Recently, I placed a huge order for inks from the awesome folks at Soe & Soe Fine Stationery out of Australia. They carry some brands that aren't carried in the USA or are really hard to get. One of those brands is Hosia Ink Studio. They handmake their inks in small batches and are known for chromashading inks with wild colors.
I was really impressed with all the inks I got and I understand why now I was only able to get 2ml - 5ml samples. They were out of 30ml bottle of almost every Hosia Ink I wanted to try. The one ink that really caught my eye was Hosia Ink Studio Wayao Village.
Wayao Village is a beautiful lavender / periwinkle blue with purple shading and subtle pink chromashading in heavier swatches. The large swatch captured my eye as it dried and seemed to sparkle, like it was matallic. I don't know if that makes sense? It was stunning. This was one that I had to immediately get into a pen.
Swatches
The swatches are done on Col-O-Dex swatch cards. In the large swatch are various shades of lavender and periwinkle with subtle hints of pink. You can see the purple halo in the center where I did a 1 to 1 water wash (one drop of ink to one drop of water).
The chromatography shows light blue and pink dyes.
Long Writing Samples
I did five writing samples on various papers using a Pilot Kakuno with a medium nib and enjoyed writing with this color. It was relaxing, and I liked watching the color going down on the paper. The papers used are Sanzen Tomoe River, Canopus, Yu-Sari, Iroful and View Corona. All of these papers are readily available from your favorite retailer, I got these from Jetpens.com
Tomoe River
A beautiful lavender color in the writing with shading present. The flow felt nice, not too dry and not too wet.
Iroful
Next is Iroful. Iroful is one of my favorite papers. The line width is the first noticable difference here. Iroful tends to do that. The writing appears to have a more periwinkle tone to it and the letters are halo'ed pink. It's subtle. The flow was good again, not too dry feeling or wet feeling. I also didn't feel like I was dragging the nib across the page.
View Corona
View Corona White is a nice thin paper that has that crisp feel to it similar to Tomoe River. The shading is very present on this paper, with every letter showing shading the downstrokes and a nice lavender color on the upstrokes, creating a nice visual as you're writing. The letters here look very thin, especially compared to Iroful above. Flow also feeling good on View Corona, not too dry or too wet.
Yu-Sari
Yu-Sari is a smooth heavier paper at 95gsm. The line width is a little wider on this paper. Shading also really comes through and there are subtle hints of pink in some of the letter. Though this won't be visible on all of the letters. The flow on Yu-Sari was good. Not too wet or too dry here either.
Canopus
Canopus paper is slightly textured and yet is a smooth writing experience. Flow was good again, the usual not too dry and not too wet. Nice shading is visable on Canopus as well as some of the subtle pink haloing on some of the letters.
Wrap Up thoughts
Wayao Village is a beautiful ink. If you can find yourself a bottle, get it. You won't be disappointed. The color stands out, it can be complex depending on what paper you're using. Lettering was crisp on all the papers. The flow was nice on all of the papers. Each paper showed a variation of the shading and some of the papers showed off the pink halo around and in the writing. How neat! I'm definately keeping my eyes out for more Hosia Ink Studio inks!
PS - All ink reviews are my own and have been purchased with my own dollars.