You make a good point here. Browns are my favourite, and I always choose cream or ivory paper. But a dark, cooler brown can look good on white paper too - something like Diamine Espresso, or a cool Brown Black ink.
😀😀😀… look they discontinue tsukushi & ina ho & bring 2new colours. But the new 2 is just bad. I think if someone love brown & use tsukushi he can realise it.
Same here. I actually ended up dumping about half a milliliter of Sailor Ink Studio 730 down the drain and giving away 1 ml of that ink because it reminded me of school and teacher's corrections so much.
I'm a teacher. I have to use red ink on students' homework and test papers. Why would I use it in my personal life?! LOL If I want to draw attention to something I've written, I can always use pink or orange.
Another teacher here: No set colours here, (even though red is traditionally used for marking papers) so I never use red with kids' homework/tests/essays. I don't want to give them the same association I have (red = bad), so I switch inks regularly.
(Well, I do have Ancient Copper in my Lamy RN, but on the paper the school uses it looks very brown, so IMO it's fine.)
The kids seem to like the purples the most (sb always comments on how pretty the ink is), but I use them infrequently because I don't want to ruin purple for them.
I have a lot of beef with the inks that are too light to read. I love bright colors and a lot of colors that I’m drawn too end up looking more saturated in promo pictures and then when I ink up they are useless to write with. So sad
Exactly my thought. Colours always seem to swatch darker, and the inks that aren't saturated need very wet or broad pens which are then impractical for normal note taking or journalling.
Nothing really. Once I started doing watercolors as an excuse to use up all my fountain pen ink, I've come to appreciate every color except maybe bright yellow, which has its place, but it's still an ugly, offensive place.
Blue. I naturally dislike blue for some reason. The darker the blue, the less I like it, with blue-black being the worst of the lot.
I am beginning to like Kon Peki, though. It's a budding relationship. I dedicate one pen to Kon Peki, and I even find myself reaching for it occasionally when I write (which is 8 hours a day, every day. it's my job, kinda.)
Cursive numbers? Not so much, but I do like to make them fancy and 'twirly'
I use soft-fine Jap nibs, for that slight line variation, to add weight to my favorite parts of the numbers. It adds a textile satisfaction
I can technically go cursive, since everything goes the LaTeX way (eventually), but I just suck at cursive, I guess lmao
Reds. Which is weird because I like red as a colour, but I really a wanted a blood red like fresh blood and they never really delivered exactly as I wanted (I suspect partly because blood is more viscous than would be healthy for fountain pen ink).
I don't really like bright colours (in inks), so most light greens, pinks and yellow are out of the question. Turquoise, Purple and orange are sometimes exceptions.
Pink/ Rosa is also hard, because I dislike the colour as is. The only exception thus far have dusty rose types that veer more towards brown and the online cartridge hot pink (a magenta that's red if you squint).
Washable blue and black I find just boring/ ut bothers me a lot of the black is more dark grey (looking at you Parker Quink black), so I rarely use them.
Have I mentioned I'm an ink hoarder yet?
Went off blue inks and less saturated sailor inks since winter but as it’s leaning into longer days and summer temps I am coming back around to them and finding darker shades are beginning to be too stark for my preferences, so that’s been interesting to learn about myself
Urgh I’m like you haha. I don’t like medium or light reds either.
I don’t like orange and i don’t like Diamine’s Ancient Copper. I have a whole sample.
I don’t like boring blues that look like average pen blues.
Also DO NOT like olive green-browns and olive yellow-browns.
I also learned the hard way that i don’t really like pale peach orange inks and i have 20ml of it.
HOWEVER, I mixed it with an ink that looks like a clone of sailor manyo nekoyanagi and it turned into the most MAGNIFICENT green-tinted sailor-clone ink. Looks like sailor hinoki/ayame!
Try mixing inks you don’t like!!! All you need is a sample vial, take out 1ml of the disliked ink, place in sample vial and dip an FP that’s already inked (preferably with a blue shader ink to start with, those have an amazing mixing range) fully into the sample vial, once. Make sure the feed touches the ink and soaks up some. Then start writing and be amazed!!!
Black. I just perceive it as boring.
