Beginners usually start with ink. Since the ink was invented by Yidege in the late Qing Dynasty, it once tended to replace Mo Ding because of its convenience (most people still use ink to write and draw). Ink is produced at home and abroad. Common domestic inks include Yidege, Cao Sugong and Hongxing. Japanese ink is generally high-grade and easy to use, such as Xuanzong.
There is also paste ink now. I've heard of it, such as Wanpeitang's, which is quite popular and often out of stock, but it's unused, so I can't evaluate it.
The most traditional is Mo Ding. It is also found in China and Japan, and the common ones are generally made in China, such as those from three major factories. Now some new inks exist, such as Zhai, Minnan and Yuwenxuan, but Japanese inks also exist, such as "Mo" and "Wu Zhu". It is generally believed that Mo Ding was introduced into Japan in the Tang Dynasty. Regarding the Mo Ding between China and Japan, let's stick to a passage: "Let's put aside the category of Gu Mo (I won the Purple Jade Light in the Japanese Gumeiyuan during the Daoguang period, which is objectively not worse than China at that time). After World War II, all walks of life in Japan were depressed, and the old ink shops were basically destroyed in World War II, only a few outside Gumeiyuan were strictly inherited, which is very similar to China. After the founding of New China, it began to consciously support traditional handicrafts. After that, four companies in Shanghai merged into Shanghai Cao Sugong, and seven companies in Huizhou merged into Shexian Huimo Factory. So is the state-owned Tunxi ink factory Tunxi. Since then, China ink industry has gradually distanced itself from Japanese ink industry in terms of output, technology and quality control. On the other hand, after Showa, Japanese ink painting has also made great progress, in which there are many traces of China. For example, since 1960s, many clubs, calligraphy institutes and even folk collectors in Japan have produced ink products (three major factories) for China, which greatly stimulated the reform and development of Japanese ink industry. Furthermore, the Japanese bought a large number of top products from three major factories in China for research and analysis, so as to improve the Japanese ink-making technology. In the past 30 years, Japanese calligraphers and even Mohists have added brown, purple, cyan and other colors to the black tone in order to get more diverse ink colors, making the current Japanese ink colors more diverse, and the two basic varieties of soot and pine smoke have also been graded in detail. "