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Noodler's Ink is an American-based company dedicated to bringing consumers
luxury writing products at a reasonable price.
I'm using Noodler's Bulletproof line of inks
and their non waterproof inks with the various tools and materials shown here.
You can click the annotations to skip ahead to the parts you're interested in
or stick along for the whole ride. Either way, I hope you learn something in this video.
This first tool is a dip pen. I'm using the hunt number 102,
or the crow quill nib, which is often used by comic inkers for the line variation
possible with its extreme flexibility.
This can be compared to Noodler's Flex line of fountain pens
which have a similar tip and can be a great substitute when you don't deal with the
mess of open ink bottles. If you've had experience using a crow quill you might already be
familiar with this next part.
Shellac, and acrylic pigment based inks, though they make nice dark lines,
are notorious for clogging the delicate feed on the nib. Sometimes this can even happen
in the space of inking a single panel. I'm pleased to say that this is not a problem with Noodler's
thanks to the great fluidity and the unique
cellulose bonding properties of the Bulletproof line of inks.
The Bulletproof line of inks includes the Heart of Darkness ink which I am using throughout this entire video.
The inks are special because they resist some of the most advanced forger's tools such as:
industrial solvents, bleaching agents, UV radiation,
and other checks scrubbing techniques. The ink reacts with and bonds permanently to the
cellulose in the paper,
meaning that until your paper actually disintegrates, your mark will still be there.
Since your crow quill nib is metal this mean that clean up is very easy and it's
difficult to permanently ruin a nib with dried Noodler's Ink.
The properties of Noodler's inks are well suited for use with brushes.
I particularly love using these inks in water brushes,
which are synthetic fiber brushes whose handles you can fill with just about anything.
There are a number of brush pens and brush markers on the market but the
majority of these products have a flexible felt tip rather than actual bristles,
and sadly few of them are refillable. I greatly prefer the line quality you can get
from a water brush over a brush marker or pen, and I love that Noodler's is able
to flow so nicely through them.
Actually, it's the first ink I've found which can flow through my water brush
without being diluted and without eventually clogging the fibers or the
feed in the water brush.
Since the linework in this piece was painted with the Bulletproof Heart of Darkness ink,
I will be able to make ink washes over the top of it with no bleed or contamination.
This ink I'm using right now is called Black Swan in Australian Roses.
It's a non-waterproof ink from Noodler's vintage shading line.
It's incredibly easy to make beautiful washes and gradients with this one.
I'm able to layer several coats of the shading ink to make certain areas almost completely black,
like the inside of the mouth of the catfish. I'm also able to gently glaze in
very light washes which fade smoothly to white.
Since this is a non-waterproof ink, it's even workable after it has dried on the paper,
similar to how watercolors work. I use this property to soften edges that are
too harsh, or to smooth out gradients.
I love using the Black Swan shading ink in calligraphy.
I have a fairly inexpensive calligraphy pen,
and originally I was using the brand name disposable cartridges with it.
The average cartridge only contains one mL of ink,
and my pen's cartridges came in small packs of five. That said,
I quickly learned to invest in a pen converter which is like a syringe that
enables you to refill your pen with bottled ink.
This is both a lot of fun and
infinitely more economical than using the disposable cartridges.
I started to experiment with different brands and colors,
and as soon as I used Noodler's Ink, I immediately stopped searching.
The smooth ink flow made my cheap pen
write so much better, and the selection of Noodler's colors
is great compared to the standard blue, red, and black. The gradient with Noodler's Ink
is just gorgeous, and I was able to get much sharper corners on my letters, and
much thinner lines for the flourishes and accents.
Furthermore, Noodler's seems to have some of the biggest bottles on the market.
Their 3 oz bottles are 20 to 100 percent larger than the majority of
the name-brand bottled inks out there,
and they also carry certain inks in 4.5 oz bottles.
If you do the math, 3 fl oz is just under 90 mL,
which means that I can refill my calligraphy pen almost 90 times
from the smaller bottle and over 130 times from the larger bottle.
This is the Noodler's fountain pen
which came free with my bottle of Heart of Darkness ink. The components of this pen are exactly the same
as the Platinum Preppy fountain pen, but there's one very cool difference.
This pen has been altered to be used as an eyedropper,
meaning that it requires no cartridge, and no converter.
Since the entire barrel of the pen can be filled with ink,
it holds way more than the standard 1 mL that limits most fountain pens.
The rubber O-ring seal is very tight,
and I've never had any leakage even though I carry the pen with me all day long for writing and drawing.
The tip on this pen
can be compared to artist's fineliner pens. Fineliners are tipped with
compressed felt and come in a variety of widths,
but they are rarely refillable, don't hold nearly as much ink, and the felt tip is prone to damage.
I found that it's very easy to make a variety of line widths
as well as smooth tapered strokes with this fountain pen.
The archival properties of this ink are much better than even the top name brand fineliners.
If you've ever inked a pencil sketch with a leading fineliner brand,
and then tried to erase the pencil underneath, you know exactly how bad it can be.
Since my pen is filled with Bulletproof ink, which is invulnerable
even to acetone and rubbing alcohol, I don't ever have to worry about the
darkness of my line work.
And, since the pen has a gigantic reservoir of ink,
I can even show off and shade large areas of my drawing without worrying about my pen
running empty halfway through.
Noodler's ink is also great for stamping and stamp making.
If you're familiar with the high density rubber used to create custom stamps
and block prints, you probably know how annoying custom lettering can be.
You have to cut it backwards and the soft stamp material simply does not cooperate
with graphite transfers.
But, when you use Noodler's Ink on it a piece of tracing or drafting paper,
you can easily make a wet transfer by over saturating the ink on the lettering.
Luckily, Noodler's inks resist bleeding more than other inks and so it maintains crisp
edges during this process.
Just like a temporary tattoo, if you place the paper face down and thoroughly saturate it with water,
you'll be rewarded with a semi-permanent backwards transfer right on your rubber block.
this makes it easy to cut and trim with your tools of choice and make a very nice stamp.
The transfer process is also possible with Bulletproof ink,
and you will be rewarded with a darker transfer.
The reason it works, despite the archival and permanent properties of the Bulletproof ink,
it because if you heavily over-saturate your lettering there actually isn't enough paper
for the ink to bond with, so the top layer of ink will transfer over to the stamp.
Also Noodler's does work very well with stamp pads,
but lacking one of those, I'm simply brushing the ink directly onto the stamp.
If you liked any of the techniques, or you learned something new today,
please share this video!
If you have any questions or comments feel free to post them down below.
Thank you so much for watching! :)