art supply problems

First off, this ink looks fabulous in the vial. It’s a bright, warm blue packed with blue shimmer and as it stands, matches my PenBBS 471 ‘Storm’ very well.

In the pen, I’ve found the ink shades a bit, darkening and sheening to a purplish red. 

Whereas a sample pass using a folded nib shows a much darker ink in concentration, this ink seems to stay in mostly midtones, darkening only in areas where a wet stroke pools. It remains quite bright when dry.

The shimmer remains present but not overpowering, and I have yet to find any clogging issues to date.

Drying time - Pretty quick! 30ish seconds.

Waterfastness - Not waterfast

Shading - Yes

Sheening - Yes, Reddish-purple.

Colour - Bright warm blue with blue shimmer

Feathering - No

Bleed - No.

Bonus: Head to head with J. Herbin Emerald de Chivor (top), Troublemaker Inks Nautical Highway (bottom)

Whereas Emerald de Chivor has slight greenish hints to it (and has gold shimmer), Nautical Highway is more blue (and its shimmer is a silver tinted blue).

As inks go, I don’t often buy reds, as I am seldom in need of them. I feel like it can take quite a bit of trial and error to find Just. That. Right. Red.

This one is bright and deep red when wet. It thins and shades quite a bit depending on wetness of the nib.

As reds go, it seems rather neutral - it appears to be very similar to cadmium red when wet, but shades towards scarlet, ultimately settling a bit less bright and more neutral. 

Drying time - 60s+

Waterfastness -

Shading - Yes

Sheening - No

Colour - Neutral red - bright when wet, dulls a bit when dry.

Feathering - No

Bleed - No

Lasting impressions: I like the brightness of the ink when wet and as it tries. Hints of that do remain in areas of heavy application, but this ink shades quite easily, looking somewhat anemic in the process. I would probably put this in a pen with wet feed and nib to maintain colour and shade intensity.

Sounds like ‘cologne’, not like ‘col-uhn’.

Colon Street is a historic, bustling commercial street in Cebu City, Philippines. I haven’t been there personally, but some videos i’ve seen show a lot of character.

The ink is a grey-ish green with some shading. As tones go, it’s mid to dark, although the shading can go quite pale depending on the nib. In volume, the edges go dark while what remains in the middle goes pinkish.

It reminds me a bit of Sailor Studio 162, even though it doesn’t split all the way to purple as that ink does. In a way, it may be more similar to PenBBS 261, if it didn’t come with shimmer.

Drying time - about 45-60s.

Waterfastness - Not waterfast

Shading - Yes

Sheening - No

Colour - Greenish-Grey.

Feathering - No

Bleed - No.

Overall this is a really well behaved ink. The shading is appropriate to the colour and tone and the ink flows well - not too dry, not too wet.

A Waterfastness test does reveal some slight pinkish-lavender undertones, but nowhere as strong as Sailor 162. If you like the conservative greyish green but don’t want something too flashy, this might be the ink for you.

One of the more striking samples from the Spring collection, TransCentral Highway is a strong veridian ink that shades deeply to black and sheens to purple.

It’s really quite striking and compares well to Diamine November Rain, or perhaps Colorverse Schrodinger.

It’s like a thick coniferous forest, where light fades quickly as you reach the ground. 

This is probably not a colour I would use all the time, but the shading & sheen truly are remarkable. 

Troublemaker Inks is a relatively new ink company operating out of the Philippines. They pride themselves on making inks with an honest price and homage to places and people local to them, so it‘s always nice to open a package and see inks and names with a hint of the culture that inspired them.

Today, I received Troublemaker’s Spring sample line, and from them I decided I’d try España Boulevard first.

This is a pale, greenish-brown ink with slight gold shimmer. It shades nicely and smears green. In concentration, it darkens to a raw umber.

On Tomoe River 68gsm, there is very slight ghosting, but no bleed-through. It’s not feathering so far either (with a Wahl-Oxford 14k semi-flex nib). 

Drying time - expect complete dryness in the 45-60second range. 

Waterfastness - Not waterfast.

Shading - Yes

Sheening - No

Colour - Brown with pinkish undertones, smears to green. Mid to light toned.

Feathering - No

Bleed - No

To be honest I had been looking for a good pale ink like this due to some issues I’m having with a Leuchtturm notebook (which I’ll discuss later). As pale inks go, this has just enough contrast in the shading that it’s not hard to read in normal lighting.

Overall, I am quite positive with this ink. It compares well to inks like PenBBS Liberte Guidant le Peuple (which is more straight desaturated brown) and Sailor Rikyu-Cha (which has similar brown/green properties, but is a bit darker).