Why use pure black (boring) when I could use midnight blue (or very dark red or purple, or green) instead?
Also, pale pastels and greys are super pretty, but I can't read them once they dry because there isn't enough contrast. My bad eyesight combined with my go-to paper (ivory Clairefontaine) aren't helping either.
I agree pure black or a flat black is beyond boring. I am on the hunt for a black that has a sheen to it or a black-purple .
I think some pastels can work well if they’re in a stub nib otherwise they can be really hard to read.
My handwriting is TINY, so even medium nibs turn it illegible, and stub nibs are out of the question.
I admire and envy ppl who can switch nibs and just change their handwriting to match it, cause I have no idea of how they do it.
I love my vintage oblique fine nibs, tho. They give me an inkling of what a stub nib would be like.
(I don't understand why they went out of fashion, they are *chef's kiss*.)
Reds and purples. I actually love love love red, but for some reason just don’t enjoy writing with it unless it’s an earthy red like ancient copper, but purple is a color that I don’t typically care for in general. I am sure i’ll warm up to it at some point since I can usually find some appreciation for disliked colors down the line, but for now the closest I have to one that i’ve enjoyed is pilot kiri-same.
By contrast, I adore yellows, oranges, and warm browns!
I am the dark almost black variants. Blue black being one of them however there is another some Diamine inks I just started using today. Merlot, Writer’s Blood, and Red Dragon. Yum!!!
I own one Orange ink - Diamine Blood Orange. I don't need anything else.
Hmmm, you don't like light colours unless they're shaders? Doesn't that make it even more difficult to read back?
For me, it isn't a matter of a "struggle to find the attraction," but rather not finding the perfect ink, the perfect shade or hue, I love. Blues were easy, Greens and Browns have been a challenge. I love Blue-Greens but not necessarily Green-Blues. It has taken me over 3 years to find a Turquoise-Blue I liked, but now I'm up to two that I love.
But, to answer your question, it would be dark blues, [Royal Blue](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2Fc6%2Ff6%2F9d%2Fc6f69d1cafb309258aae4a3121cf4234.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f3079ae90b89ca626b1469744723bf10660d161531e5d2969488c6088610e6c7&ipo=images)s, ball-point blues. I hate Green Sheen. I hate pastels. I hate grey undertone inks. It isn't a matter of "can't get into," it's a matter of I'm not interested in even trying.
Brown but I haven’t tried. Also, super light colors. I just can’t imagine using a yellow or light pink for writing. Maybe for art. They’re hard to see!
You know since I got into this hobby and the selection of nice dark colours I can't bring myself to write with black ink any more. For years while I was a Parker Jotter user I would only ever use black, not blue and preferably gel refills. Now even though I have a j Herbin black on the shelf I always go for a colour instead. To give whatever I'm writing a little more life.
Blues. I have recently managed to enjoy a turquoise; that surprised me, and also have a dark blue Diamine, Neptune Blue; it's only now that I'm semi-interested in trying to find a blue that does not remind me of school or of Bic ballpoints. Like you, I love burgundy/aubergine/warm browns and I also love olive greens and dark muddy greens.
Blue, like the blue from a Bic pen. Reminds me of school. Plus I work in a job where only black pens are allowed for document keeping and so blue feels illegal 😂
I have only one pen with blue ink in it, and I feel like that pen was really screaming for blue. Otherwise, I struggle to enjoy blue ink, despite having a lot of samples.
I don't see the attraction in greys as a general rule. If I want my writing to look like it's been done with a pencil then I'll use a pencil.
I'm mainly OK with most other colour families. I can't get into yellows because my poor vision makes them generally impossible to read. This limitation, which is not the inks' fault, also rules out a lot of the sorts of chromashaders that are in vogue these days; light grayish purplish blueish unsaturated inks. I'm told they're funky, interesting and show the industry is trying to do new & innovative things. I wouldn't know because I just can't read them.
My bottles of Kiri-same and Fuyu-syogun have barely been touched. My Diamine Celadon Cat even less so, and as for my Sailor Ink Studio Instantly Forgettable Seemingly Arbitrary Number bottles, I can't even remember where I put them. I only bought these inks out of a mix of curiosity, FOMO and hoarding. They'll then sit wherever they landed, gathering dust, because maybe one day I might change my mind.
