Efnir: Pilot Blue/black

[LizEF]

I thought that was just a piece of your Harley Quinn cosplay.

 

Thanks for the review!

Proof that I live under a rock: (I have no idea who "Harley Quinn" is.) [googling....reading first two sentences of wikipedia article....] OK.

 

You're welcome. (Crawling back under my rock now.)

 

I have a bottle of Pilot blue black, and it's nothing like what you're showing here. A true blue black, and I haven't even tried it on T.R. but I love it. It's in my Ahab for now, other pens may follow. What you show seems closer to my bottle of Pilot blue, which was so light I added some black food color, and made it closer to what I think of a nice darkish blue. The blue black though was perfect from the first fill.

Interesting. I wonder if bottles are different from cartridges, or if there are different manufacturing locals, or if age can account for it (either when it was manufactured or how long it's been sitting around). I also have Pilot Blue and it's definitely lighter and more blue than my Blue/Black. Consider yourself fortunate.

[Olya]

To me the ink looks normal.

 

There's no difference in this ink between the bottled version(s) and cartridges!

 

It is one of my favourites, quite fun to read people's different impressions.

 

Sailor [Jentle] Blue is Pilot Blue Black's fraternal twin.

The two look quite similar, I haven't done any testing, but the few comparisons I did in my notebooks show them to be close to each other. Not the same, but definitely close!

[Karmachanic]

Thanks Liz. Won't be getting the ink, but I did use the quote in conversation day before yesterday.

[Tasmith]

It's a half-glove designed to prevent smudging, or to let your hand glide on a digital drawing pad / device. I use it to ensure my hand isn't leaving anything on the lower part of the page so it doesn't influence the review.

I use something similar (cotton glove with the some of the fingers cut off) when doing Photoshop with my Wacom tablet. Surprising how sore from friction my hand can get without it. Haven't tried using it when writing. Thank you for the link to Jetpens, I need to add this to my next order.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Tasmith

[LizEF]

To me the ink looks normal.

 

There's no difference in this ink between the bottled version(s) and cartridges!

 

It is one of my favourites, quite fun to read people's different impressions.

 

Sailor [Jentle] Blue is Pilot Blue Black's fraternal twin.

The two look quite similar, I haven't done any testing, but the few comparisons I did in my notebooks show them to be close to each other. Not the same, but definitely close!

This is the best part of forum-posted ink reviews - you get many impressions and can make a more educated decision. Thanks for the addition, Olya!

 

Thanks Liz. Won't be getting the ink, but I did use the quote in conversation day before yesterday.

Mr. Pascal is no doubt pleased. Pilot not so much - but they can afford it. (Personally, I feel bad for those who need more than their own imagination to stay entertained. My idea of heaven is to be left to sit quietly in a room alone to play with stories in my head, and it seems a bit strange to me that some people's heads aren't filled with multiple universes and cultures and thousands of characters demanding processing time! Some people even think I'm weird... )

 

I use something similar (cotton glove with the some of the fingers cut off) when doing Photoshop with my Wacom tablet. Surprising how sore from friction my hand can get without it. Haven't tried using it when writing. Thank you for the link to Jetpens, I need to add this to my next order.

I find it really unpleasant to have bare skin touching, say, a desktop while writing or typing - thus, I almost always wear long sleeves - people think I'm nuts in the summer. And though resting the heel of my hand on paper while writing has never bothered me, it's different on electronics - your skin wants to stick. Don't know that these gloves are any better than your cotton glove, but they won't fray from the cut-off fingers.

[khalameet]

The ink of the cartridge should be the same as in the bottles (30ml, 70ml and 350ml).

 

To me, the ink shown in the review looks just like the one I have in a 70ml bottle.

 

edit: @mhguda: Maybe you have a vintage bottle? This ink was an iron gall ink until around 1994, and was considerably darker.

Edited June 3, 2020 by khalameet

[mhguda]

Nope - I bought it last year, from Jetpens IIRC. It's not an irongall ink - the color does not change.

