Inky T O D - How to choose inks?

[Chi]

As an ink newbie, I really enjoy reading this thread. Thank you for sharing what you learned and what you know. Many of your ink reviews have helped me find inks that I enjoy.

 

In the short amount of time, about two years, that I have started to use inks, my testing method has already evolved a few times. 

 

One thing I need to do better is how to efficiently documented what I have tried, which is fairly new since I didn't have enough to discover what I don't enjoy. A good pen and a great ink don't always come together as a magical combination.

 

A great example would be that I have to clean up my Pilot VP (M) yesterday because I did not like how diamine scribble purple look in it. I love special inks, but I think my VP is too wet on tomoe river 52g paper and the sheen overpowered everything. Which comes back to I did not do a thorough sampling job when I just imagined how the pen and the ink match up in my head, based on doing cotton swaps and glass dip pen writing.

 

Welp, Lesson learned! 

 

 

[amberleadavis]

On 2/1/2022 at 8:48 AM, LizEF said:

• Learn what the various ink attributes mean - or at least, the ones that you care about (though things change), so you can capture the information you care about.  Specifically:
  • Shading
  • Sheen
  • Shimmer / glitter / glistening / etc. (all terms for "there's glitter in this ink")
  • Water resistance
  • Dry time (on paper)
  • Idle time (with cap off, not writing; this is partially pen-dependent)
  • Flow (often called wetness; how readily or quickly ink flows from the pen - we could have a whole separate discussion on how a non-scientist might measure this in a reliable, somewhat objective way)
  • Lubrication (how smooth your nib feels while writing with the ink, compared to other inks; if you only use broad nibs, this may not be terribly important or noticeable to you)
  • Bad behavior: feathering, spreading, bleed-through
  • "Saturation" - which may relate to the purity and strength of the color, or may relate to how much of the ink is dye (or pigment) vs water.
•  

 

Start here - 

 

Performance and Properties
Inky T O D - Lubricating Inks
https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/265842-inky-t-o-d-lubricating-inks/
Inky T O D - What Are Dry Inks?
https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/265786-inky-t-o-d-what-are-dry-inks/
Inky T O D - What Are Wet Inks?
https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/265785-inky-t-o-d-what-are-wet-inks/

An Alternative Look at Ink Wetness

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/360624-an-alternative-look-at-ink-wetness/#comments
Inky T O D - Which Ink Properties Are Most Important To You?
https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/264954-inky-t-o-d-which-ink-properties-are-most-important-to-you/
Inky T O D - Making Inks Drier - Dryer - Drying Additives?

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/330981-inky-t-o-d-making-inks-drier-dryer-drying-additives/

[amberleadavis]

From @LizEF

Lessons learned:

• I like ink colors I never would have thought I would like (thanks to a few kind souls here gifting me ink samples).  Therefore, don't be picky about color - sample them all!!

Yep, I never thought murky pinks would work for me.

• The perfect color you're looking for doesn't exist.  

And the perfect color will not be the same in a different pen or on a different paper.

• Don't judge hastily - just because it doesn't look good (or behave well) from one pen, doesn't mean it won't from another.

OH YEAH, I have wet pens and dry pens and pens in between.  See the image below. The same ink and same paper with a different pen....

• Know your pens (see above); flow and line width make a difference in ink appearance and behavior.

• Know your papers (inks can look different on different papers)

That's why we try different papers.

• Those giant swabs are only good for vague notions of color - they may not accurately reflect what you will see from any given pen!

Totally true

• No other person's opinion or experience can come close to replacing your own.  Bite the bullet and work for the knowledge you want - look at images, read reviews, sample inks, try ink in multiple pens and on multiple papers, learn your pens, etc.

@A Smug Dill just said the same thing.

 

• Create a system for cataloging inks you try.  Time spent designing that system will be well spent.  I recommend forming a comprehensive list of every variable (including pens and papers), organizing it, then deciding what you do / don't care about (keeping in mind that future you may care differently than current you).

