Sailor Endangered Mammals The African Elephant Limited Edition

The African Elephant Limited Edition is the second of the Sailor Endangered Mammals series. The first limited edition pen is the Giant Panda Limited Edition which was launched last May 2012.

While we feel it s a endangered mammals is good theme, the artwork in the Sailor Endangered Mammals have not bring out the best of master artisan Nishihara-san. In my opinion, the Salior Endangered Mammals Limited Edition show each master artisan has their favor artwork, and elephant look does not look like master artisan Nishihara favor.

The African Elephant painted on the Sailor Endangered Mammals reminded me of my eldest son school science project. We created a snake-and-ladder game based on the Safari theme. The African elephant was one of the mammals that was painted . . .

. . . it does not have any details. . . only the basic line to give the impression that it is an elephant.

I think maki-e master should paint the elephant skin with a different tone of grey to give it a more realistic look, and finer line to show the skin texture to call this a limited edition pen.

I don't like the way the elephant trunk was painted. The adult elephant is not well painted.

On the pen cap, master maki-e artisan Nishihara painted two, not one, baby elephant.

One in grey color, similar to the adult elephant, and the younger elephant in golden brown. Both the adult and baby grey elephant eyes are painted using raden maki-e technique.

The artisan Nishihara also painted a few trees in different colors as the background on the cap. Again, it is a disappointing representation of tress.

I wonder how would the African elephant look like in the hand of  Kokokai master artisan .

The Sailor Endangered Mammals is limited to 88 individually numbered pieces worldwide. It is available since last year (2012).