Search the Community

About this ink: This is a special or seasonal ink made by Sailor for Bung Box. The name of the ink can be broken down as: Tsuyu つゆ= dewdrop Hikari ひかり=light, shine So in my head I read it as Light shining on a dew drop. It matches a local tea, "Tsuyuhikari　つゆひかり is a variety of a green tea plant that is grown in Omaezaki, Shizuoka-prefecture in Japan," according to my friend and colleague, Jesse (aka PenJockey.) Rumor has it if you request to sample this ink at Bung Box, they will brew you a cup of tea that perfectly matches this ink. TESTING: Although I am generally not a fan of Green inks, I found this ink intriguing. It goes down as a light -- almost neon or bright lime green -- and begins to change almost instantly. It picks up strong olive green and light gold brown tones, almost dusky notes. Only in the Swab do you see it stay the same color as what is in the bottle. The ink is quite wet, even in my dry 15 year-old Namiki Vanishing Point pen (F). I found it shaded nicely from light green to a deeper green. It takes roughly 7-8 seconds to be smear proof. As I wrote I noticed some sections of my writing were lighter and some were more of a light olive green. There is shading, from light to a medium tone. Paper used was HP 32 pound Prem. Laser. I submit only a full scan as the camera kept moving toward blue. http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm186/webgecko1webgeckos/BB_Tea%20Dew%20Drop_zpsxdjzytkq.gif

La Couronne du Comte – Marquis de Dangeau Green The Dutch pen boutique “La Couronne de Comte (LCDC)“ is a well-known player in the fountain pen world. Founded in 2008, their Tilburg shop and accompanying webshop offer a wide range of fountain pens, inks and other office paraphernalia. Recently, LCDC has released a small number of fountain pen inks. From their Nobless Oblige collection comes this Marquis de Dangeau Green. The ink’s name refers to Philippe de Courcillon, Marquess of Dangeau (1638-1720). He was a French courtier, officer and memorialist under Louis XIV. The colour of the ink is inspired by the depiction of the Marquis in a Hyacinthe Rigaud painting from 1702. This specific shade of green is present in the rich robe worn by Monsieur de Courcillon. At its heart, this is a yellow-green ink with plenty of yellow in the mix. Even though it is a lighter colour, the ink remains very readable in finer nibs. It’s also a very heavy shader – too much so for my taste. With dry pens, the combination of light colour and fairly extreme shading makes for a bad combination. I really recommend wet pens and broader nibs for this ink. Due to the more saturated line, the colour of the ink gets much more expressive and the shading becomes a lot softer. Marquis de Dangeau Green really must be matched with wet pens & broad nib. Used this way, the ink provides some wonderful aesthetics. Love it! The chromatography shows a complex mix of dyes – light-blue, yellow, and rose. And this combination of dyes works remarkably well. The chroma looks quite similar to Rohrer & Klingner’s Alt-Goldgrün, but this LCDC ink is much more yellow-leaning. From the bottom part of the chroma, you can already deduce that most dyes detach from the paper when it comes into contact with water. This is not a water-resistant ink. To show you the impact of saturation on the ink’s look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I really saturated portions of a piece of 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. LCDC’s Marquis de Dangeau has a fairly extreme contrast range, from wispy light green to a fairly dark yellow green. This translates to harsh shading, especially when used in dry pens that lean more towards the left side of the saturation spectrum. With wet pens, your writing moves more towards the saturated part of the spectrum, and shading becomes much softer and certainly more beautiful. With the heavy saturation, the rose undertones also rise a bit to the surface, adding some interesting complexity to the ink’s colour. Technically, the ink felt a bit dry-writing in my Lamy Safari test pens and produced too light a line, with shading that is way too heavy. This is clearly visible in the quotes below, that are written with a dry M-nib Lamy Safari. The sweet spot for this ink is the broader nib and/or wet pen – as evident in the paper names and quote source lines. In the writing samples below, I use my typical variety of different paper types. This gives you a good feel for what the ink is capable of. On each scrap of paper, I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation An ink scribble made with an M-nib Safari fountain pen The name of the paper used, written with a B-nib Lamy Safari A small text sample, written with the M-nib Lamy Safari Source of the quote, with a Pelikan M cursive italic nib Drying times of the ink on the paper, with the M-nib Lamy Safari I’ve also added a photo to give you another view on the ink. Scanned images and photos often capture different aspects of the ink’s colour & contrast. That’s why I present them both. In this case, the photo captures the ink's shading best, although it looks too yellow. The scan exaggerates the shading, and looks a tiny bit too green in the swabs. Marquis de Dangeau looks good on both white and cream-coloured paper. With hard-surface paper, the shading tends to be stronger, which detracts from the overall looks. This ink works best with paper of low to medium hardness. Drying times are in the 10 second range, climbing to 20 seconds on hard-surface paper. With low quality paper, there is a just-visible amount of feathering and quite some see-through. Bleed-through is limited though, and mostly there on the horrible Moleskine paper. Overall, a well-behaving ink. Writing with different nib sizes The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing. Marquis the Dangeau can handle all nib-sizes but looks at its best in broader nibs and with wet-writing pens. I love the way it looks in my Pelikan M205 Demonstrator which sports a gold M cursive italic nib. Related inks To show off related inks, I use my nine-grid format, with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. This ink from La Couronne du Comte looks unlike my other yellow greens. It has some of the DNA from R&K Alt-Goldgrün, but with more yellow in the mix. Inkxperiment – Wolf Moon As a personal challenge, I try to create interesting drawings using only the ink I’m reviewing. I really enjoy these inkxperiments, that are such a fun extension of the hobby. And they are excellent for showcasing all the colour range nuances that are present in the ink. Inspiration for this inkxperiment comes from the now fast-approaching full moon of January – also known as the Wolf Moon. This full moon was named the “Wolf Moon” by Native American tribes for the wolves that would howl during winter nights, communicating with their pack and to protect their territory. The spiritual meaning of the Wolf Moon is a reminder that there is an unseen connection to your own “pack” that is worth recognizing and honoring. The inkxperiment is a direct and literal translation of the Wolf Moon concept. I started with an A4 sheet of HP photo paper and painted in the background with heavily water-diluted ink, applied through a piece of kitchen paper to create the texture. Next, I painted in the full moon, with a tiny amount of bleach added afterward. I then used multiple water/ink mixes and a triangular potato stamp to add the trees. To complete the drawing, I added the wolf silhouette, popping out from the winter woods and howling at the moon. The resulting piece shows quite well what can be achieved with this yellow-green ink in a more artistic context. Inkxpired – computational art I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper. For this computational derivation, I tried to create more of a winter-feel. I did a square cut-out of the inkxperiment and applied a filter that highlights the moon. Next, I used a pixel sort filter on the trees, which creates the winter woods effect. I finally changed the tone of the picture to shift to a more cold-looking green. I quite like the end result, which makes for a great New Year’s card. Conclusion La Couronne du Comte Marquies de Dangeau Green (quite a mouthful) is a really nice-looking yellow green, that works best with broad nibs and/or wet pens. A lovely colour, and one with beautiful shading (if you avoid dry pens). Also, a wonderful ink to draw with, and one that I enjoyed a lot. Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib Back-side of writing samples on different paper types