Oh, yeah, my younger self wanted waterproof. Now, I enjoy water washes.

[Arkanabar]

Everything recommended so far is good advice.

 

I'm cheap, and my recommendations are meant to limit your costs.

 

Start by using what you've got.  Pay attention to the results you're getting.  Decide what sorts of things are important to have, and which things are best avoided, and which are unacceptable.  Try to get your preferences nailed down, as that is going to be the start of your journey.  

 

The whole point of writing is so that what one writes may be easily read.  The most important characteristics are those that contribute to or impede legibility.  Feathering and spreading can close loops.  Some colors lack contrast with the white salvage paper which is my usual medium (and which can also contribute to feathering and spreading).  Some colors are so bright that they make reading tiring or painful.

 

The first thing I did was limit myself to six colors -- black, blue-black, purple, blue, green, brown.  That was as far along the rainbow as I wanted to go.  Red, orange, and most especially yellow were all precluded from regular writing for being too bright, too pale, or both.

Then I went through the color threads linked in Amber's signature for the color families I was interested in.  I wrote down the ones I was interested in, and looked through all the reviews, and at all the images, that I could find.  Eventually, I got samples, and chose from between those.

 

But I'd already been fooling around for quite a few years, and I had a bunch of inks I'd been given over the years.  

 

So, for the total newbie, I suppose I'd more-or-less suggest that you go about choosing inks in much the same way I recommend choosing pens.  Basically, that's "pick one, use it a LOT (e.g., as your only for a month or two), figure out everything about it that matters to you both good and bad, and use what you've learned to make your next selection.  Use it with all your pens, and on all your papers.  (Or if you're using this process to determine your taste in pens, use it with short fills of all your inks, on all your papers.)  Write mindfully, paying attention to notice what you like, dislike, don't care about, demand, and despise.  Use it to inform your purchases.  With this process, you can eventually hone your knowledge of your preferences to what you really like.

[amberleadavis]

On 2/2/2022 at 10:08 PM, Arkanabar said:

Start by using what you've got.  Pay attention to the results you're getting.  Decide what sorts of things are important to have, and which things are best avoided, and which are unacceptable.  Try to get your preferences nailed down, as that is going to be the start of your journey.  

 

 

OH YES!

[Bookman]

I sometimes choose an ink based on the pen.  The pen that just ran dry is its mate.  Sheer coincidence.  Most of my inks are bluish violet or violettish blue.  In a way, it hardly matters which ink I choose unless I want some color other than blue-violet. These days I usually choose an ink I haven't used in a while.

[dragondazd]

Even before the pandemic, I had a lot of control over what I write on. Now, I work from home with even more control and flexibility. I also no longer worry about some ludicrous judgements people do make ("that pen is too manly"/"that ink is too girly"). Given my situation, I think it's pretty reasonable to require most of my inks to work in my reliable pens I use daily on FP paper.

 

For normal rotation inks, I test on quality paper to see if it works in my Safari and an additional pen, usually wetter. It must look "pretty" on Tomoe River, and at least nice on Mnemosyne. By pretty, I usually mean shading and sometimes a highly saturated color that I like.

 

I  have bought bottles sight unseen without sampling it first so I have bottles that don't "pass" but they do no harm where they are. 

 

I sometimes seek out specialty characteristics and also make exceptions for pretty but finicky inks. I have been playing it pretty safe until recently. I have been leery of shimmer and don't seek out sheen. I LOVE multichromatic but that only became a thing in the market recently, so now I run into a lot of drier inks which wasn't a problem before. 

 

At the end of the day, I ink up pretty colors that behave themselves in my controlled FP paradise. If they can't make it under these conditions, then shrug, I may have a special use occasionally, or I may not, they  sit and wait.

[inkstainedruth]

Samples are your friends.  I have tried inks based on reviews I've seen on here, and decided that they weren't for me.  I've also tried inks that I *didn't* think I'd like and ended up getting full bottles of (and in a couple of cases back-up bottles as well).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth