Robert Oster ‘Cities of America’ series: Chicago

[A Smug Dill]

My bottle of Robert Oster Chicago ink in the ‘Cities of America’ series just came in this morning. The colour makes me think of it as a slightly darker and greener-leaning Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun, of which a 50ml bottle also arrived today in the same parcel; but this ink's flow is rather drier in a properly (converter-)filled pen. Probably not the best ink for a nib that offers a lot of kinaesthetic feedback; but, on the whole, I like it.

 

 

 

 

[yazeh]

Thanks for the review.    This looks like a truly nice colour. I recently saw a Nick Stewart style drawing with this ink... looked truly lovely. 

[lapis]

Thanks for the introduction (to me) of a "new" series. Inks named after cities and other localities (like Super5's etc.) have always fascinated me but this one is too green for me. At least for the time being, I think I'll stick to fuyu-syogun, even although it's lighter.

[LizEF]

Thanks, @A Smug Dill!  These really are comprehensive displays of the ink's writing abilities.  And now I know, not a color for me.

[yazeh]

@A Smug DillI saw another writing sample of this it looked like a pale blue black. Yours seems to have a lot of green in it...  intriguing how an ink can change personality...  

[JulieParadise]

6 minutes ago, yazeh said:

@A Smug DillI saw another writing sample of this it looked like a pale blue black. Yours seems to have a lot of green in it...  intriguing how an ink can change personality...  

@Matthew TWP @namrehsnoom and others use different papers in their review, showing how different papers change the appearance of an ink, aside from other variables like light and camera settings. Thus it comes as no surprise that an ink may look different on different people's photographs.

[yazeh]

5 minutes ago, JulieParadise said:

@Matthew TWP @namrehsnoom and others use different papers in their review, showing how different papers change the appearance of an ink, aside from other variables like light and camera settings. Thus it comes as no surprise that an ink may look different on different people's photographs.

🙏 

 

[mizgeorge]

Thank you @A Smug Dill for another excellent and comprehensive review. If I didn't already have it, I'd want to get it on the strength of this!

 

I think the 'other' samples @yazeh may be referring to is mine, which I have to admit do look a bit different, but that could be partly to do with photographic conditions. 

 

This is written/drawn with an old Kaweco Kadett 55 (very wet pen) on TR52g

 

 

and is definitely more blue than green, which is interesting - I must try it on some different papers.

 

I also did a wishy wash with it (on 300gsm cold press Bockingford):

 

 

As new inks go, I like it very much indeed. It is slightly on the drier side, but nothing like as dry as others I have in the same spectrum. I suspect I'm going to use it a lot.

[yazeh]

Thanks!@mizgeorge🙏. It is indeed you

 

[PithyProlix]

Thank you for an excellent display of this ink. I was curious about it - looks like another for the want list - my kind of color. 

 

I lived in Chicago for a short time and I was struggling to understand the association between the color and the city. Now that I have had a good look at it I suspect the connection might be the color of the Chicago River. 

[namrehsnoom]

This is an ink that’s totally me! Thank you for bringing this one to our attention. Now I just have to hunt around to see if there “city inks” are available somewhere in the EU.

[A Smug Dill]

5 hours ago, JulieParadise said:

… how different papers change the appearance of an ink,

 

I have a habit of removing the edge-glued stack of stubs from each Rhodia DotPad No.16 (i.e. A5-sized) 80g/m² pad once I've used up all the perforated pages, and keeping the stubs around as scrap paper. I think I found one stack last night from an older stock Rhodia DotPad, and the Sailor Lecoule pen — still on the same fill of this ink — seems to write a little darker and less green on it.

 

I know the paper in (black-covered) Rhodia DotPads I got from Cult Pens mid-2020 behave somewhat differently from that in (orange-covered) pads I got from Amazon AU not even 12 months before that; the texture and the sizing/coating are different. It's not a case of orange-covered pads versus black-covered pads, either; I ordered an orange-covered pad from Cult Pens, once I'd gotten over the unpleasant surprise, just to confirm.

 

[LizEF]

21 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

I know the paper in (black-covered) Rhodia DotPads I got from Cult Pens mid-2020 behave somewhat differently from that in (orange-covered) pads I got from Amazon AU not even 12 months before that; the texture and the sizing/coating are different. It's not a case of orange-covered pads versus black-covered pads, either; I ordered an orange-covered pad from Cult Pens, once I'd gotten over the unpleasant surprise, just to confirm.

Guess I'd better save my partially-used pad for reviews.  I've got most of one (that I'm using now for reviews) and a partial one that I've been using for years for whatever comes up.  If they've changed, that'll impact my reviews when I have to switch to new ones.   Maybe I'll save all my Rhodia, and cut my A4 pages in half to make A5s...

 

23 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

I have a habit of removing the edge-glued stack of stubs from each Rhodia DotPad No.16 (i.e. A5-sized) 80g/m² pad once I've used up all the perforated pages, and keeping the stubs around as scrap paper.

Meanwhile, I find it slightly disturbing that we both do this! 

[A Smug Dill]

45 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

I think I found one stack last night from an older stock Rhodia DotPad, and the Sailor Lecoule pen — still on the same fill of this ink — seems to write a little darker and less green on it.

 

Hmmm … or maybe somehow the ink flow in the same pen got wetter a several hours later, towards the end of the same converter fill, resulting in darker and less green-leaning ink marks even on the same sheet of paper. The pen was cleaned and dried weeks ago, and so it would (or should) not be a case of remnants of moisture in the feed diluting the ink while I was writing the body of the ink review.

 

[A Smug Dill]

10 hours ago, yazeh said:

@A Smug DillI saw another writing sample of this it looked like a pale blue black. Yours seems to have a lot of green in it...  intriguing how an ink can change personality...  

12 hours ago, lapis said:

At least for the time being, I think I'll stick to fuyu-syogun, even although it's lighter.

 

Here you go.

[amberleadavis]

Another great review.

[yazeh]

Thanks for all the updates @A Smug Dill

[Matthew TWP]

This is a beautiful color and a very nicely done review. I'm going to have to track this one down, I think. I've been trying to avoid all of the Robert Oster inks... thinking that once I get started, I'll start trying to collect them all, and they seem endless.

[lapis]

7 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Here you go. ....

 

Excellent comparison! Thanks a lot!!