u/CookiesTheKitty

A rare photo of Miss Mlemmy McMlemface where those patented InvisiWhiskers can be seen. Just about.

Mischief has been working on her eye makeup technique again, to complement her whizzy wooshers.

Mischief is pleased to showcase the fluffy breakfast loaf that she expertly baked for me this morning.

Their expressions of innocence confirm that the girls definitely haven't been playing with the doormat, that they're not responsible for this disarray, and that the guilty party here is Mr.Carrot, trying to hide from view.

Jade is eagerly performing her Sentry Box Duty from her favourite longbox, strategically situated within sight of her other fortifications.

After a toothy fireworks explosion, Jade enjoys doing some normalcatting practice. It's going well. I think she looks particularly normal in some of these photos. Definitely not weird at all.

Mischief's changing up her Sentry Box Duty game. Now she favours a Sentry Sheet Of Cardboard. It helps her to simultaneously showcase her Wooshy Whizzers and some particularly silly FootBeards.

I've recently been playing around with various Iroshizuku inks. My aims have been to produce colours/hues that aren't present in the standard range, and also to turn Hotaru-Bile from something a cat barfed up into something roughly resembling an actual ink. An additional aim is to morph some of the lighter/fainter standard inks into something with higher contrast, so my poor vision is better able to read them.

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Here are the results so far. Apologies to any Japanese people here for brutally butchering your language. According to Google Translate, two of my whimsical names are just nonsense and the third translates to Firefly Face, so make of that what you will.

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The first photo is a page of Rhodia Dotpad showing swabs of the three mixed results down the left side, with the recipe written in each ink with a glass dip pen. The other swabs on the page show the standard inks from which these were derived, as a visual cross-reference.

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(Hana-Ikada is not present in these mixes but I also want to see what I can do with that in a future session.)

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The other two photos show swabs of each mixing result from overhead and at an angle, with the paper being ivory Tomoe River 52gsm taken from a Travellers notebook.

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The standard Iroshizuku range is lacking a true and vibrant red. Momiji is a gorgeous colour and is one of my favourite inks, but it's a little on the pink side. By combining 2 parts Momiji with 1 part Fuyu-Gaki, a punchy red is created that has the faintest hint of gold/green sheen, but only if I really heap it onto the page.

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Hotaru-Bile is a hideous near-invisible highlighter yellow. By adding 1 part Asa-gao to 4 parts of Hotaru-Bile, the result is an olive green that appears to have shading potential and no detectable sheen. I'm actually able to read this FrankenInk on the page, so that might allow me to put my bottle of Hotaru-Bile to use.

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Chiku-Rin is a nice colour but it is too faint on the page for me to use it without struggling. By adding 1 part of Kon-peki to 3 parts Chiku-rin, a pleasant grassy green is produced that seems to have some shading potential with no detectable sheen. This differs from Shin-Ryoku by leaning more green and less blue. As with reds, the standard Iroshizuku line is a little thin on actual greens & instead provides a lot of (admittedly gorgeous) teals/blue-greens, blues and blurples.

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I'm pleased with these results so far. Phase 2 will involve Hana-Ikada and perhaps some dabbling with Ama-Iro, to see if I can darken it at all.

I hadn't seen these before so, when I found them on AliExpress, I could hardly refuse. Three Kakunos with 2 CON-40s for some reason; three boxes of Pilot black cartridges - I rarely use cartridges but may as well... - all for £40 including shipment to the UK. It was a bit pot-luck; the listing only provided tiny unreadable thumbnails to choose each item. I intended to buy three different ones but these are what landed on my doormat. Guess I may have to go back for more...

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I'd rather these were not all fine nibs but, for that price and for that cute nib design, I can live with them.

It was Mischief's turn at Sentry Box Duty so she chose this rapid response station. Bonus shot included, showing The Opalcat keeping those stealthy patented InvisiWhiskers primed and ready to deploy.

She is exhausted and has earned this emphatic planting session after a hard morning of eating, sleeping and zoomies.

Jade's modelling her latest shallow fortifications while keeping her whizzy wooshers primed.

She has so many boxes to choose from, so of course Jade had to pick this one.

Mischief has been working her rockets again.

Rounding out my series of recent posts about pens and inks that are more on the affordable end of the cost scale. Here's a Pilot Plumix, its little brother the Pluminix, and a Pilot Parallel. The inks used are Waterman Tender Purple, a standard Pilot black cartridge and Rohrer & Klingner Alt Goldgrün, respectively. The paper is Rhodia Dotpad.

