Hobby Intro: Fountain Pen Collecting

At the moment, I'm expecting a good number of my posts to be about fountain pens. It's one of my newest hobbies, as I've been collecting for... a year? And a half, maybe? I'm actually testing out writing these blog posts out in pen first, to help give me an idea of where I want to go. It's very easy for me to over-edit text and spend way too long on it, and I'm finding this is more succinct. (I want to try writing my comic script rough drafts this way next, but still working out how I want to do that exactly.) Anyway, so far this is nice. 

My collection so far is twenty pens. Here's a list: 

• PenBBS 308, Hawaii
• PenBBS 456, Autumn
• PenBBS 495, Fairyland
  
• Pilot Petit1, Clear Blue (x2)
• Pilot Metropolitan, Red
• Pilot Prera, Parrot Green
• BENU Briolette, Luminous Blue
• BENU Talisman, Peacock Ore
• BENU Euphoria, Early Bird
• Opus 88 Koloro, Blue
• Opus 88 Mini, Busy Bee
  
• Nahvular (Narwhal) Nautilus, Macaw
• Sailor Pro Gear Slim (x2)
• Nekoyanagi & Haha
• Pillow Book
• Fine Writing International Wheel Of Time, Autumn
• Fine Writing International Demonstrator
• Monomi Olika, Orange
• Fountain Pen Revolution, Jaipur V2
• Retro 51 Tornado
• Edison Beaumont, Unicorn

Most of my fountain pens, including the disposables.

When I buy pens, I look for a few things. As you might be able to tell from the picture, I really like colorful pens, so the colors and overall look of the pen are definitely a factor. If I'm going to get into buying expensive writing tools, I might as well get ones that make me happy to look at. 😊 I've seen some people on the fountain pen Reddit call pens like the BENUs "gaudy", but it makes me think of when I played Flight Rising and everyone mostly collected small lairs of white, black, and gold dragons... and then I had a huge of all sorts of bright colors, called "eyeburners" by the community. This is who I am and I'm fine with it. 

The rest of my collection.

I try to get something "new" almost every time I buy. Very rarely do I get the same thing for the same experience again; I usually aim for something different out of a purchase, like the model, the nib, the nib size, the fill system, etc. I like the tinkering aspect of fountain pens where you can make small changes to see how the pens write, or how the ink behaves, etc. There's been maybe twice where I bought another pen because I wanted the same or similar experience to a pen I already had, but usually I try to change something about a new purchase so I can compare to what I already have. I've been enjoying learning how the pens work and making what adjustments I can as a beginner and seeing how it changes things. For example, some inks behave differently in different pens.

Since I work as a software developer, I don't spend a ton of time writing anymore. It's only been over the last handful of years that I've started seeking it out, and what I've found is that writing... hurts. My grip seems fine and I don't ever remember having trouble in school with writing for long periods, but now I can't do it without getting sore and cramping up my hand. Drawing doesn't do this, I've just gotten worse at writing specifically since leaving high school, and my handwriting has deteriorated along with it. I've been re-teaching myself cursive and practicing, as it turns out I thought I still remembered cursive, but I didn't. So the last year I've been getting better, my handwriting has improved significantly from the practice, and I'm working on loosening my grip and trying to suss out what I'm doing that's making it hurt.

Another thing is that, this is effectively a new art medium for me. From talking with a friend who's been into fountain pens for a long time, she gave me the idea to touch up my drawings with a water brush. It's sort of an easy, cheater watercolor painting thing, which is a lot of fun to do. I often have to start from scratch every time I watercolor (in terms of remembering how to do it), but a lot of fountain pen inks will spread easily with water, and there's a lot less technique needed to make something fun. Usually  just doodles right now, but I've just picked up my first "permanent" black ink, and am hoping to do some fun things with it. :) I may share some pictures of what I've been drawing here, but I often share them on mastodon too. 

But that's all for now! I'll probably do individual posts of my pens and inks later on. Not so much "reviews" as it is just my own experiences, since I'm not really going to make recommendations or anything, I guess. Just show how I use things and what I like about them, personally. (That might count as a review?) But that's later. I'm aiming for about one blog post a week, but that's not a strict schedule, as I don't want this to be something where I feel pressured to maintain anything - I just want to chat when I'm feeling up to it. So yeah, that's that! Talk to you all later!