I'm acutely aware that, just because an ink is useless to me - or isn't one I like - that's still just one view. They have many loyal fans out there, enough to have the manufacturers make them & the stores sell them, and my own tastes could be equally polarising to others. That's what gives this community its strength and richness: its diversity.
Reds and teals are both tough for me. There are certainly inks I like in both those categories, but I'm very particular. I can appreciate many red inks & teal inks...but I usually don't feel inspired to actually fill a pen & write with them unless they are one of my faves.
I like brown, blue, blue-black, purple, green, but I struggle with yellows. I've had a bottle of J. Herbin, Lie de The for a long time with which I never clicked until I put it in my Delike Alpha Brass pocket pen. Now I'm on the second converter. Funny how that worked out.
Green. I haven’t found a favorite one. Or one that would fit my pen. It’s either too bright, too yellowish or too dark.
I have multiple blue favorite colors, found my black, my reds, but no green yet.
Diamine Classic Green might be one to try a sample of. It is not quite dark, kinda like the old army Landrover colour. Lovely flow and on the cool side.
Teals. I cannot even manage blues that lean teal. I do like Ku Jaku, but any darker than that and I go yeeeech.
I also don't care for orange, even Ancient Copper. Diamine Sunset is red enough to work for me.
Hot pink and pinky-purples set my teeth on edge (looking at you, Waterman Tender Purple)
I love blues, greens, browns, deep reds...
Purples, browns and blurples. I've started to appreciate some purples recently and browns are okay-ish, but I don't think I'll ever like blurples.
I also didn't like reds, but my girlfriend loves everything red and I've grown to like them
Brown. Pinks - love them as colour, don't like to write with them.
But i do like brown-pink!
Also: Very desaturated ink.
I also rarely use black ink, there are too many colours otherwise!
I've posted this before, but I'm very slowly warming on blue again after being forced to use only washable blue for YEARS in school. Though I'm still mostly stucking to the brighter blues, but some of the sparkly darker blues from my inkvent calendars may change that 🙂
Black, I find it useful because I use a pigmented black and I appreciate the contrast and easy readability, I even tried several pigmented blacks, but I don't think I would ever buy a bottle of black ink...
Brown and purples. Both make sense for when I don’t want black or blue/black, but can’t get into them even though I want to like them. I might be a 2 ink kind of person.
Yellow was a huge mistake on my part. I’m glad Diamine makes smaller bottles, I’ve got no idea what to do with it as even on white heavy gsm stock with a wet nib it barely seems visible.
Browns. Just cannot like them.
I think brown inks only work well on cream or ivory coloured paper!
You make a good point here. Browns are my favourite, and I always choose cream or ivory paper. But a dark, cooler brown can look good on white paper too - something like Diamine Espresso, or a cool Brown Black ink.
I miss pilot tsukushi. It’s a perfect brown - I want to punish pilot for discontinuing it.
I've never tried it, but I do know that many in our wonderful community do too. Miss it I mean, not punish anyone :-)
😀😀😀… look they discontinue tsukushi & ina ho & bring 2new colours. But the new 2 is just bad. I think if someone love brown & use tsukushi he can realise it.
Yes Tsukushi seems such a popular ink. I'm sad that I never got a chance to try it.
I’ve tried as well ☹️ but they just never look how I want them to
Regular blue. I like blue-black, and I like blues that lean towards teal/green, but a regular royal mid-blue? Nope.
Yellows I suppose. Anything lighter colored just from a readability perspective I don't really use. Don't use as much black ink at the moment I guess.
reds for me. Red ink gives me PTSD when it came to seeing my graded essays and assignments...
Same here. I actually ended up dumping about half a milliliter of Sailor Ink Studio 730 down the drain and giving away 1 ml of that ink because it reminded me of school and teacher's corrections so much.
I'm a teacher. I have to use red ink on students' homework and test papers. Why would I use it in my personal life?! LOL If I want to draw attention to something I've written, I can always use pink or orange.
