Hello, everyone! Hope everyone’s enjoying their Spring Break/Stimulus Day/Ordinary Workday. Today is the official start of my wINKsday series. I thought I’d start with the very first ink I purchased – the Pilot Iroshizuku ku-jaku. Kujaku means peacock in Japanese. It’s also apparently <furious typing> a type of koi fish and a character in Naruto.
I’m not familiar with the show* so whatever.
Anyway, my wife has a peacock feather tattoo on her right forearm (a stellar job by Jose at Electric Chair Tattoo) and as someone who can be as extra as peacocks (there are times when I’ve referred to myself as the human personification of the last four minuts of the 1812 Overture) I thought that a bird-themed ink would be great.
Also, I’ve mentioned that I like blue inks and this is right on the edge for that.
Pilot makes great pens and UNSURPRISINGLY they make great inks as well. Their Iroshizuku line of inks is a little on the pricier end ($18-$22 a bottle compared to brands like Noodler’s, Monteverde, or Diamine where it’s $8-$15 as the average) but that’s not bad at all for 50 ml and for a really nice bottle.
Which, again, you’re buying ink for the writing part but my argument is — if it’s going to look nice it might as well look all the way nice. Noodler’s is one of my favorite inks but the box is a plain jane white box, for instance.
So ON TO THE TESTs. As a reminder, I test using my glass dip pen. Water test is a drop of water from an eyedropper and then brushed with a #3 paintbrush. Reason I do this is to simulate your standard ‘oops I’ve spilled something’ and because some of you might be interested in doing watercolors with the inks I pick
This is the notebook I’ve been using for these tests. I also realize I forgot to include my Rhodia and Leuchturm tests but they’re somewhere below the Tomoe River and Clarefontaine papers and above the others in terms of performance. I’ll be sure to include those tests next week!
Hope this was useful!
*I moved to the US before Inuyasha and Naruto became a thing and so I didn’t get back into anime until years after I moved to Houston.
Obsidian Palms 