If I were to criticize it in any way, it would be from the perspective that the shimmer arguably isn’t very noticable unless seen in the right light. I quite like this ink already on its own and without the shimmer, it makes for a very calming, conservative sort of look. I don’t *dislike* the shimmer exactly, but I think I would probably either buy this without the shimmer or just fill it unshaken for pens which may have issue with shimmer. As it stands, it just seems a bit extraneous. 

This pen has a number of things going for it. Beautiful acrylic resin, well machined parts, effective faceted roll-stop band, reliable feed & nib that writes smoothly with no feedback (here, #Mnemosyne notebook paper). Capped, it's 87mm long. Posted, it's 130mm. Unposted, 80mm, but it's a little strange to hold and unbalanced that way. That said, the girth of the pen makes such a short pen feel like writing with a full sized pen. It's an eyedropper pen and comes with a rollerball adapter should you prefer (but y tho?). Capacity is roughlyt 1.5-2mL? To a certain extent it matches the concept, so while I personally prefer greater volume, I am OK with this.

With that said, I have some issues with this pen.

I have no issues with the materials nor construction. Instead, it’s the design. It’s not even really that I hate it all - I actually like many of the size and material choices - but the pen just seems... unfinished.

I get what they are going for - a small eyedroppered pen with a cap you can’t lose, since the pen begs to be posted... but because the pen has exposed threads on top of the cap as well as the bottom of the roll-stop, the pen looks like it’s missing something when fully capped and never truly escapes this feel when posted, since we still see the underside of the cap. 

You could feasibly screw together a whole series of these very pens together... but why? The look conjured is reminiscent of Crayola markers - the kind that let you clip multiple together in a big long stick of markers. It’s something neat you can do that will amuse for a moment, but how practical is it really?

I will admit that, posted, the pen looks great in my small hands. I just find the exposed cap underside a bit annoying. But capped, this looks like half a pen - not due to size, but design. 

All in all, though, it’s not a bad pen. I will still be 100% okay with using the ones I purchased - This would just probably not be a pen I would gift someone else, unless they specifically asked for one.

Ink: PenBBS 261

Krishna seems to be trying a variety of things and looking to set itself apart from its contemporaries and this is no exception.

When I first wrote this review (in a Life notebook), I wrote the following:

The base colour can be generally assumed to be green, however it actually has a strong red component while wet. As the liquid evaporates, the red acquiesces and darkens, usually giving it a shaded appearance in volume. I Say 'usually' because in extreme cases, the ink concentrates in to an earthy, opaque yellow-orange, which is actually what most people would classify as ochre.

 So - the titular ochre appears to refer not to the base colour, but the unique concentrated residue. What's more odd to me is the residue is matte, not metallic, so I don’t know whether it would be accurate to describe this as sheen.

 Looks greener on Tomoe River, trends more toward yellow on wheat sheet copy bond. This yellow tone becomes even more obvious over time (like over a few hours).

 Relatively quick drying, not waterproof when droplets reapplied, red tones begin to re-emerge. Ink also lifts easily.

The reason why I call this out is this:

I woke the next morning to find my (seemingly) dry writing sample had completely turned a deep yellow, except for the spots where I'd added some water droplets to test for water-fastness. At this point, I am left wondering whether these areas will turn yellow eventually as well? Of note, there doesn't appear to be any major shift for my samples on Tomoe River paper, while the colour change and lightening varied on Muji notebook and Profolio Oasis notebook paper as well.

Roughly 12 hours after first use, I would say this ink does actually resemble a raw ochre on most papers. If you enjoy the novelty of colour shifts in ink as well as yellow as an ink colour, this one may be for you.

As for me, I like finding things like this that might be considered imperfections... but i can't help feeling the unpredictability might put some people off. This will be a novel addition to my ink collection - There are aspects of this ink on particular paper which I love, but I am still warming up to the full-blown yellow this turns out to be on most papers. The naming is accurate, but it takes time for this to become apparent. It might be a good match for some of the brighter yellow pens I've seen recently (the Kaweco sunrise/sunset pens come to mind, as well as the Ferris Wheel Pen Co. Brush pen in yellow)

As a modeller of 3D critters and props, I’ve had my eye on filaments to print with that would allow for some post-processing, be it fixing up visible layers, to add/remove details post-print or to give a more sculptural treatment overall.

In general, the idea of a sculptable filament appeals to me because it allows for a bit of tangible editing to make a print special. You might start off with something basic and build on top of it, or you might just want to make some final refinements that your printer isn’t up to handling.

