Handwriting

[MCV] Taccia Hokusai Sabimidori (Rusty Turquoise) Ink

Jun 30, 2025 - 4 min read - 500 words

Inori

Learn About Sheen

I came across the word “sheen” in the world of fountain pen ink when I browsed r/Calligraphy on Reddit. At the subreddit, I regularly saw someone’s posts using this kind of ink with great, beautiful sheen. (And his great masterpieces absolutely.) This guy I called him Lambroghini because of his reddit account, but maybe it’s proper to call him Leonardo, as indicated in his Instagram profile.

I got impressed by a ink he used in his post, which is Tesla Coil made by Birmingham Pen Company in US.

The color and sheen shown below: (official image)

tesla coil ink official image

Bump Into Sabimidori

Recently I went to a local fountain pen shop, I asked the stuff if they sell the Tesla Coil ink. They said they don’t sell any Birmingham inks. I also took a look on local shopping sites, amazons (US & Japan), nothing found. And sadly, Birmingham’s official website does not support international shipment. Oh, NO!

Then I asked the stuff to recommend similar inks with sheen. (But not limited to similar color) He recommend two inks, both of them are the Ukiyo-e ink series made by Taccia:

Hiroshige Ruri (広重(ひろしげ)瑠璃(るり))
Hokusai Sabimidori (北斎(ほくさい)錆緑(さびみどり))

PS. For more detailed and professional review about these inks, I recommend reading posts from Mountain of Ink. (Ink Review #1348: Taccia Hokusai-sabimidori — Mountain of Ink and Taccia Hiroshige Inks — Mountain of Ink)

And I love the color of Hokusai Sabimidori at the first sight, almost decided to buy it immediately. 😆

Unboxing

Here we started from the box! The design of box is inspired by Ukiyoe from Japan.

Let’s open it!

A bottle of ink and a pamphlet. Here’s all we have.

Inside the pamphlet is a brief introduction about Ukiyo-e series.

Actually there are already 16 inks in the series at the time writing. (Jun/2025)

About The Naming

I just want to discuss a little bit about the name: Hokusai Sabimidori.

For Hokusai (北斎(ほくさい)), as wiki suggests, is a Japanese ukiyo-e artist.

As Sabimidori (錆緑(さびみどり)), it can be divide into two characters. Sabi (錆(さび)) means rust in Japanese, while midori (緑(みどり)) means green.

So sabimidori means rust green, or rusty green.

Trying the Ink

It’s time to try the ink! I tried it on two paper: Midori MD and Tomoe River.

The rusty sheen is soooo beautiful!

Dry And Wet

I realize the ink will change the color when drying:

As you can see, when the ink is wet (lower stroke), it looks like Prussian blue. Then after it drys, it becomes green, which is between turquoise and emerald , but more close to turquoise. And of course with rust at ink pond!

Here’s final shot!

DEFINITELY LOVE IT!

Thanks for reading. Happy writing!