How I'm doing swatches and reviews

Here's how I so far have been doing my testing. 

1) Nibs. I try to always use a broad nib for testing. Honestly why do we even have other nibs. What is the point of a smaller nib, you can't see the shading and the sparkles and everything that makes ink colors gorgeous. You might as well just get a normal pen. 

2) Pens. I mostly use Navahlur Schyukills, Twisbi Diamonds and Ecos, and some Jinhaos I swapped the nibs out of. I have a Conklin Duragraph I really like and a Lamy 2000 that I really don't like, which is very sad because I wanted so much to like it. I have a caran d'ache that I'm not sure of the model of (it was given to me). I am sure there are more but who cares, you get the idea. 

3) Paintbrush. I got one from an art supply store (Wet Paint). It's a round brush. It wasn't the most expensive one there, and it wasn't the cheapest one there. You now know everything I know about this paintbrush. 

4) System. I make a swatch card, number it, then make a swatch page in my ink-testing notebook , with the same number. The idea is that one day I might start grouping swatches by color, but that's okay because the ink testing notebook pages will always be in numerical order. I'll always be able to find the full test page for whichever swatch. 

5). Paper. I researched this obsessively, because I research anything the least bit important obsessively. In the end, I settled on these half-size Clairfountaine-paper sewing-bound "Triomphe" notebooks. Maybe at some point I'll write up a post about why I picked that kind. They look like this: 

...only they're less beat up when you get them. (This is my first one, it's seen the world. Or at least the inside of a lot of my various bags.) 

6). Tips. I test a lot of samples, and to do this you really need an ink miser. Also, for really dry inks, it's good to have a bottle of White Lightning on hand. (It makes the inks flow better.) I also have glass dip pens. These are good for when I very first get a bunch of samples and I want to try all of them immediately :D I don't do swatches with them though because mine aren't consistent enough. 

That is all I can think of! :D