• Colour: The darkest, most opaque black I could find. As I learned when using water, it’s a very very very dark blue.
• Special Attributes:
  • Shade: With water, but otherwise it is too pure pitch to show any.
  • Sheen: None!
  • Shimmer: Zero.
• Watercolour Usage: It makes such a nice pure-looking grey when a little water is added. Lots of water brings out a bit of blue. But it’s almost as amazing as Chinese Ink, except it goes in a fountain pen.
• Harkens to Mind: The dark at the end of everything.
• Similar to: Platinum Carbon is just as black, but this one is a dye ink as far as I know.
• Expense: $15/3oz (~85ml) as of 2022.
• Example: Nam Joo-Hyuk.

Link to buy this artwork

Writing Sample

Verdict

I only ever wanted to get one black ink because I thought black was boring. But I needed it to be the darkest black in history. This was what I landed on. It’s pretty much perfect but I didn’t realise back in my young and naïve days, that there are other important factors.

It feathers, it’s not waterproof, and it still hasn’t dried fully on the drawing I did of Nam Joo-Hyuk. I’m going to have to blot away the dark bits. It’s easy to smear this ink when writing with it and it always manages to get all over my hands.

I still use it because wow it’s beautiful, but I guess it isn’t perfect.