marycrawford: 13 hour clock icon (Default)
There are Strange People Working in the House (wearing face masks, at least, oof) and the cat has flattened herself between a desk and a radiator in the hope that she will become invisible. I feel the same way, frankly.

To distract myself, let me ramble on about pens. I started drawing with fountain pens a while ago, since I love writing with them so much that it felt natural to draw with them, too. And I went down a whole rabbit hole figuring out how to use waterproof ink in fountain pens without clogging them up. That way I can draw something and then use watercolor paint on it later, which is my favorite way of working with paint so far.

One of the best waterproof inks I found is Platinum Carbon Black, which is just a gorgeous deep, deep black that also dries rapidly and is 100% waterproof. It's from Japan, comes in cartridges as well as bottled ink, and you can use it in ordinary fountain pens, though probably you shouldn't let them sit for a long time without using them. But Platinum also makes a couple of fountain pens that are specifically designed to use the waterproof ink. The Preppy is one, and the Platinum Carbon Ink Desk Pen is another, and the one I use for drawing. I have multiples of this pen now - it's cheap, it's plastic, it looks odd with the long tail because it's meant to go in a desk stand, it draws a very fine line, it always starts up immediately, and I absolutely love it. I've seen people describe it as a cheap-looking pen that writes like a $200 nib. (I don't have any fancy nib pens to compare it to, but I believe it.)

And so, in Lost Tomb Reboot, when Wu Xie started writing in his uncle's diary with that lovely long-tailed red pen, I recognized it immediately.

Wu Xie's desk pen )

I love that whole setting with the desk and the diary and the warm light, and I love the elegance of that pen in Wu Xie's hand.

There's a great blog post by a sketcher in Singapore here, with lots of detail about the different desk pens he uses. He managed to find a version of Wu Xie's pen that has an actual 14K gold nib, which I've never seen for sale.
marycrawford: 13 hour clock icon (Default)
Lost Tomb is really fun - I see ppl are racing through it but I am plodding behind, and I just watched ep 5 and just enough of ep 6 to see the cliffhanger resolved. Sometimes it feels a lot like watching someone play Skyrim for the first time, very badly:

some spoilers )

ETA some spoiler-free screencaps from ep 6 just For Reasons:

the camera loves Wu Xie )
marycrawford: 13 hour clock icon (Default)
I watched the first four eps of Lost Tomb on ipad, #3 and #4 today after going to the dentist (on a tram full of people, at least in facemasks, but still lots of no fun).

It was an excellent reward, and I had to keep pausing to make screencaps, so I will share below.

These are 100% spoiler free because all they feature is Zhu Yilong's face and his ENORMOUS DEER EYES,not to mention those cheekbones that are worryingly sharp,

someone please feed him )

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