The deep black ink of every Japanese calligraphy practice, every sumi-e brush painting, every East Asian ink-and-wash tradition. Sumi (Japanese; mò in Chinese) is one of the simplest paint formulations in any tradition — soot (carbon black, traditionally collected from burning pine resin or vegetable oil) bound with vegetable glue (nikawa, traditionally from animal hide collagen — the modern vegan version uses synthetic gelatin or plant-based binders). Packaged historically as a hard ink-stick (sumi-stick, ground on a wet inkstone with water to produce ink at the moment of use — the calligrapher's daily preparation ritual). Modern liquid sumi-ink (bottled, ready-to-use) is the convenience variant used by most contemporary practitioners. The aesthetic property is the depth of black (carbon black is the blackest pigment in common use, far deeper than ivory black or other black pigments) and the tonal range achievable through dilution — sumi-e painting depends entirely on pure-black-to-pale-gray gradations. Buy from specialty Asian-art supply houses; Daniel Smith / Holbein carry mid-grade bottled sumi.
Carbon-pigment water-based ink, traditional formulation: carbon black (90+ percent of pigment fraction) ground from soot of pine-resin or oil burning + vegetable / collagen glue binder + water. Vegan-formulation grades use synthetic binders (PVA, methylcellulose) replacing collagen. Stick form: pigment + glue compressed into hard rectangular bar (5-15 g typical), aged 6-12 months for collagen / glue maturation that produces the canonical 'aged sumi' depth-of-black; ground on inkstone (suzuri) with 5-10 ml water for 5-10 minutes to produce ~20 ml of working ink. Liquid form (bottled): same chemistry, supplied ready-to-use at working consistency, 60-500 ml bottles standard. Carbon black particle size 20-50 nm (very fine; pure-black optical density relates directly to particle size). Lightfastness essentially permanent (carbon black is the most lightfast pigment known — no fading at any UV exposure level). Reactive to certain papers — sumi paper (xuan, washi) is sized for controlled bleeding; ordinary watercolor paper bleeds excessively. Brush calligraphy on absorbent paper produces the characteristic ink-bleed-and-dry-brush effects that define East Asian ink-painting aesthetics. Cleans from brushes with water immediately after use; dried sumi is essentially permanent on most fibers (carbon-pigment + glue binder).
Principled BSDF defaults derived from the sphere glossy finish. Reasonable seed for Blender, Substance, Keyshot, Rhino — tune per material. Or grab the whole library at once: ForMaterials library →
# finish: glossy albedo #1c1c1e metallic 0.00 roughness 0.25 ior 1.45 transmission 0.00 clearcoat 0.40 sheen 0.00 anisotropic 0.00
{
"albedo": "#1c1c1e",
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.25,
"ior": 1.45,
"transmission": 0.0,
"clearcoat": 0.4,
"sheen": 0.0,
"anisotropic": 0.0
}
# Blender 4.x — Principled BSDF
# Sumi Ink (Japanese Calligraphy / Sumi-e Painting Ink) · finish: glossy
import bpy
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="mat_sumi_ink")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
bsdf.inputs["Base Color"].default_value = (0.0116, 0.0116, 0.013, 1.0)
bsdf.inputs["Metallic"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Roughness"].default_value = 0.250
bsdf.inputs["IOR"].default_value = 1.450
bsdf.inputs["Transmission Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Coat Weight"].default_value = 0.400
bsdf.inputs["Sheen Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Anisotropic"].default_value = 0.000
# KeyShot 11+ — lux Python API, Generic material
# Sumi Ink (Japanese Calligraphy / Sumi-e Painting Ink) · finish: glossy
# Run from Window → Scripting Console
import lux
mat = lux.createMaterial(name="mat_sumi_ink", materialType="Generic")
mat.setProperty("diffuse", (28, 28, 30)) # 8-bit sRGB
mat.setProperty("metallic", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("roughness", 0.250)
mat.setProperty("indexOfRefraction", 1.450)
mat.setProperty("transparency", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("coatingWeight", 0.400)
{
"_format": "Substance Designer / Painter \u2014 pbrMetalRough constants",
"_about": "Sumi Ink (Japanese Calligraphy / Sumi-e Painting Ink) \u00b7 finish: glossy",
"baseColor": {
"r": 0.0116,
"g": 0.0116,
"b": 0.013
},
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.25,
"ior": 1.45,
"opacity": 1.0,
"anisotropyLevel": 0.0,
"_notes": "Channels listed are the standard Substance pbrMetalRough output. Drop into a Uniform Color node per channel, or as the constant input on a layered stack."