For whatever reasons, there was a fairly well known Kickstarted clay/wax-based filament that came up in 2015, but as of this writing, it still hasn’t seen mass production. This particular filament piqued my interest, but I wasn’t prepared to invest at the time and looking back at the way it’s been handled since, I am somewhat glad I dodged that bullet.

The fact remains, though, that the market needs a sculptable filament. So when I saw this new product from FormFutura, I was very curious. When Filaments.ca announced they’d be picking some up, I jumped at the chance to try some.

Today, I want to go over its properties, what I like, what I don’t like and whether it measures up to expectations.

From FormFutura’s MSDS sheet, the material is some sort of plastic blend containing 2-Oxepanone homopolymer (also known as Polycaprolactone (PCL). PCL is commonly used as part of many thermoplastics, including Worbla, Friendly Plastic, etc. It’s also one of the more commonly known materials used by consumer-grade 3D pens. It’s otherwise somewhat unclear to me what the PCL is blended with, although I will say that the material does seem a bit more rigid compared to straight PCL. 

The material requires temps from 190-220C to print and it’s recommended that initial bed temperature start at 60C, with 45C for the rest of the print. 

Unheated filament feels relatively supple, compared to PLA or ABS. Once heated, the material retains a slightly stretchy feel to it, although extended stretching will cause the filament to break.

It sticks well to masking tape on a build surface. I have yet to test other finishes.

The Print:

This is a tortoise I modeled some years ago using ZBrush. I originally uploaded it to Shapeways, but never got around to ordering a print of it from them. Instead, I have since been using it as a testing print across the two printers and filaments that I’ve got. 

In this particular case, I have printed it at 0.2mm layer height, with a 0.4mm nozzle. It’s got 1.2mm walls with 15% infill. 

Initial impressions upon print completion:  

- The extra flow allowed for consistency over most of the print until the top of the shell, which often causes speed & curve-related under-extrusion and gaps. 

- Due to the stretchiness, it was somewhat difficult to remove the support material. In this particular case, I printed with a raft and tree-support material, so as to ensure bed adhesion as well as conserve filament used on support material. With PLA and the same settings, this would normally just snap off easily)

- As is common with bottom layers butting up against supports, the overhang surface was somewhat messy.

- Otherwise overall, the print emerged with no blobs or stringing. For a 0.2mm print, the layers were relatively tight and not very noticeable from a distance.

Modifying the print:

The TL;DR of it is that I found the material to be easily heated and reheated. I used a heat-gun, but you could just as easily use a hairdryer or very hot water. Using heat-resistant sculpting tools, I was able to model in refinements that my printer had missed at this scale. It took me roughly an hour to go from fresh print to sculpted tortoise and most of that was spent getting to know just how much heat and pressure was needed (and when).

Things I like:

- Ability to rework. Whether you’re just looking to add a final touch, mitigate lower print quality issues or to add whole sculptural elements to a base print, this is the chief reason to pick up this material.

- Good print quality. Surface quality is generally good, with minimal layer appearance.

- Final reworked print structurally strong, despite wall thickness, infill, and significant modifications to the shell integrity (keep in mind this is also dependent upon your settings and the degree to which the model has been modified). 

- Potentially completely reusable, since the material is easily melted down. While it would likely take a shredder and filament extruder to make recycled filament from this material, I suspect you could still use your scraps as a substitute for Friendly Plastic or Worbla Deco Art. 

Things I don’t like: 

- It’s easy to go overboard with heat while reworking this material. I used a heatgun at 300C and found I only needed a few seconds of heat contact for the material to become workable. Any more and it’s easy to end up with an unfixable floppy mess. 

- Not sure how well it differs and/or measures up against other PCL filaments, and whether other PCL filaments are similarly sculptable.

- A bit tougher to remove support material compared to PLA/ABS, sometimes leaving behind scraps of filament that need to be removed or smoothed down.

Takeaways:

- Interesting to try at least once. Will probably use this spool up, but as yet unsure whether it’s a rebuy for me. I feel like testing some other PCL filaments is something I should get around to doing.

- If you intend to make refinements after printing, you should adjust your file’s wall thickness accordingly. This is somewhat dependent upon how much reworking you intend to do as well as how much hollow space there is. Some infill is necessary, but I wouldn’t recommend anything higher than say... 20-25%, just because it’s still necessary to have a hollow that would allow you to compress the air inside, rather than pushing around solid plastic that may not compress easily.

- The final product, post-reworking, is rigid and waxy when cool. It’s also pretty strong, although I suspect still somewhat soft when cold, so you should expect scratches and dents if the final product sees a lot of wear & tear.

