Oh, The Sheen! Tell Me The Ways.

[white_lotus]

There was a topic about what was sheen, as someone thought they didn't know what it was, or hadn't seen it. They wondered if there was something wrong with their eyes. I don't think that was the case.

 

For those that have seen sheen, in my experience, it shows up more often in artificial, fluorescent lighting, holding the paper at an angle. It can be subtle effecting perhaps just the punctuation, or bold effecting whole letters, or somewhere in between. Sometimes it's only in the darker parts of a shady ink, other times just an outline.

 

So here is a list of sheening inks, and how they appear from my review sheets. There are all done with Western F or M nibs on Tomoe River paper often in Edison pens, though there are some Pelikan examples. Organized by ink manufacturer. Feel free to add your examples!

 

Sailor

 

Kobe #37 Harbor Island Blue: subtle reddish sheen in heavier applications of ink

Maruzen Athena Nihombashi Akane: very common greenish sheen outlining letter forms

Maruzen Athena Nihombashi River Blue: subtle reddish sheen occasionally outlining letter forms

Maruzen Athena Nihombashi Murasaki: brilliant green sheen throughout letter forms

Hougado Pen Gallery Nodaiko Violet: green sheen appearing occasionally in letter forms

Hougado Pen Gallery Boochan Blue: occasional reddish sheen, not very pronounced

Style Dee Delta "Water City" Tsuyuten Murasame: green sheen fairly common on letter forms

Style Dee Delta "Water City" Sonezaki Orange: slight, occasional silver sheen

Kingdom Note Amanita muscaria: silver sheen common throughout outlining letter forms

Kingdom Note Uca arcuta: some occasional silver sheen

Kingdom Note Trametes versicolor: reddish sheen outlining letter forms, somewhat subtle

Kingdom Note Dorcus hopei binodulosus: green sheen outlining, somewhat subtle

Kingdom Note Porpita porpita: slight red sheen outlining loops and punctuation, subtle

Kingdom Note Thysanostoma thysanura: green sheen outlining letters, subtle

Kingdom Note Chrysaora helvola: slight silver sheen outlining loops and in punctuation

Sankodo Nishibisan Black Purple: green sheen common in letter forms

Bungbox Fresh Oranges of Lake Hamana: silver sheen thoughout outlining

Pen & Message Old Burgundy: green sheen common within letter forms and punctuation

Jentle Four Seasons Kin-mokusei: silver sheen thoughout outlining

Jentle Four Seasons Oku-yama: silver to green sheen outlining letters, subtle

Jentle Four Seasons Tokiwa-matsu: red sheen common in punctuation and loops

Jentle Four Seasons Souten: slight red sheen

Jentle Four Seasons Yama-dori: red sheen within letter forms, subtle

Kiwa-guro: silver sheen in heavier ink areas, often looks like pencil

 

Blackstone

Daintree Green: reddish sheen in loops, end of letter forms, punctuation

 

Bookbinder's Snake Ink

Red-belly black: subtle silvery sheen

 

Diamine

Cult Pens Deep Dark Green: silver sheen in punctuation and outlining letters

 

J. Herbin

Emerald of Chivor: heavy red sheen outlining letters

 

Iroshizuku

Kon-peki: slight red sheen outlining letters, subtle

Tsuki-yo: slight reddish sheen outlining letters, subtle

Tsu-kushi: green sheen throughout outlining and within letters

Yama-guri: green sheen outlining, not as prevalent as in Tsu-kushi

 

KWZ

Azure #4: slight red sheen outlining loops and punctuation

Azure #5: slight red sheen in heavy applications of ink

Brown #2: slight silver sheen

Menthol Green: slight silvery sheen in the deepest parts of letters

Northern Twilight: reddish sheen in the deep areas of shading

Orange: silver sheen outlining letters

Kyoto TAG

Kyo-no-oto 01 Nureba-iro: silver sheen within letter forms

 

Noodler's

Northstar Liberator: slight reddish sheen on a few letters

The Violet Vote (2016): silver sheen within letter forms

 

Parker

Penman Sapphire (vintage): red sheen outlining letter forms

 

Pelikan

Edelstein Tanzanite: slight silver sheen

Robert Oster

Marine: red sheen outlining loops especially

Spearmint: red sheen outlining letter forms, subtle

 

Waterman

Mysterious Blue: red sheen within some letter forms

 

[Pensei]

Great information; thanks.

 

Edit: Might I add, in the Iroshizuku family, Shin-kai has a nice pink/red sheen.

 

Also, in the Bungbox family, the great lime green sheen with Tears of a Clown and Sweet Potato Purple.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Pensei

[PAKMAN]

That's quite extensive research you've done there! Thanks!

[jmccarty3]

Waterman Serenity Blue has sheen under the right conditions.