[khalameet]

Of course not, it is far too new for that.

 

Only thing I can think of is that your pen is very wet? The colour of this ink is very dependable of the amount of ink laid down, ranging from a dusty, pale blue to a rich, deep and dark blue.

[inkstainedruth]

Halo-sheening? Ooooo.

 

+1 one on that.

I know people really like this ink but I haven't had a chance to try it. But since I do have some pens with EF nibs (and some vintage pens with what are effectively EF nibs, it's always good to find inks that work in them.

Now if I could only figure out what I did with that Aqua Blue Snorkel.... It's particularly futzy about inks (didn't like vintage Skrip Peacock for some reason -- but did like modern Skrip Purple...). Hope I didn't lose it. It was a nice color, even if the nib was persnickety....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

Now if I could only figure out what I did with that Aqua Blue Snorkel....

I think I saw it in a PBS special about diving in the Caribbean.

[inkstainedruth]

(Personally, I feel bad for those who need more than their own imagination to stay entertained. My idea of heaven is to be left to sit quietly in a room alone to play with stories in my head, and it seems a bit strange to me that some people's heads aren't filled with multiple universes and cultures and thousands of characters demanding processing time! Some people even think I'm weird... )

 

I think you sound perfectly normal.

I had a conversation with someone a couple of years ago and she said that she can do complicated math problems in her head, but my description of being able to visualize settings and characters when I'm reading a novel (except for Thomas Hardy -- grrrr!) made her look at me as if I had sprouted a second head on the spot. I remember in first grade my teacher saying something to that effect about the "Billy and Blaze" stories: that I seemed to be able to put myself into the story, even though I wasn't a boy.... And I remember thinking "Well who's point of view WOULD I be seeing it from? The horse's?" Because the teacher's comments made no sense to me WHATSOEVER.... Of course I wasn't imagining myself as Billy -- that was stupid. But I was imagining myself as riding Blaze *instead* of Billy....

But of course I've always had an overactive imagination, and I suspect that you probably do too. Nice to know I'm not weird after all.... Oh, and I was telling my husband about this thread and he said that when our friend's son was little, Josh getting sent to his room as punishment didn't SEEM like punishment -- and being told to stand in the corner just made him giggle.... He's in his 30s now, and we've known him and his dad since Josh was about 14....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

I think I saw it in a PBS special about diving in the Caribbean.

 

Didn't happened to see the M200 Café Crème with it, did you...?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

Didn't happened to see the M200 Café Crème with it, did you...?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

No, sorry, no Café Crème, but then, the episode was focused on the diving, not the après-dive refreshments.

 

I think you sound perfectly normal.

I had a conversation with someone a couple of years ago and she said that she can do complicated math problems in her head, but my description of being able to visualize settings and characters when I'm reading a novel (except for Thomas Hardy -- grrrr!) made her look at me as if I had sprouted a second head on the spot. I remember in first grade my teacher saying something to that effect about the "Billy and Blaze" stories: that I seemed to be able to put myself into the story, even though I wasn't a boy.... And I remember thinking "Well who's point of view WOULD I be seeing it from? The horse's?" Because the teacher's comments made no sense to me WHATSOEVER.... Of course I wasn't imagining myself as Billy -- that was stupid. But I was imagining myself as riding Blaze *instead* of Billy....

But of course I've always had an overactive imagination, and I suspect that you probably do too. Nice to know I'm not weird after all.... Oh, and I was telling my husband about this thread and he said that when our friend's son was little, Josh getting sent to his room as punishment didn't SEEM like punishment -- and being told to stand in the corner just made him giggle.... He's in his 30s now, and we've known him and his dad since Josh was about 14....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Hooray! There's one person in the universe who thinks I sound normal!

 

Oh, yes, I have a work friend who doesn't see a thing. It was shocking to me when she told me that. It's just words for her. I visualize things so vividly that later, I'm not sure whether it's my imagination or a scene from the movie version (if there even is a movie version).