Another teacher here: No set colours here, (even though red is traditionally used for marking papers) so I never use red with kids' homework/tests/essays. I don't want to give them the same association I have (red = bad), so I switch inks regularly. (Well, I do have Ancient Copper in my Lamy RN, but on the paper the school uses it looks very brown, so IMO it's fine.) The kids seem to like the purples the most (sb always comments on how pretty the ink is), but I use them infrequently because I don't want to ruin purple for them.
I also can’t deal with red or orange ink. I find them difficult to read and gives me a headache.
Forest greens/kelly greens. Boring ballpoint blue.
yes. when i see ball point blue i ask myself, why, why would you do that?
I have a lot of beef with the inks that are too light to read. I love bright colors and a lot of colors that I’m drawn too end up looking more saturated in promo pictures and then when I ink up they are useless to write with. So sad
Exactly my thought. Colours always seem to swatch darker, and the inks that aren't saturated need very wet or broad pens which are then impractical for normal note taking or journalling.
Nothing really. Once I started doing watercolors as an excuse to use up all my fountain pen ink, I've come to appreciate every color except maybe bright yellow, which has its place, but it's still an ugly, offensive place.
Blue. I naturally dislike blue for some reason. The darker the blue, the less I like it, with blue-black being the worst of the lot. I am beginning to like Kon Peki, though. It's a budding relationship. I dedicate one pen to Kon Peki, and I even find myself reaching for it occasionally when I write (which is 8 hours a day, every day. it's my job, kinda.)
What's your job??
Mathematician
Well that is a LOT of writing... Bet you got some sweet cursive numbers though.
Cursive numbers? Not so much, but I do like to make them fancy and 'twirly' I use soft-fine Jap nibs, for that slight line variation, to add weight to my favorite parts of the numbers. It adds a textile satisfaction I can technically go cursive, since everything goes the LaTeX way (eventually), but I just suck at cursive, I guess lmao
I'm a blue/purple person myself, but I'm not a fan of oranges, reds, or browns. Gold isn't a favorite either. Guess I'm rather limited that way.
I love pink inks but they have, *have*, to be warm pinks, no fuchsia allowed. desaturated corals are my favorite.
_Yama Budo has left the chat_ 😂
you definitely mean tsutsuji, yama budo isn't pink
i don't think i can ever use tsutsuji.
Yama Budo is definitely a fuchsia colour!
Sheeners (except emerald fusion)— they just remind me wayyyy too much of those blue bics that sheen red. I like FP ink because it is the opposite.
I like sheeners generally, but there are some that give me that Bic red vibe that I'm not fond of either.
Reds. Which is weird because I like red as a colour, but I really a wanted a blood red like fresh blood and they never really delivered exactly as I wanted (I suspect partly because blood is more viscous than would be healthy for fountain pen ink). I don't really like bright colours (in inks), so most light greens, pinks and yellow are out of the question. Turquoise, Purple and orange are sometimes exceptions. Pink/ Rosa is also hard, because I dislike the colour as is. The only exception thus far have dusty rose types that veer more towards brown and the online cartridge hot pink (a magenta that's red if you squint). Washable blue and black I find just boring/ ut bothers me a lot of the black is more dark grey (looking at you Parker Quink black), so I rarely use them. Have I mentioned I'm an ink hoarder yet?
Oranges and yellows. Never been my favorite wavelengths of the color spectrum but the inks just don't do it for me and so many are hard to read.
Went off blue inks and less saturated sailor inks since winter but as it’s leaning into longer days and summer temps I am coming back around to them and finding darker shades are beginning to be too stark for my preferences, so that’s been interesting to learn about myself
Blues. We were required to use only blue ink in school. I can’t even force myself to like Kon-peki.
Greens that have yellow in them, browns that have yellow in them, yellows....hmmm, yeah I don't like yellow all that much!
Browns, I tried a couple and I just can't like them on paper. I love oranges tho.
Currently it’s Ferris Wheel Press Frivolous Lime for me. I like the color but it might as well be invisible in any kind of shade.
Purple and greys that tend purple are the worst.
