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marycrawfordThere are Strange People Working in the House (wearing face masks, at least, oof) and the cat has flattened herself between a desk and a radiator in the hope that she will become invisible. I feel the same way, frankly.
To distract myself, let me ramble on about pens. I started drawing with fountain pens a while ago, since I love writing with them so much that it felt natural to draw with them, too. And I went down a whole rabbit hole figuring out how to use waterproof ink in fountain pens without clogging them up. That way I can draw something and then use watercolor paint on it later, which is my favorite way of working with paint so far.
One of the best waterproof inks I found is Platinum Carbon Black, which is just a gorgeous deep, deep black that also dries rapidly and is 100% waterproof. It's from Japan, comes in cartridges as well as bottled ink, and you can use it in ordinary fountain pens, though probably you shouldn't let them sit for a long time without using them. But Platinum also makes a couple of fountain pens that are specifically designed to use the waterproof ink. The Preppy is one, and the Platinum Carbon Ink Desk Pen is another, and the one I use for drawing. I have multiples of this pen now - it's cheap, it's plastic, it looks odd with the long tail because it's meant to go in a desk stand, it draws a very fine line, it always starts up immediately, and I absolutely love it. I've seen people describe it as a cheap-looking pen that writes like a $200 nib. (I don't have any fancy nib pens to compare it to, but I believe it.)
And so, in Lost Tomb Reboot, when Wu Xie started writing in his uncle's diary with that lovely long-tailed red pen, I recognized it immediately.
He's using this particular Platinum desk pen, which is not specifically designed to take waterproof ink, though it can still use those cartridges, but it's very similar to the other Platinum desk pens. This one just looks nicer with its gold tail, and has a similar gold-plated nib that writes a very fine line.
I love that whole setting with the desk and the diary and the warm light, and I love the elegance of that pen in Wu Xie's hand.
There's a great blog post by a sketcher in Singapore here, with lots of detail about the different desk pens he uses. He managed to find a version of Wu Xie's pen that has an actual 14K gold nib, which I've never seen for sale.
To distract myself, let me ramble on about pens. I started drawing with fountain pens a while ago, since I love writing with them so much that it felt natural to draw with them, too. And I went down a whole rabbit hole figuring out how to use waterproof ink in fountain pens without clogging them up. That way I can draw something and then use watercolor paint on it later, which is my favorite way of working with paint so far.
One of the best waterproof inks I found is Platinum Carbon Black, which is just a gorgeous deep, deep black that also dries rapidly and is 100% waterproof. It's from Japan, comes in cartridges as well as bottled ink, and you can use it in ordinary fountain pens, though probably you shouldn't let them sit for a long time without using them. But Platinum also makes a couple of fountain pens that are specifically designed to use the waterproof ink. The Preppy is one, and the Platinum Carbon Ink Desk Pen is another, and the one I use for drawing. I have multiples of this pen now - it's cheap, it's plastic, it looks odd with the long tail because it's meant to go in a desk stand, it draws a very fine line, it always starts up immediately, and I absolutely love it. I've seen people describe it as a cheap-looking pen that writes like a $200 nib. (I don't have any fancy nib pens to compare it to, but I believe it.)
And so, in Lost Tomb Reboot, when Wu Xie started writing in his uncle's diary with that lovely long-tailed red pen, I recognized it immediately.
He's using this particular Platinum desk pen, which is not specifically designed to take waterproof ink, though it can still use those cartridges, but it's very similar to the other Platinum desk pens. This one just looks nicer with its gold tail, and has a similar gold-plated nib that writes a very fine line.
I love that whole setting with the desk and the diary and the warm light, and I love the elegance of that pen in Wu Xie's hand.
There's a great blog post by a sketcher in Singapore here, with lots of detail about the different desk pens he uses. He managed to find a version of Wu Xie's pen that has an actual 14K gold nib, which I've never seen for sale.