 

And if anyone asks me, I don't read fiction, I move in and live the story. But I don't replace the POV character, I just become them. It's why I have to wait a year or more between Robin Hobb series - she's so brutal to the main character that it's emotionally draining.

 

"Overactive imagination" is an oxymoron. It's just not possible. Anyone who discourages imagination should be whapped upside the head! If I don't have to be doing something else, I'm in a fictional world playing with characters, trying to invent a story - it's amazingly hard to create a story that can actually be written - as opposed to a story that's fun to play with in your head. People think I'm weird for not writing it all down, but I see no point in writing it down until I can run through from a good start to a good end. Mostly, I end up with notes about a new culture, a character, a scene, or something like that. I suspect I'm borderline clinical or something, but I can still pay my own bills, so I figure I must not be quite that far gone.

 

I even have a theme song (Sara Niemietz - World of My Own).

Edited June 3, 2020 by LizEF

[nibtip]

To me the ink looks normal.

 

There's no difference in this ink between the bottled version(s) and cartridges!

 

It is one of my favourites, quite fun to read people's different impressions.

 

Sailor [Jentle] Blue is Pilot Blue Black's fraternal twin.

The two look quite similar, I haven't done any testing, but the few comparisons I did in my notebooks show them to be close to each other. Not the same, but definitely close!

I had the same observation last week. Still Sailor sheens more, smells stronger and is a bit harder to clean from the pen.

[inkstainedruth]

No, sorry, no Café Crème, but then, the episode was focused on the diving, not the après-dive refreshments.

 

Hooray! There's one person in the universe who thinks I sound normal!

 

Oh, yes, I have a work friend who doesn't see a thing. It was shocking to me when she told me that. It's just words for her. I visualize things so vividly that later, I'm not sure whether it's my imagination or a scene from the movie version (if there even is a movie version).

 

And if anyone asks me, I don't read fiction, I move in and live the story. But I don't replace the POV character, I just become them. It's why I have to wait a year or more between Robin Hobb series - she's so brutal to the main character that it's emotionally draining.

 

"Overactive imagination" is an oxymoron. It's just not possible. Anyone who discourages imagination should be whapped upside the head! If I don't have to be doing something else, I'm in a fictional world playing with characters, trying to invent a story - it's amazingly hard to create a story that can actually be written - as opposed to a story that's fun to play with in your head. People think I'm weird for not writing it all down, but I see no point in writing it down until I can run through from a good start to a good end. Mostly, I end up with notes about a new culture, a character, a scene, or something like that. I suspect I'm borderline clinical or something, but I can still pay my own bills, so I figure I must not be quite that far gone.

 

I even have a theme song (Sara Niemietz - World of My Own).

 

Getting the story down on paper is the hard part. When I try to write fiction, it's sort of a matter of transcribing it (it's like a movie playing inside my head) as much as anything else, and I'm not overly successful at that.

I remember years ago, some girl up the street from us (I think she may have been someone who babysat my brother and me sometimes) once asked my mother how she came up with the ideas for the books she wrote. I remember my mother was somewhat flabbergasted by the question -- because for her the idea was the EASY part.... [And before anyone asks whether my mother was a "pantser" or a "plotter" I'd say DEFINITELY the latter, because she liked doing the research -- for a romance novel about a girl working in the fashion industry, she contacted the Fashion Institute in NYC about the types of classes they gave; for the bodice rippers she had a stash of books -- everything from ones about coaches to Godey's Fashion plates reprints to books about ettiquette and copies of letters people had written. And she'd make an alphabet list and one side would be given names and the other side would be surnames so people wouldn't have trouble tell the characters apart (me, though, I've got too many people with names beginning with the letter M -- and if I ever get grief from an editor I will say "Do you know how many people I know named 'Heather'? Do you know how many people I know named 'Rachel' -- which didn't used to be a popular name when my mom was growing up?"

Heck, my first year in college there were 5 Susans and 3 Carol(e)s on my HALF of my floor in the dorm... (it was a U-shaped building, so I'm talking about my wing on my floor).

