Inktober ink comparisons

This might be of interest to some who are using generally available bottled or cartridge ink, as opposed to those adventurers who make their own ink.  The Hong Dian is a Fude pen, as is the Sailor, and a Sailor brush pen.  The Waterman ink is from a fountain pen, the Lamy is the cartridge the company normally provides with their pens.  Carbon ink is by Platinum, and in this case used in a Rotring Art pen.  I had expected all of these inks to be water soluble, but to my surprise, only one, plus the Watermans, really is.

Cringe.  Sorry.... I hope I get a discount from Cult Pens for sending custom their way.   I know what you mean, though - once you dip in (geddit?) to their site, you're in imminent danger of loosening the purse strings.  Another one to look at is Tom's Studio: I found that one on Facebook, but you'll be relieved to know that I have just stormed off and away from Facebook, Zuckerberg's succubus, never - I hope - to return.  So I may go a bit easier on tempting titbits from the internet in future, because I shan't see them.  It's a pity that I also shan't see a couple of good FB/Meta pages/groups, but I think it a price worth paying to be rid of that barmy site and barmier people. Someone once said to me - it was in a Labour Party meeting, so a degree of detachment from reality could be expected - that "people aren't stupid".  A quick scan of Facebook and Twitter (or just a look out of the window) might lead to a different conclusion.  Anyway: yes, you can be bamboozled by the choice available.  All I'd say further on ink drawing is that the best pens now are coming from, in rough order of quality: Japan, China, Germany, the USA - and that's a very rough order indeed.   We still make excellent pens for handwriting - I say "we", hoping Parker is still a British company - indeed, one of my very nicest pens is a Parker, with a flexible gold nib.  And - I don't think you can have too many.  

Curses.  Still, their pens that I have are still good pens.   As with many other things, I wonder if they're as good now as they once were.  Mine easily predate 2011.  At least German pens are still German, and if you prove otherwise, I'll never forgive you.  

A steel nib would probably be OK for drawing and writing; a gold nib I'd keep for one or the other, because they tend to be flexible and adjust to your handwriting after a while; drawing with them with any but the lightest pressure might distort the way they subsequently write.   I have two gold nib pens, one a Parker, the other a Jinhao - I reserve them for writing; I just wish my handwriting were better, and did them justice.  As you'll know, you can get converters for cartridge pens which transform them into regulr fountain pens - and bottled ink tends to be cheaper in the long run than cartridges, so I nearly always buy a converter for cartridge pens.   (I'm still quite excited by the discovery that Sailor cartridge ink is water-resistant: to test that, I did a drawing with a lot of ink work, then floated washes of transparent Chromacolour acrylic over it: no smudging, no lifting - it's very useful to have one fountain pen with water-resistant ink, and another with watersoluble ink capable of producing soft grey washes.)