How Many Blues Is Enough?

[chromantic]

​Is this a trick question?

[Morphling27]

I'd think owning all the blue inks would be just the right amount.

[Fuzzy_Bear]

I'd think owning all the blue inks would be just the right amount.

.

 

But then again, one more than that should do it.

[senzen]

Well I finally got an answer, at least for myself: seven! I had to admit defeat, I just didn't get along with Myosotis, or Sheaffer Skrip blue, what I had in mind didn't correspond to reality, not that there's anything wrong with them. I was about to give up on Kon Peki but it finally seems to be coming out right of a humble Muji. Souten seems to be getting along with a Sonnet. Ama Iro really benefited from a medium Metropolitan: no quick evaporation.

Here's a shot with three different kinds of paper (clockwise): Tomoe River (white, although it looks more creamy than the others), Fabriano Traccia, OfficeDepot 75 gram copy paper. To me these pens and inks write well on copy paper but more decent paper makes them look spectacular. It's hard to tell apart Ama Iro and Kon Peki on photocopy paper.

Starting with the upper left corner and going clockwise: Souten, Tsuyu Kusa, Asa Gao, Équinoxe 6, Ama Iro, and Kon Peki, Ajisai is the outlier.

Of course the original question was rhetorical, I was just worried with my ever expanding list of blue inks.

[amberleadavis]

I like the comparison.

[Morphling27]

.

 

But then again, one more than that should do it.

How scarily true that is!

[alexander_k]

How scarily true that is!

 

Whenever I open the doors of my ink storage cabinet, I get a bit scared, indeed: when am I going to use up all this ink, especially all the blues (and there is more ink to be delivered this month)? Why am I wasting all that money on blue inks? And then I received a notice from my Internet provider: prices go up by 3 euros from next month. How many bottles of ink could I buy per year with the money I'm spending in order to be connected to the brave new hybrid world? Do I need this big a bandwidth? And am I exhausting the Internet, down to the last drop in the bottle? So, too many blue inks might not be a big issue, after all.

[Karmachanic]

I stopped chasing unobtainium. Six bottles. When I have an empty it's time to purchase another. Maybe even the same colour. There's great freedom to be found in restraint

Edited May 23, 2018 by Karmachanic

[Morphling27]

I stopped chasing unobtainium. Six bottles. When I have an empty it's time to purchase another. Maybe even the same colour. There's great freedom to be found in restraint

Six bottles... surely you mean of the same color, right? Not like, six total?

[senzen]

Update: it ended up being 7 blues and a sort of blue; they all finally look like I thought they could, several of them required drier pens or a little help getting there. The biggest surprise is how spectacular Équinoxe 6 can look.

 

First row: Ama Iro, Kon Peki, Équinoxe 6, Asa Gao.

 

Second row: Bleu Austral, Souten, Tsuyu Kusa, Ajisai.

 

[Fuzzy_Bear]

Noodlers Texas BlueBonnet

Noodlers BayState Blue

Noodlers Blue Steel

Iroshizuku Kon Peki

Edelstein Aquamarine

PR SuperShow Blue

Organics Studio Oops

Storia Night Blue

Pelikan Blau-Schwarz(Blue Black)

Dopamine Recency Blue

Noodlers Kung Te Cheng

Noodlers Legal Lapis

Blackstone Sydney Harbor Blue

 

That's 12... all bottles, no samples.

Just added Monteverde Capri Blue. Ran out of Supershow and gave away the Sydney Harbor.

[inkstainedruth]

@ Arkanabar -- I was catching up on this thread and the "Dopamine" Regency Blue also made me giggle.

@ chromantic -- Must be a trick question. There's no such thing as "enough" blue inks....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Fuzzy_Bear]

Well... blues can cause you to release dooamine!

[dcwaites]

I'd think owning all the blue inks would be just the right amount.

 

Yes, but then you would have to blend a couple to get the missing blues...

[Morphling27]

 

Yes, but then you would have to blend a couple to get the missing blues...

True, really for me (and I suspect many others) getting just the right blue ink is a quest akin to Ahab's.

[TSherbs]

True, really for me (and I suspect many others) getting just the right blue ink is a quest akin to Ahab's.

Don't board that boat, Ishmael!

[dcwaites]

One of my work colleagues had an interesting slant on this.

He said that you only needed one blue. The Perfect Blue . All other blues were imperfect, and therefore superfluous

Note, your Perfect Blue may not be mine, but it doesn't matter. We only need the one ink.

[kronion]

I have set a very strict limit of 20 blues for myself. After I hit that, I will convince myself that the "blue" category does not comprise teal, turquoise, blue-black, blurple and xyz-leaning "blues"...

[senzen]

One of my work colleagues had an interesting slant on this.

He said that you only needed one blue. The Perfect Blue . All other blues were imperfect, and therefore superfluous

Note, your Perfect Blue may not be mine, but it doesn't matter. We only need the one ink.

 

That's interesting, Tsuyu Kusa would the closest to me, but once I take a look at Asa Gao, Ajisai, Équinoxe 6... Superflous? Naaah . They're each perfect in their own way. I have a hard time using Ajisai next to other inks, it doesn't like sharing a page, unless it's a brown, or another purplish blue: too perfect in its own dimension?