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The point of this series of posts is to give a little attention to pens and inks that don't cost the earth and are worth trying out, or at least knowing about. Some are no longer being produced, some are newer.

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Similarly for inks. My go-to is almost always Iroshizuku but that's quite an expensive range. I tend to sideline my other inks and it's been good to blow the dust off some of those bottles.

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All in all, whether you're a new fountain pen user or a seasoned hand, you can potter about with these lower-cost products & achieve decent results. Often a steel nib and a generic ink can get the job done just as well as something fancier, with enjoyment being gained in the process.

Here's another handful of my more affordable pens with moderately priced inks.

Jinhao X850,

Jinhao X350,

Pilot 78G+,

Pilot Penmanship,

Pilot Petit1

Here is another in my occasional series of posts to showcase some affordable pens and inks that are easy to find online. This one is a Jinhao 82 fitted with a medium nib. The Jinhao 82 comes in about half a bazillion colours and finishes. Its dimensions are similar to the Pilot Prera and the Sailor Pro Gear Slim.

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Both the cap and barrel finials are easily removed and can be swapped around between individual pens, as I've done here. The nib unit can also be easily unscrewed. With all these swappable components, you can frankenpen your heart out with these little things.

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The ink, Diamine Delamere Green, is also affordable and a good all-rounder that performs well, fairly wet and laying down a smooth line onto this Rhodia Dotpad.

Here's another post to show a bit of attention to the more affordable end of this hobby. Here is a Wing Sung 699. This comes in two filling mechanism types that I've seen so far; a vacuum filler and this one, a piston filler. This example has a stiff medium steel nib and has just been filled with Diamine Ancient Copper, a popular ink that, like this pen, is towards the more affordable and accessible end of the cost scale.

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If there's enough interest in posts of this sort then I have a variety of other affordable pens and a sea of inks, so I can upload more ad-hoc posts to showcase them on request.

I'm sure everyone else here will already know all about this ink, but it's a new discovery from me. It's a high sheener (the example swab is on Tomoe River 52gsm Ivory from a Travelers notebook refill). It also has shimmer but I've found the shimmer additive rapidly falls out of suspension, despite the wonderfully bizarre addition of a couple of plastic skulls in the bottle, to act as spooky agitators.

Rather than focussing solely on mid range to premium pens, I thought it'd be interesting for me to look at the lower end of the spectrum for a change.

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Here are eight economy pens that I've just tested out in the same way, with the same ink (J Herbin Perle Noire) on the same Rhodia Dotpad. Three of the pens showed some problems with hard starting, having to be water-dipped and, in one case, having to be used completely as a dip pen. Two of the sinners are known to be flaky but the third, a previously uninked Jinhao X159, was a bit disappointing. The X159 is one of the later generations of pen than some others in this sample, yet a number of those older pens proved to be more reliable on this occasion.

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These reliability problems could be as simple as needing a run through with pen flush or possibly trying a different converter, but I approached this as might an impatient or inexperienced new pen user. First impressions matter, so that's what I tried to simulate.

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The best of the bunch was not a surprise in the slightest. That was a Jinhao 51A. Those things are super reliable, smooth and pleasant on the page. They're probably my favourite budget pen and I have never yet had one let me down.

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The second place would probably go to the Jinhao 86 followed by the Parker Vector XL, then the Waterman Allure, then the Jinhao 85.

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Another reason for this post is to show a variety of hooded-nib pens that are inspired by the classic Parker 51 in one way or another. None of these are clones or knock-offs, but it's easy to see where the manufacturers drew their inspiration from. The Jinhao 911 Flighter is slimmer than a Parker 51 and is also a whole world less reliable. The Jinhao 85 and 86 are physically very similar to the 2021 reboot of the Parker 51 but, unlike the Parker, the Jinhao 85 and 86 actually don't suck boulders. They actually work and can be used as pens.

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Another point of potential interest is showing how similar the Parker Vector XL is to the Waterman Allure. They have different cartridge/converter formats and they differ in the opacity of the section but otherwise they're very close.

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Finally, the Wing Sung 3003 is apparently no longer being produced. I have a lot of them but they range from super reliable all the way down to P51/2021 levels of garbage, so it wasn't a great surprise for this one to be twitchy.

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What I believe can be said about this exercise is that entry-level pens can be perfectly reliable, as can a standard type of ink. Shiny things with hefty price tags can be fun, and I like retail therapy, but solid results can also be had for far less outlay. With that in mind, perhaps some people here might appreciate this shout-out for these budget-conscious goodies.