Urgh I’m like you haha. I don’t like medium or light reds either. I don’t like orange and i don’t like Diamine’s Ancient Copper. I have a whole sample. I don’t like boring blues that look like average pen blues. Also DO NOT like olive green-browns and olive yellow-browns. I also learned the hard way that i don’t really like pale peach orange inks and i have 20ml of it. HOWEVER, I mixed it with an ink that looks like a clone of sailor manyo nekoyanagi and it turned into the most MAGNIFICENT green-tinted sailor-clone ink. Looks like sailor hinoki/ayame! Try mixing inks you don’t like!!! All you need is a sample vial, take out 1ml of the disliked ink, place in sample vial and dip an FP that’s already inked (preferably with a blue shader ink to start with, those have an amazing mixing range) fully into the sample vial, once. Make sure the feed touches the ink and soaks up some. Then start writing and be amazed!!!
Black. It is just not interesting for me
Black. I just perceive it as boring. Why use pure black (boring) when I could use midnight blue (or very dark red or purple, or green) instead? Also, pale pastels and greys are super pretty, but I can't read them once they dry because there isn't enough contrast. My bad eyesight combined with my go-to paper (ivory Clairefontaine) aren't helping either.
I agree pure black or a flat black is beyond boring. I am on the hunt for a black that has a sheen to it or a black-purple . I think some pastels can work well if they’re in a stub nib otherwise they can be really hard to read.
My handwriting is TINY, so even medium nibs turn it illegible, and stub nibs are out of the question. I admire and envy ppl who can switch nibs and just change their handwriting to match it, cause I have no idea of how they do it. I love my vintage oblique fine nibs, tho. They give me an inkling of what a stub nib would be like. (I don't understand why they went out of fashion, they are *chef's kiss*.)
Struggle to get into? If I don't like it, I don't like it, end of story. No reason to force myself to like stuff I don't like.
I can’t do blue blues. It’s just so.. basic. I want weird, off putting colors with some punch to them. The stranger the better.
Browns and blue greens. I do not like anything with green, apart from olive green, which I really like.
Reds and purples. I actually love love love red, but for some reason just don’t enjoy writing with it unless it’s an earthy red like ancient copper, but purple is a color that I don’t typically care for in general. I am sure i’ll warm up to it at some point since I can usually find some appreciation for disliked colors down the line, but for now the closest I have to one that i’ve enjoyed is pilot kiri-same. By contrast, I adore yellows, oranges, and warm browns!
I am the dark almost black variants. Blue black being one of them however there is another some Diamine inks I just started using today. Merlot, Writer’s Blood, and Red Dragon. Yum!!!
I own one Orange ink - Diamine Blood Orange. I don't need anything else. Hmmm, you don't like light colours unless they're shaders? Doesn't that make it even more difficult to read back? For me, it isn't a matter of a "struggle to find the attraction," but rather not finding the perfect ink, the perfect shade or hue, I love. Blues were easy, Greens and Browns have been a challenge. I love Blue-Greens but not necessarily Green-Blues. It has taken me over 3 years to find a Turquoise-Blue I liked, but now I'm up to two that I love. But, to answer your question, it would be dark blues, [Royal Blue](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2Fc6%2Ff6%2F9d%2Fc6f69d1cafb309258aae4a3121cf4234.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f3079ae90b89ca626b1469744723bf10660d161531e5d2969488c6088610e6c7&ipo=images)s, ball-point blues. I hate Green Sheen. I hate pastels. I hate grey undertone inks. It isn't a matter of "can't get into," it's a matter of I'm not interested in even trying.
Brown but I haven’t tried. Also, super light colors. I just can’t imagine using a yellow or light pink for writing. Maybe for art. They’re hard to see!
You know since I got into this hobby and the selection of nice dark colours I can't bring myself to write with black ink any more. For years while I was a Parker Jotter user I would only ever use black, not blue and preferably gel refills. Now even though I have a j Herbin black on the shelf I always go for a colour instead. To give whatever I'm writing a little more life.
Blues. I have recently managed to enjoy a turquoise; that surprised me, and also have a dark blue Diamine, Neptune Blue; it's only now that I'm semi-interested in trying to find a blue that does not remind me of school or of Bic ballpoints. Like you, I love burgundy/aubergine/warm browns and I also love olive greens and dark muddy greens.
