Sakura Pigma Micron

Lineart comes last in this workflow, and Sakura Pigma Micron pens are the tool of choice. Having lined artwork with Microns for years, this artist is always restocking them. The 0.25 millimeter tip size hits a good middle point: small enough for finer details, large enough to line the rest of the drawing. One important sequencing note: save the lineart for last, because the Kuretake ZIG markers can smear Micron ink if you apply too much pressure.

Sakura Gelly Roll

The finishing touch is a white Sakura Gelly Roll in Fine. It is ideal for adding extra details like highlights or rim lighting once everything else is done, and it is the kind of pen that earns a permanent spot in any pencil case.

A Portable Sketching Kit

The second kit is built by someone who loves making stickers and cute stationery, works mainly in digital art, and occasionally with watercolor. The goal here is a compact set of essentials for convenient sketching away from home, with everything chosen to save space without giving up capability.

Stillman & Birn Zeta

The base of the kit is the Stillman & Birn Zeta, from a brand the artist counts among personal favorites. The Zeta line is chosen because it handles wetter mediums well, takes a bit of wear and tear, and shows minimal buckling. A practical bonus: the plain cover is perfect for decorating with stickers.

Sun-Star Nicolo Pencil

Owning a lot of pencils makes portability a challenge, so the Sun-Star Nicolo pencil solves it elegantly. It holds both 0.3 and 0.5 mm lead, so you can alternate between lead sizes in a single body. That makes it an easy pencil to grab on the way out the door.

Uni NanoDia Colored Lead

The Nicolo pairs beautifully with Uni NanoDia erasable colored lead, letting you switch between colored and graphite sketches in the same pencil. It is a small change that multiplies what one portable pencil can do.

Kuretake ZIG Cartoonist Flexible Pen

For ink work, the Kuretake ZIG Cartoonist Flexible Pen offers good line variation and feels nice gliding on the paper. It also works well over the NanoDia colored lead. The Sepia ink is the favorite, but it is available in black as well.

Tombow Mono Dust Catch Eraser

Yes, three erasers. Each has its own specialty. The Tombow Mono Dust Catch performs like a regular eraser, but its shavings gather into clumps so they do not end up all over your table and floor. For sketching anywhere that is not your own desk, that detail is worth a lot.

Tombow Mono Zero Eraser

The Tombow Mono Zero is built for precision. Since this kit revolves around a smaller sketchbook, it is described as a lifesaver: the tiny tip gets into delicate areas of a sketch so you do not accidentally erase parts you wanted to keep.

Prismacolor Kneaded Eraser

The Prismacolor Kneaded Eraser is compared to the traditional way of lowering layer opacity in digital art. You can lighten a sketch so you can render over it without too much muddiness from the pencil lead, and it also makes it easier to see where you are lining if you do lineart.

Zebra Mildliners

Not strictly art supplies, but Zebra Mildliners earn their spot for adding pops of color into sketches. Out of the many color combinations available, the Refresh Mild Color Set was chosen for leaning into more vivid tones. As water-based markers, they are fast drying, which makes it easy to jot down ideas in public without waiting around, and they can be blended with a blender or water brush to create gradients and smudging effects.

Tombow Dual Brush Pen N00 Colorless Blender

Any colorless blender or water brush will do, but the preferred choice is the Tombow Dual Brush Pen in N00 for its firmer nib. That extra firmness gives more control over where you are smudging pigment, which matters when working with water-based markers.

Uni-ball Signo Gel Pen

The kit closes with the Uni-ball Signo Gel Pen in white, used for two things: fixing mistakes and adding contrast to drawings. Like the Gelly Roll in the first kit, it is one of those small tools that quietly becomes indispensable.

Buying Advice for Your Own $50 Budget

The lesson from both kits is to build around a workflow rather than a wishlist. Start with paper that suits your medium, whether that is a wet-media pad for markers or a durable sketchbook for travel. Add a sketching tool in a color that fits your coloring method, a small set of coloring supplies in shades you will actually reach for, and one ink pen you love the feel of. Then round it out with erasers matched to specific jobs and a white pen for highlights. If a premium item like an alcohol marker set would eat the whole budget, follow the example here: buy one or two versatile colors instead of the full range.

Conclusion

Two people, two very different kits, and both completely usable for under $50. One leans into marker coloring with watercolor paper, colored lead, dot markers, a couple of alcohol markers, and finishing pens. The other packs a portable sketchbook setup with a dual-size pencil, flexible pen, three specialized erasers, and blending tools. Whichever direction fits your style, every supply on this list earns its place through daily usefulness rather than novelty, which is exactly what a modest budget should buy.