Of course it was a couple of months before I realized that one of the major characters, nicknamed "Dodger" was buddies with another character, who the narrator nicknames "Brooklyn"... and I'm a diehard Yankees fan of long standing . But I've thought about the characters by those names for so long I'm not sure I can change them.... (They have other nicknames as well -- like "Mr. Belvedere" and "Mr. Coffee" -- at different parts of the story, not to mention "Skippy" and "Evil Twin Skippy"... ; and I would describe the novel as "comic chick lit"....

The Great American Novel, it ain't....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

Getting the story down on paper is the hard part. When I try to write fiction, it's sort of a matter of transcribing it (it's like a movie playing inside my head) as much as anything else, and I'm not overly successful at that.

I remember years ago, some girl up the street from us (I think she may have been someone who babysat my brother and me sometimes) once asked my mother how she came up with the ideas for the books she wrote. I remember my mother was somewhat flabbergasted by the question -- because for her the idea was the EASY part.... [And before anyone asks whether my mother was a "pantser" or a "plotter" I'd say DEFINITELY the latter, because she liked doing the research -- for a romance novel about a girl working in the fashion industry, she contacted the Fashion Institute in NYC about the types of classes they gave; for the bodice rippers she had a stash of books -- everything from ones about coaches to Godey's Fashion plates reprints to books about ettiquette and copies of letters people had written. And she'd make an alphabet list and one side would be given names and the other side would be surnames so people wouldn't have trouble tell the characters apart (me, though, I've got too many people with names beginning with the letter M -- and if I ever get grief from an editor I will say "Do you know how many people I know named 'Heather'? Do you know how many people I know named 'Rachel' -- which didn't used to be a popular name when my mom was growing up?"

Heck, my first year in college there were 5 Susans and 3 Carol(e)s on my HALF of my floor in the dorm... (it was a U-shaped building, so I'm talking about my wing on my floor).

Of course it was a couple of months before I realized that one of the major characters, nicknamed "Dodger" was buddies with another character, who the narrator nicknames "Brooklyn"... and I'm a diehard Yankees fan of long standing . But I've thought about the characters by those names for so long I'm not sure I can change them.... (They have other nicknames as well -- like "Mr. Belvedere" and "Mr. Coffee" -- at different parts of the story, not to mention "Skippy" and "Evil Twin Skippy"... ; and I would describe the novel as "comic chick lit"....

The Great American Novel, it ain't....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

...Transcribing a movie - yes, exactly. I tell people I don't write the story; I just create the characters and stick them at a starting point and then observe what they do. (Pantser in my head until I've got a reasonable story. Then I plan it out to make sure it's gonna work on paper.)

 

Nice hearing from a fellow story-maker.

[Olya]

I had the same observation last week. Still Sailor sheens more, smells stronger and is a bit harder to clean from the pen.

Can't comment on the cleaning bit, as I've used Sailor Blue exclusively in the last few months after a long time without!

 

Imo when the inks are freshly inked, they look more different than when they are "settled" in a pen and flow heavier and are more saturated (due to not using for a few days).

 

Now I haven't used Pilot Blue Black in a while, but if my memory is right I find sheen is somewhat similar, or the Sailor is maybe a lick heavier.

 

The smells are different, Sailor Blue and Pilot Blue smell kinda the same, but Pilot Blue Black has a more chemical smell. Maybe because they use black ink as part of it? In my experience black inks always smell different to blue colours, more chemical and unpleasant.

 

Now that I think about it... Diamine Oxford Blue and J Herbin are somewhat similar and Oxford Blue tends to also sheen, but Bleu des Prof doesn't, or at least I haven't noticed it. Herbin inks need loads of coaxing to get sheen (except eg Emerald of Chivor), even when the dye is as dark/saturated as BdP... Not that I mind, I like sheen but am not crazy about it that it's a must!

 

 

I think you sound perfectly normal.

