u/Furinink

A brand that is more common in Asian than Europe and the US is IWI colors of nature.

I've stumbled upon them a few years ago in a stationery store in Japan. They have a wide variety of colors, but not all do they appeal to me personally, But I do love the Waking of Insects and Slight Snow alot. I know, I know, the names are a bit odd, but I'm assuming that's a translational thing. These inks are based on 24 microseasons in east asian often referred to by the Chinese and Japanese. With 24 colors i this series they cover a wide variety of colors and shades of colors. Though they don;t have sheening or shading properties, they do give a good variety of saturation when writing with it, which gives a nice aesthetic to your writen text.

Swatches (2nd photo) are made on Midori cream paper with a dippen, writing samples are made with a TWSBI Fine nib.

I Have been a longtime fan of Mitasanshodo inks 😊.

Their amazing bottles just mesmerize me. Their box designs with wood pattern are gorgeouse and their ink colors are really something else! They have two series, the Hana (flower) which are more vibrant and the Sumi series which is near pitch black. in addition to this all they all are fragrent inks which either macthes the color of the ink or the name of the ink.

I have to admit that I often open a bottle just to sniff it 🙃 Hinoki yellow and Ryuno Black smell amazing! my peronal most used would be Olive and Jakyo Purple.

some of the sumi inks have alot of sheen in them. The hana inks have no sheen at all but do look great, the lilac changes dramaticly when drying, going from a vibrant blue to a subtle purple!

In picture three all inks were swatched on MD (left) and Tomoe River (Right) paper.

In Februari Nakabayashi release their third series of Ukiyo-e inks shortly after they released their fourth series in April. I've finally got around to swatching the beauties. I must say that I was not sure what to expect. When the colors were announced they seemed awfully similar to their excisting line-up. But luckily this was not the case, they are vastly different from their previous two series. I expected alot of heavy sheeners, but Nakabayashi has kept it moderate and included a few heavy and medium sheening inks. In the last 3 images I've photographed the swatches at an angle to show as much sheen as possible.

My personal favorites are the Uguisucha (a dark straw colored ink) and Tetsu (a green with dark blue sheen which leans towards red in a specific angle. this one takes the crown when talking about sheen, its almost nothing but sheen)

The box artwork is amazing as always. the recognizable square bottles have been replaced by round bottles. Takes some time to getting used to this change, but I can;t say I hate or love it. What I do not love is the fact that they don't have any stickers or names on the boxes and bottles. I've printed my own to solve this 🙃

Edit: Swatches were made on cream MD paper. Using a dippen for the swatch blots and writing samples with a fine nib TWSBI.