}{
"asset": {
"version": "2.0",
"generator": "ForMatter"
},
"materials": [
{
"name": "mat_sumi_ink",
"pbrMetallicRoughness": {
"baseColorFactor": [
0.0116,
0.0116,
0.013,
1.0
],
"metallicFactor": 0.0,
"roughnessFactor": 0.25
},
"extensions": {
"KHR_materials_ior": {
"ior": 1.45
},
"KHR_materials_clearcoat": {
"clearcoatFactor": 0.4
}
}
}
]
}# USD Preview Surface — UsdShade.MaterialLook prim attributes
# Sumi Ink (Japanese Calligraphy / Sumi-e Painting Ink) · finish: glossy
def Material "mat_sumi_ink" {
token outputs:surface.connect = </mat_sumi_ink/PreviewSurface.outputs:surface>
def Shader "PreviewSurface" {
uniform token info:id = "UsdPreviewSurface"
color3f inputs:diffuseColor = (0.0116, 0.0116, 0.013)
float inputs:metallic = 0.000
float inputs:roughness = 0.250
float inputs:ior = 1.450
float inputs:opacity = 1.000
float inputs:clearcoat = 0.400
token outputs:surface
}
}
Japanese sumi-e and Chinese ink-painting conservation literature.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
A local-first library of materials, processes, applications, and finishes — equal weight, citable everywhere, with cost-over-volume curves, trade-off profiles, equipment-tier filters, and second-life paths layered onto the data so a student can move from "what is this" toward "what's actually buildable here, now, by me." Part of the renato.design ecosystem — sibling of Plenum, Specimen, Ingenue, gesture, graf, and the Renato Rhino plug-ins. Form and matter, inseparable.
Half of teaching materials is teaching how the material is made into the thing. The standard subscription library was always light on that half. The wedge here isn't better samples or a prettier interface — it's treating Process as a peer entity, not a footnote.
Conway's Material World on raw materials, Lefteri's Making It on processes, Forty's Concrete and Culture, Sparke's Design in Context, Bürdek's Design: History, Theory and Practice of Product Design, Schröpfer's Material Design on materials in architecture, Winchester's The Perfectionists on tolerance, Minshall's Your Life Is Manufactured on the global supply chain, von Busch's Making Trouble on material activism, Were's How Materials Matter, Hegger / Drexler / Zeumer's Basics Materials, Untracht and McCreight on metalsmithing, USDA Forest Products Lab on woods, GIA on gemstones, Schott / CoorsTek / Toray / Owens Corning datasheets, MakeItFrom for verifiable property numbers, ASM Handbook, ISO standards. Museum holdings draw from the Met, MAD, V&A, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Newark Museum of Art, British Museum, Heard Museum, Smithsonian NMAI, Eiteljorg Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Grand Rapids Art Museum — collection-record permalinks only, designer overview pages and exhibition listings excluded. Voice blocks now ride on every entry kind — material, process, application, and finish — and include Ruskin on iron, Anni Albers on twining, Greg Lynn on the shred-and-teeth NURBS lineage, Pugin on the metal that won't be hammered, Barthes / Yanagi / Benjamin channeled within their philosophy; Sparke, Bürdek, Forty, Conway, Schröpfer, Minshall, von Busch, Lefteri, Pat Pruitt, Mary Lee Hu, Tom Joyce, Albert Paley, and the rest of the contemporary makers quoted verbatim with citation. All cited.
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