Taccia Ukiyo-e Hokusai Sabimidori — 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A dark blue-green teal that lays down almost navy-black and settles into a deep, slightly greyed teal as it dries. The name translates as "rust green," and sometimes it is listed as Rust Green or Rusty Green — but in my swatches the base colour reads clearly teal rather than green, and the rust comes entirely from the sheen sitting on top rather than from the colour underneath. Reviewers note it looks greener on cream and absorbent papers; on Tomoe River it pulls blue, which is what mine do. Light strokes stay noticeably bluer than heavy ones. 

Shading: Medium to strong. Clear range in my writing sample between blue-leaning thin strokes and dense teal where the nib slows.

Sheen: Heavy, and the reason to own this ink. A deep brick red that coats the edges of strokes and floods anywhere the ink pools — in my swab and blobs it covers as much surface as the teal does. Published reviews generally call the sheen coppery; mine reads as a darker, redder brick than copper suggests, with no metallic glint in the photos. Even the small droplets have sheened solid red.

Shimmer: None.

Flow: Wet.

The interesting bit: Taccia's Ukiyo-e series takes its palette from Edo-period Japanese woodblock prints, with sub-series named for the artists behind them. This one belongs to the Hokusai group — Katsushika Hokusai, who made Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and, within it, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The boxes carry the prints themselves. Sabimidori is 錆緑: sabi meaning rust, midori meaning green. It's an unusually literal name for an ink, because the rust isn't a metaphor for the shade — it's the red sheen physically forming over the green as the ink dries, which is exactly what oxidation looks like on metal. Reviewers tend to describe this one as shifting depending on paper, nib and viewing angle, and it does.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.
Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.
I'm a collector and I'm always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.