Learn About Sheen

I came across the word “sheen” in the world of fountain pen ink when I browsed r/Calligraphy on Reddit. At the subreddit, I regularly saw someone’s posts using this kind of ink with great, beautiful sheen. (And his great masterpieces absolutely.) This guy I called him Lambroghini because of his reddit account, but maybe it’s proper to call him Leonardo, as indicated in his Instagram profile.

I got impressed by a ink he used in his post, which is Tesla Coil made by Birmingham Pen Company in US.

The color and sheen shown below: (official image)

tesla coil ink official image

Bump Into Sabimidori

Recently I went to a local fountain pen shop, I asked the stuff if they sell the Tesla Coil ink. They said they don’t sell any Birmingham inks. I also took a look on local shopping sites, amazons (US & Japan), nothing found. And sadly, Birmingham’s official website does not support international shipment. Oh, NO!

Then I asked the stuff to recommend similar inks with sheen. (But not limited to similar color) He recommend two inks, both of them are the Ukiyo-e ink series made by Taccia:

  • Hiroshige Ruri (広重(ひろしげ) 瑠璃(るり) )
  • Hokusai Sabimidori (北斎(ほくさい) 錆緑(さびみどり) )

PS. For more detailed and professional review about these inks, I recommend reading posts from Mountain of Ink. (Ink Review #1348: Taccia Hokusai-sabimidori — Mountain of Ink and Taccia Hiroshige Inks — Mountain of Ink)

And I love the color of Hokusai Sabimidori at the first sight, almost decided to buy it immediately. 😆

Unboxing

Here we started from the box! The design of box is inspired by Ukiyoe from Japan.

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Let’s open it!

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A bottle of ink and a pamphlet. Here’s all we have.

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Inside the pamphlet is a brief introduction about Ukiyo-e series.

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Actually there are already 16 inks in the series at the time writing. (Jun/2025)

About The Naming

I just want to discuss a little bit about the name: Hokusai Sabimidori.

For Hokusai (北斎(ほくさい) ), as wiki suggests, is a Japanese ukiyo-e artist.

As Sabimidori (錆緑(さびみどり) ), it can be divide into two characters. Sabi (錆(さび) ) means rust in Japanese, while midori (緑(みどり) ) means green.

So sabimidori means rust green, or rusty green.

Trying the Ink

It’s time to try the ink! I tried it on two paper: Midori MD and Tomoe River.

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The rusty sheen is soooo beautiful!

Dry And Wet

I realize the ink will change the color when drying:

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As you can see, when the ink is wet (lower stroke), it looks like Prussian blue. Then after it drys, it becomes green, which is between turquoise and emerald , but more close to turquoise. And of course with rust at ink pond!

Here’s final shot!

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DEFINITELY LOVE IT!

Thanks for reading. Happy writing!