Try this: if you get inky fingers use a moisturiser on your hands. Moisturiser is an emollient & helps in removing ink from fingers. My Mother used that to remove makeup from her face. Hope this is helpful.

Beautiful sketches and such a great activity to do with your son 😊.

I love the idea of you working on that gigantic map with your son and getting better at sketching as well. Is he drawing anything out as well? Are you going to color it? I had the woman that cuts my hair ask what drew me to fountain pens. It was a challenge to condense the "why" and not bore her plus skimming over the paper components as well. It's so foreign to most people and a little hard to keep my explanation and enthusiasm in check. I've had a Kindle for sometime but haven't gotten to the library download part yet. Sometimes I forget I have it. A good sign that I need to read more!

Lovely to hear about the project you're working on with your son :)

I started my ink drawing journey with Pigma fineliners eventually switching to Uni fineliners. I draw exclusively in sketchbooks and even with the ink had transfer between the pages which I assume is primarily due to the fact I use spiral bound sketchbooks and draw with the books folded over. Of course this transfer is worse with graphite which I use too. I solved the problem by using fixative on every page before I move on. I'm on a very limited budget, as a senior with a fixed income, and use the Krylon matte fixative (considered a budget brand) as it's relatively cheap. It solves the transfer problem with graphite and pen. There is a good chance you will see transfer even though you are using fineliners. All it takes is one small dot in the wrong place to wreck a sketch or drawing...good luck with the map project. What a wonderful gift to share with your son. He will treasure the memories from your time together forever.

I, too, am a big fan of Haruki Murakami's writing. I'm currently reading his book "Novelist as a Vocation" - a collection of essays about writing which I would highly recommend. Whilst I think reading electronic books is fine, I hate the process of choosing books online so I only buy e-books or audio books when I know exactly what I want to buy. It is so much easier to find a new book that grabs my attention in a bookshop so I still do the majority of my reading from physical media.

I love my 823 broad nib, but agree that if you like to switch out inks a lot and like to control the amount of ink that goes in, the cpvac filler may not be for you. I have a Custom 742 with a SM nib. It’s a little smaller than the 743 but essentially the same pen. I love it. It’s probably my favourite pen right now.

I love Pilot fountain pens. I have 3 Custom 823s and the only nib I am missing is the nib. I'm hoping to have my 4th one in that medium nib. I also hope to get the 743 black just because Pilot is awesome.

The Pilot 743 is a great pen, but, since I already ave 4 MB 149 pens and 2 Pelikan M-1000 pens, I decided to get rid of it. It was a wonderful pen, but I liked the vac-fill system of the Custom 823 better, so I sold my 743 to a friend, and got the amber colored Custom 823 instead. Well, i would liked to have kept both pens, but, oh well!!!!

My grail pen is the Custom 823 with the FA nib which you can only buy in 2 shops in Japan as far as i know. I thought that was what you were going to get. Nonetheless the other one is also a solid choice! Did you ever consider getting the Pilot Falcon? Also, it's nice to hear that you are doing those things with your son, that will become one of his core memories :) When you mentioned Japanese author, I guessed right away that it would be Murakami. Since stumbling upon your channel, I've always thought you had a vibe of a Murakami character xD