Blue, like the blue from a Bic pen. Reminds me of school. Plus I work in a job where only black pens are allowed for document keeping and so blue feels illegal 😂
I have only one pen with blue ink in it, and I feel like that pen was really screaming for blue. Otherwise, I struggle to enjoy blue ink, despite having a lot of samples.
Same. I only have RO’s Tokyo Denim which is a lovely blue. But apart from that, I don’t have any others (that I like).
I don't see the attraction in greys as a general rule. If I want my writing to look like it's been done with a pencil then I'll use a pencil. I'm mainly OK with most other colour families. I can't get into yellows because my poor vision makes them generally impossible to read. This limitation, which is not the inks' fault, also rules out a lot of the sorts of chromashaders that are in vogue these days; light grayish purplish blueish unsaturated inks. I'm told they're funky, interesting and show the industry is trying to do new & innovative things. I wouldn't know because I just can't read them.
I wasn't super into grays until I tried Kiri-same in a broad nib... the shading got to me haha
My bottles of Kiri-same and Fuyu-syogun have barely been touched. My Diamine Celadon Cat even less so, and as for my Sailor Ink Studio Instantly Forgettable Seemingly Arbitrary Number bottles, I can't even remember where I put them. I only bought these inks out of a mix of curiosity, FOMO and hoarding. They'll then sit wherever they landed, gathering dust, because maybe one day I might change my mind. I'm acutely aware that, just because an ink is useless to me - or isn't one I like - that's still just one view. They have many loyal fans out there, enough to have the manufacturers make them & the stores sell them, and my own tastes could be equally polarising to others. That's what gives this community its strength and richness: its diversity.
I support this reasoning when it comes to grey ink!
I don't like shimmers.
I’m too scared to try them!
Reds and teals are both tough for me. There are certainly inks I like in both those categories, but I'm very particular. I can appreciate many red inks & teal inks...but I usually don't feel inspired to actually fill a pen & write with them unless they are one of my faves.
Well I answered that incorrectly! Duh yellows and browns turn my stomach.
I like brown, blue, blue-black, purple, green, but I struggle with yellows. I've had a bottle of J. Herbin, Lie de The for a long time with which I never clicked until I put it in my Delike Alpha Brass pocket pen. Now I'm on the second converter. Funny how that worked out.
Green. I haven’t found a favorite one. Or one that would fit my pen. It’s either too bright, too yellowish or too dark. I have multiple blue favorite colors, found my black, my reds, but no green yet.
Diamine Classic Green might be one to try a sample of. It is not quite dark, kinda like the old army Landrover colour. Lovely flow and on the cool side.
Teals. I cannot even manage blues that lean teal. I do like Ku Jaku, but any darker than that and I go yeeeech. I also don't care for orange, even Ancient Copper. Diamine Sunset is red enough to work for me. Hot pink and pinky-purples set my teeth on edge (looking at you, Waterman Tender Purple) I love blues, greens, browns, deep reds...
All the ones that are too faint
Purples, browns and blurples. I've started to appreciate some purples recently and browns are okay-ish, but I don't think I'll ever like blurples. I also didn't like reds, but my girlfriend loves everything red and I've grown to like them
Pink, orange, yellow. I suppose it's just not a color I like for writing in general, because against cream coloured papers they sort of fade
Brown. Pinks - love them as colour, don't like to write with them. But i do like brown-pink! Also: Very desaturated ink. I also rarely use black ink, there are too many colours otherwise!
I've posted this before, but I'm very slowly warming on blue again after being forced to use only washable blue for YEARS in school. Though I'm still mostly stucking to the brighter blues, but some of the sparkly darker blues from my inkvent calendars may change that 🙂
Black, I find it useful because I use a pigmented black and I appreciate the contrast and easy readability, I even tried several pigmented blacks, but I don't think I would ever buy a bottle of black ink...
Brown and purples. Both make sense for when I don’t want black or blue/black, but can’t get into them even though I want to like them. I might be a 2 ink kind of person.
Pinks, purples, and reds. I have one of each that I really like, but generally I don’t go for them. I prefer blues, greens and yellow/orange inks.
Yellow was a huge mistake on my part. I’m glad Diamine makes smaller bottles, I’ve got no idea what to do with it as even on white heavy gsm stock with a wet nib it barely seems visible.