I had a conversation with someone a couple of years ago and she said that she can do complicated math problems in her head, but my description of being able to visualize settings and characters when I'm reading a novel (except for Thomas Hardy -- grrrr!) made her look at me as if I had sprouted a second head on the spot. I remember in first grade my teacher saying something to that effect about the "Billy and Blaze" stories: that I seemed to be able to put myself into the story, even though I wasn't a boy.... And I remember thinking "Well who's point of view WOULD I be seeing it from? The horse's?" Because the teacher's comments made no sense to me WHATSOEVER.... Of course I wasn't imagining myself as Billy -- that was stupid. But I was imagining myself as riding Blaze *instead* of Billy....

But of course I've always had an overactive imagination, and I suspect that you probably do too. Nice to know I'm not weird after all.... Oh, and I was telling my husband about this thread and he said that when our friend's son was little, Josh getting sent to his room as punishment didn't SEEM like punishment -- and being told to stand in the corner just made him giggle.... He's in his 30s now, and we've known him and his dad since Josh was about 14....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Great story! Funny what's easy to some and hard to others, how different our brains are in even such "small" (actually quite big!) things!

 

I am also great at visualizing things, stories, memories, day-dreaming, heck even numbers change in my mind when I calculate, sometimes they shift on the page! (nothing complicated though!)

 

 

No, sorry, no Café Crème, but then, the episode was focused on the diving, not the après-dive refreshments.

 

Hooray! There's one person in the universe who thinks I sound normal!

 

Oh, yes, I have a work friend who doesn't see a thing. It was shocking to me when she told me that. It's just words for her. I visualize things so vividly that later, I'm not sure whether it's my imagination or a scene from the movie version (if there even is a movie version).

 

And if anyone asks me, I don't read fiction, I move in and live the story. But I don't replace the POV character, I just become them. It's why I have to wait a year or more between Robin Hobb series - she's so brutal to the main character that it's emotionally draining.

 

"Overactive imagination" is an oxymoron. It's just not possible. Anyone who discourages imagination should be whapped upside the head! If I don't have to be doing something else, I'm in a fictional world playing with characters, trying to invent a story - it's amazingly hard to create a story that can actually be written - as opposed to a story that's fun to play with in your head. People think I'm weird for not writing it all down, but I see no point in writing it down until I can run through from a good start to a good end. Mostly, I end up with notes about a new culture, a character, a scene, or something like that. I suspect I'm borderline clinical or something, but I can still pay my own bills, so I figure I must not be quite that far gone.

 

I even have a theme song (Sara Niemietz - World of My Own).

Hear hear! Imagination is so important, esp for kids and their development, which is why it's important they experience boredom, as that feeds imagination! There are studies on that.

[LizEF]

Hear hear! Imagination is so important, esp for kids and their development, which is why it's important they experience boredom, as that feeds imagination! There are studies on that.

All the passive electronic entertainment available these days frightens me - all those poor little imaginations withering away.

[Olya]

All the passive electronic entertainment available these days frightens me - all those poor little imaginations withering away.

So true. I think there's some talk that indeed kids these days have problems with their imaginations (those who grow up with too much screen time starting in the pram, nothing sadder/worse to see than a 3 year old with headphones and its own tablet!)

[XYZZY]

 

"Overactive imagination" is an oxymoron. It's just not possible. Anyone who discourages imagination should be whapped upside the head! If I don't have to be doing something else, I'm in a fictional world playing with characters, trying to invent a story - it's amazingly hard to create a story that can actually be written - as opposed to a story that's fun to play with in your head. People think I'm weird for not writing it all down, but I see no point in writing it down until I can run through from a good start to a good end. Mostly, I end up with notes about a new culture, a character, a scene, or something like that. I suspect I'm borderline clinical or something, but I can still pay my own bills, so I figure I must not be quite that far gone.

 

 

I have never understood why anybody would be offended by being "weird". Everybody is abnormal in one way or another. To fit all the norms in everything...shudder. It's weird, but it's a feature and not a bug.

 

As for math vs imagination: there are many different types of smarts. It's amazing how we can all be smart at one thing and bozos at others, but that usually keeps life interesting and fun.