[Runnin_Ute]

I have seen sheen with both Blackstone Sydney Harbour Blue and Barrier Reef Blue.

[Torrilin]

I can’t say for sure about Kiwa-guro, but Platinum Carbon Black has a similar silvery sheen and it will show on even Moleskine paper. The paper doesn’t have to be fancy, just throw enough ink at it and you’ll have sheen. And even indirect light can show it at high enough ink saturation levels.

 

The things you learn from cross hatching.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Essential list, thank you.

Diamine "Asa Blue" has a subtle sheen and shadowing.

 

 

While Diamine "Midnight" sheens more evidently.

 

[vojtahlad]

Diamine Majestic Blue has a strong red sheen.

[DasKaltblut]

Monteverde Horizon Blue has a nice red sheen. Similar in many ways to Penman Sapphire.

[inkstainedruth]

Diamine Oxford Blue sheens red (even on crappy paper). So does Ackerman Shocking Blue.

And while I don't think of it being a sheen-er, I've seen a bit of sheen with Noodler's Kung Te Cheng (but only on Tomoe River paper).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[gerigo]

It's a wonderful list of inks that give that sheening quality that everyone seems to want these days.

 

BUT did you know that you can make ANY ink sheen? Inks sheen because ink is concentrated enough for it to want to pool and create that appearance that we all like. Unfortunately sheen also means that the ink is more likely to stain because there is a lot less water. I discovered this when I would forget pens I have inked, then wrote with them after a month or so, to find the results were incredibly sheening inks in what were considered originally watery and pastel like inks.

[minddance]

It's a wonderful list of inks that give that sheening quality that everyone seems to want these days.

 

BUT did you know that you can make ANY ink sheen? Inks sheen because ink is concentrated enough for it to want to pool and create that appearance that we all like. Unfortunately sheen also means that the ink is more likely to stain because there is a lot less water. I discovered this when I would forget pens I have inked, then wrote with them after a month or so, to find the results were incredibly sheening inks in what were considered originally watery and pastel like inks.

+1. Many inks sheen, it is not an exclusive quality to a specific list of inks. And sheen can sometimes be over-rated. But I can appreciate its existence and demand. A list, as the OP has drawn up can be useful to people who do not know how to get sheen out of their inks, but even with that, conditions apply.

 

An ink-miser pen wouldn't produce much sheen, if at all. And this is why sheen advocates often use q-tips and dip pens and/or very wet flex pens and big wet blotches of ink to display sheen, very often on very specific papers like Tomoe River.

 

In fact, I would be very much interested in a list of inks that absolutely don't sheen.

[white_lotus]

Thanks for the additional comments as I was looking to generate discussion as well as add to the list of sheening inks. I know some people use puddles of ink to demonstrate sheen, and this is an extreme case. All of my examples are ones you'll find with normal nibs, maybe even Fs, though of course using broader nibs will generally help an ink sheen.

 

Most of my normal papers are high quality but absorbent papers so I almost never see sheen. That's my I use Tomoe River paper when I want to see the sheen of inks. But some inks will sheen on almost any hard-sized paper.

 

There were a large number of inks in my review sheets that did not sheen under normal conditions, but I don't know if they wouldn't sheen on certain papers or with wide nibs. As an aside, most of the Noodler's inks in my reviews did not sheen. I don't have all of them, but I was a bit surprised, and expected more would exhibit this quality.

[senzen]

Not particularly fond of sheen, but that is a great list; J Herbin Rouge Hematite is also heavy on sheen.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Not particularly fond of sheen, but that is a great list; J Herbin Rouge Hematite is also heavy on sheen.

How could I 've forgotten to add that.

This is my card for Rouge Hematite, the bottle has not been shaken prior to inking up the pen. Paper is Rhodia Pad Stapled A4 Blank.

Please excuse the crude scan quality, I haven't gotten around to setting up Photoshop on the new pc yet.

Edited February 22, 2018 by RoyalBlueNotebooks

[Mulrich]

Organic studios Walden pond and nitrogen blue are both about as sheeny as they come. Hard to even see the underlying color.

[Nibbler]

Wonderful list, thank you. Sailor Doyou has a gentle silver sheen.

[northstar]

Hello,

 

Parker Penman Ruby got a lovely greenish sheen.

 

[amberleadavis]

Very nice!

[migo984]

So many inks sheen that I wouldnt know where to start.......or stop.

 

For example, here is quick doodle I did a few weeks ago, using the inks that I happened to have in my pens. Pens were freshly inked, so hadnt been sitting around. Inks were not selected for sheen. The only ones that didnt exhibit sheen were the Pelikan & GvFC. All pens had regular fine or medium nibs. None of those enormous broad stub hoses, or great wet dollops of inks often used for sheen photos. Cant recall what paper it was - I think it was Elias.