Teranishi Guitar - Brilliant Mint

[namrehsnoom]

Teranishi Guitar – Brilliant Mint

 

Teranishi Chemical Industries was founded during the Taisho period in 1918, and got quite some fame as one of the earlier ink producers in Japan. The Taisho period is often remembered as a romantic era. For their 105th anniversary, the company introduced some stylish retro-inks, hinting at this exciting start-up period. The inks come in stylish – almost art deco – boxes, containing a nice-looking 40ml bottle of ink.

 

Each bottle comes with a blank tag that can be used for a colour sample. Simply swab some ink onto the tag, and you have a handy guide to the true colour that’s in the bottle. It’s small details like this that mark companies that take pride in their products.

 

I discovered the Teranishi inks in 2022. These inks are well saturated, but at the same time manage to look muted and toned-down. This combination works quite well, and I’m becoming very fond of this brand. In this review, the spotlight shines on Brilliant Mint, a weird type of colour that ranges from mint to aqua to turquoise depending on paper and lighting. It’s totally not my type of colour, but somehow Teranishi manages to make this look exotic and intriguing, instead of disgusting 😉.

 

I usually scan my ink review text samples, but with the heavy shading on this Brilliant Mint this turned out to be impossible. In scans, the ink shows way to much contrast between light and darker parts. So, for this review, I almost exclusively use photos to show off the ink.

 

Brilliant Mint writes wet and well saturated, even in the finest nibs. I liked the ink best with F and M nibbed pens, which lay down a somewhat more saturated line which hits the goldilocks zone for the contrast between light & dark strokes, with great shading aesthetics as a result. This Teranishi ink is a really strong shader though, and can be a bit too aggressive with some pen/nib combinations. You need to find the right pen to tame this ink.

To illustrate the colour span of this Teranishi ink, I did a swab on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper, where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. Brilliant Mint has a fairly wide dynamic range with quite some contrast between light and dark strokes. Finer nibs concentrate the ink more, and lean towards the right of this spectrum. This is – for me – the goldilocks zone of the ink, where shading doesn’t get too extreme and shows some great aesthetics. 

 

On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – the text remains perfectly readable, even if a lot of the dyes get displaced. Water resistance is mediocre: just good enough to survive an accident. Enough of the dyes remain attached to the paper to allow for a reconstruction of the written word. This is also evident from the chromatography that shows that some grey dyes clinging to the paper at the bottom part.

The chroma also shows a balanced mix of green and azure-blue dyes, that work together to create the mint-turqoise looks of this ink. With Brilliant Mint, the blue dominates slightly, creating an intriguing colour – bold & adventurous, and this Teranishi ink succeeds in pulling this off. Pelikan Edelstein Jade is in the same colour family, a bit greener, but that ink gets the combination oh-so-wrong, and looks disturbing & nauseating to me. There clearly is a fine line between success and failure with this type of colour.

 

I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On each scrap of paper I show you:

• An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip
• 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation
• An ink scribble made with a Lamy Safari M-nib fountain pen
• The name of the paper used, written with a Lamy Safari B-nib
• A small text sample, written with the Lamy Safari M-nib
• Source of the quote, written with a Kaweco Sport with BB-nib
• Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari)

The multi-paper writing test shows that Teranishi Brilliant Mint handles all types of paper well, with only a micro-amount of feathering on Moleskine – not bad at all. With low-quality paper you will definitely get a bit of bleed-through, making it impossible to use the backside of the paper. Drying times are quite short on absorbent paper, but increase to the 20-25 second range on hard-surface paper. Not unexpectedly, this type of ink looks at its best on pure white paper.

 

For the sake of completeness, I also add a scan of text written on a number of different papers. As you can see, the scan exaggerates the contrast enormously, making the shading look totally unrealistic. 

 

 

Below you’ll find some zoomed-in parts of writing samples. This Teranishi ink looks fairly consistent across the whole range of writing papers. Solid and with good contrast. Notice the heavy shading on the high-quality and hard-surface Iroful paper.

 

Writing with different nib sizes
The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing (written on Rhodia N°16 80 gsm paper). All samples were written with a Lamy Safari. I also added a couple of visiting pens with fine/medium nibs: a modern Parker 51 with F-nib, my F-nibbed Lamy 2000 and a Pelikan M600 with M-nib.  I like the ink best with the F-nib pens, where the dark strokes are really saturated, and the shading gets some extra “oomph” that looks superb. 

