The gygax method of pen selection
This is the final week before academic meetings begin in earnest. My last week of summer calls for a little chaos of my own making — before the flurry that is schooling.
Dice rolls chose my new currently inked. Two dice, in fact: a four-sided die and a twenty-sided die. The same method used to play D&D. Entropy in the driver’s seat.
I have four pen trays. Each tray got a number, one to four. Thirteen pens live in each tray. Each pen slot was also anointed with a number, one to thirteen.
Pen choices. My partner first rolled a four sided die to select a tray. Then a twenty-sided die until a result of 1-13 summoned my pen. We rolled by color range: grey first, blue second, and so on.
Ink choices. Now, my inks are already individually numbered in my Google Sheet. I filtered by color family and then rolled a d20.
For instance, I first filtered for grey inks. Then rolled my d20, resulting in a 4. Count down four from the first grey ink. Voila: Colorverse Matter.
I didn’t roll a crit-one, either
We chose five new pen and ink combinations, in addition to one carry-over from last week. And I reserved my choice of nibs to assert some order on the Gygaxian chaos.
An adventurous week lays ahead.
Grey/Black
TWSBI 580-AL Lava (EF). Colorverse Matter. Matter’s mid-toned grey is well-suited to tracking task lists and quoting passages in commonplace notes. The TWSBI EF does an admirable job of laying down a dark, true EF line while remaining wet enough to draw shading out of Matter. Daily driver. Task management, commonplace notes (passages), meeting notes.
Blue/Teal
TWSBI 580-AL Silver (M Predator Hybrid, by Pen Realm). Rohrer & Kingner Verdigris. A wet pairing made workable on coated paper like Tomoe River and Cosmo Air Light. The multitasker nib provides a M line wide enough for accent notes and a narrow EF line suitable for detailed notes while building out my class websites.
KACO Green Edge Black (F, Faber-Castell nib). Diamine Enchanted Ocean. Inked without shaking the bottle. My intention is to avoid the clogging problems I’ve experienced with Enchanted Ocean in the past. The F nib balances a narrow line (for detailed notes) with a forgiving round grind (for quick writing tasks where I have a habit of rotating my pens). Versatile pairing. Meeting notes, commonplace notes (accent), journaling, website notes.
Visconti Homo Sapiens Silver Age (F CI, by Nibsmith). Kyo-no-oto Hisoku. Hisoku’s light tone is an excellent accent ink. The CI nib assures both the lightest and darkest tones make appearances. The crisp grind is best used for slower writing: journaling and letter writing. Also, commonplace notes (accent).
Earth Tones
Lamy Safari Blue Macaron (B). Robert Oster Toffee. Toffee seems made for broad nibs. The Lamy B brings out Toffee’s fun haloing. The pair accents Matter’s green-undertone superbly. Makes for a great commonplace accent combo. Journaling, meeting notes, website notes.
Wild Cards
Mythic Aeschylus Black & Red (EF SIG, by Franklin-Christoph). J. Herbin Larmes de Cassis. The narrow italic grind works best for intentional and slow writing tasks. Cassis is a dusty pink that struggles to shade in such a narrow nib. Quick dry times though. Accenting this week’s tasks list and accenting commonplace notes stand out as great uses for this combination.
All in the family
Crit-ones = bad news