- Probably not for large applications unless you don’t mind working with premium materials at large scale to begin with.

- Probably not a great candidate for finished work that requires heat-fastness and durability. It’s a pretty soft material. Might be a good candidate as a sculpted master to mold and cast in resin.

- Definitely isn’t a clay filament - Has the rigidity of a slip-cast plastic toy with a waxy surface feel. May or may not be a good candidate for the lost-wax process.

Here’s something that came in the mail earlier this week.

This is the PenBBS 323 in Sky Blue.

Despite the nib being a bit stiffer than I prefer, I haven’t been able to put this pen down since I got it. Something about the form factor, ease of writing and overall aesthetics just hits me the right way!

I’m guessing it’s some sort of turned acrylic. Has a slight smell to it, no mold lines. The swirl is lovely & translucent.

Not postable, but the weight and length work well without the cap posted. I only wish the pen had some sort of roll-stop, but would be at a loss as to how to incorporate one in such a way that would not mar the form factor.

The nib is fine - between 0.3-0.4mm with a very smooth, slightly upturned tip.

Comes with a converter, seems also eyedropper-ready. The barrel fits snugly to the section by threading that is additionally sealed with an o-ring.

Filled with PenBBS 275 ‘Claude Monet’, which matches the pen perfectly and is very well behaved. No skips or false starts so far. Generous feed, medium to wet writer. No priming needed so far, through 3/4 of my current ink fill.

The market for luxury hard-bound journals has been well established by a number of bigger brands - of note, Moleskine and Leuchtturm are the major contenders locally in this format. I’ve never really been a fan of the paper Moleskine uses (it’s not terribly fountain pen-friendly and overall it’s quite expensive for what you get) and despite recommendations for paper quality and FP-friendliness, I’ve been putting off trying Leuchtturm1917, also for reasons of cost.

So, lately, I’ve been trying some of the close alternatives. 

I was holiday shopping today when I came across the ‘Picasso Fine Journal’ offered by CTG Brands at Best Living (an Asian furnishing shop in Toronto) and had to check it out. 

This is a 4.5x6.5″ hardbound notebook with 80 sheets of 80gsm lined paper. Like most books in this format, it’s got a soft faux-leather cover (also available in black, white, purple, blue and i *think* pink? Will need to check.), elastic enclosure with pen loop, marker ribbon and expandable inner pocket. From what I recall, there was one smaller size and two larger, although offhand I don’t know what those sizes would be specifically.

It opens reasonably well and is generally unobtrusive under the hand from side to side but, as a somewhat small book, it does not lie flat on its own. The paper is cream-coloured and the lines are thin, grey, unobtrusive and present no obvious resist issues under application of ink. 

Overall, I am quite pleased and surprised at the quality of the paper and the build of the book.

The binding uses a quality fabric base that holds together stitched booklets and the whole thing is seated securely within the cover. 

The paper has some tooth to it, but takes to fountain pen ink quite well. I used quite a few pens, ranging from extra-fine to stub nibs, plus a couple pencils, gel roller-ball & Sharpie, and experienced relatively few problems. 

The bulk of my writing on this paper during testing was done with an extra-fine Wahl Eversharp #2 flex nib, which is rather scratchy to begin with. The paper held up well and didn’t feather as I feared it might. Edges for most of my inks on this paper have been pretty clean and crisp - Even deAtramentis Magenta Red-Gold and Heliogen Green-Copper (which i’ve had significant feathering problems with in the past on other reputable paper) behaved quite well in swab tests. 

CTG is generally more known for budget supermarket/dollar-store grade stationary, so I was very wary that I might have another stinker on my hands, but coming in under CA$6,  this was a welcome bargain I’ll likely take advantage of again soon. 

After doing a little research online, it’s not clear to me whether CTG is doing much to promote these. They did have their own display in the shop I bought from, but there is no specific site where these can be found otherwise. I do not know what sort of distribution these books see. Might be hard to find, but if you see these and wonder whether they’d be helpful, I’d say give them a try.

This is the first post for what’ll hopefully be an ongoing thing - that is, articles detailing my ongoing art supply problems. (Which may or may not be good problems to have ;) )

The goal is (loosely) to focus around art supplies and how they apply to my own use, or how they might work for others. I’m thinking reviews, thoughts on technique, the common struggle to walk out of a supply shop without buying anything, etc. 

Background: I’m an illustrator by trade and have worked with both tangible and digital media going back at least 20 years. Lately, I’ve also gotten in to fountain pens, related inks and papers.