 

Related inks
To compare Teranishi Brilliant Mint with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. Brilliant Mint has a unique shade that sits somewhere between Pelikan Edelstein Aquamarine and Apatite. Edelstein Jade tries to do the same, but fails miserably (my opinion).  The grey components of this Teranishi ink contribute to the gritty faded look, and give a bit of a vintage vibe to the ink colour.

 

Inkxperiment – Cubistic Relaxation
With every ink review, I try to create a monochromatic drawing that shows off the colour nuances hidden within the ink. I always enjoy this part of the review the most: experimenting with the ink, and finding out how it behaves in a more artistic context. Always good for a couple hours of fun-time.
For this drawing I had no specific theme in mind. But the ink made me want to do something funky, with a mix of realism and fantasy – slightly off, just like the ink’s colour. So I decided on a relaxing fishing scene by the water, but in a cubistic setting for just that touch of unreality.

 

I started with a piece of Fellowes cardboard paper, on which I first penciled in the cubistic backdrop. I then used cotton swabs to draw in the sky, and Q-tips to paint the cubes. I then used the side of a plastic card to draw the tree, and used the rough side of a dish-washing sponge to draw its foliage. I finally added the stream flowing along the rocks and the lake in the foreground.  The end result shows what’s possible when using this Teranishi ink for drawing purposes.

 

Inkxpired – computational art
I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper.

 

I started by applying an art filter that abstracted the drawing, followed by a couple of colour filters. I finished by toning down the colour saturation and increasing the brightness to create a more cartoony look. 

 

Conclusion
Teranishi Brilliant Mint is not my type of colour, but it managed to keep my attention with its intriguing combination of blues and greens. A funky and playful colour that succeeds where things could so easily go wrong (yes – I’m looking at you Pelikan Edelstein Jade). Like all Teranishi inks, this one is technically solid. If you like the colour, it’s certainly worth your attention.

Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib

 

Backside of writing samples on different paper types

 

 

[LizEF]

42 minutes ago, namrehsnoom said:

but somehow Teranishi manages to make this look exotic and intriguing, instead of disgusting

It sort of reminds me of the Sheaffer Skrip Green that's not green, though this looks more green than that.

 

I may have to add this to my wishlist for sampling, but none of the usual sample-sellers carry the brand.   Of course, they've got 2+ years to start, and by then, I may just decide to go with some Diamine shade - they have a few in this range...

 

54 minutes ago, namrehsnoom said:

Cubistic Relaxation

I really like this one!   Not only the original, and not only the computational version, but all the versions in between as it transitions!  Love the bold orange and blue in #2, the lovely blue-black in #3, and the way #4's cubes look like ice and those glass blocks they sometimes use to make walls that let light in, but which you can't see through.

 

Thanks for another wonderful review and art class!

[lapis]

Very nice. This ink somehow seems to be a splendid example of the variety or variation of possibilities which this whole brand is capable of illuminating. Sort of like a chameleon.

[inkstainedruth]

@namrehsnoom Not really a color for me (I tend to dislike greens that lean too blue).  But thanks as usual for the comprehensive review (and the nifty artwork).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[yazeh]

A few days ago, I was thinking it's been sometime since @namrehsnoomhas posted one of his excellent reviews, and today, I was rewarded, so thank you

In case if you haven't see this test, it might interest you, to see what colour you see :

https://ismy.blue/

FWIW, To my eyes this ink looks light petrol blue and turquoise in the drawings, while I see the green in the chroma.  

I really love the artwork. I think this is one of your most inspired, this year. And as @LizEF said, all your computation works are as equally outstanding. 

 

[InesF]

Thank you, @namrehsnoom, for your comprehensive ink review, for the background story and for your amazing artwork with Minecraft affinity.  The blue-orange and the "Dark" version have fascinating appeal! 🖖

 

I like the hue of this ink, as I can percept it from your photos. The comparison with P.Edelstein inks makes me sure that it is Aquamarine that I like a bit more.

Always a pleasure to read your reviews, looking forward to the next!