Long due thread... In a page devoted to Italian pens, this topic is calling all the expressions of one of the most recognizable Italian materials ever used in fountain pens: the mythical Arco celluloid! Made worldwide famous by the Officine Meccaniche Armando Simoni (OMAS) in Bologna in their Extras and Paragons, Milords and Princesses and Damas, and proposed here and there by other brands and independent manufacturers, the Arco celluloid is the quintessence of "italianity" in pens: warm, refined, flamboyant and unique. Judging by the prices fetched by Arco celluloid pens in these days, is seems that the "Arco fever" is strongest than ever, and I can understand why... Let me begin with a few photos of some of my Arco:

Members ask ... What is the best GREEN for (insert purpose). This thread is not for comparisons or detailed reviews. Merely for you to show us some of your samples. Also, some greens are actually blue or yellow so let's not get to crazy with eliminating colors. If it looks GREEN to you, put it here. 4/26/21 FPN has installed new software and we have a new server. I'm in the process of hiding my threads where the images are no longer in the same location. I'm uploading the images to the FPN server and I'm adding the name of the ink in the post so that you can search within the thread for a particular ink. Also, TheRealScubaSteve says I must include a picture of a "Real" Swatch. Here is Nicolas Hayek, president of the watch company, Swatch. http://ris.fashion.telegraph.co.uk/RichImageService.svc/imagecontent/1/TMG7866146/m/swatch_1670679a.jpg BTW, Blue was here. Brown was there. Red was in the woods. Did you ask about violet (or was it vioLeNt) purples? Green was leafing us. Orange is bouncing around. Black is back. Here be Pink. Yellow is Spot On. Jim says we must share our Black-n-Blues or was it Blue-Blacks?

TACCIA Ukiyo-e Hokusai sabimidori TACCIA is a Japanese stationery company, that - as far as I know - is now part of the Nakabayashi group. They offer high-quality fountain pens, inks, pen-rolls, notebooks, etc. More specifically, TACCIA produce a line of inks, inspired by the unique look of Ukiyo-e paintings from Japan’s Edo period (17th century). Ukiyo-e prints are woodblock prints where the work of an artist is carved into wood by woodworkers, and pressed onto paper by printers. This allows the production of multiple prints of an artwork with some different colours as well. In this review, the centre stage is taken by sabimidori, a rust-green ink with a strong copper sheen, inspired by colours appearing in woodprint paintings from the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Hokusai is best known for his “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” series of prints, with the mountain appearing as a central theme. In this case, the rust-green colour is inspired by the colour of the tree-leaves in the painting of “the village of Sekiya on the Sumida river”. The Met museum describes the scene as: “the speed and urgency of the galloping horsemen stand in contrast to the solitary and static image of Fuji capping the horizon like an omniscient observer and marking that which is eternal. The raised road that winds into the depths of the print directs our gaze to the mountain, as do the trees that function as a framing device.” Sabimidori is not only a beautiful green-leaning teal, but also one with a number of tricks up its sleeve. Most surprisingly: the wet ink looks bright blue, but quicky dries to a muted blue-green. It’s definitely a teal, but one that leans strongly towards the green side – I really like the colour that coalesces from the bright blue liquid. Next, sabimidori – which means “rust green” – hasn’t stolen its name: the rust comes from the heavy copper sheen that the ink shows on many types of hard-surfaced paper. This TACCIA ink is also a heavy shader. Usually, I’m not a fan of heavy shading, which can look harsh and angry, but with blue-green inks the result can work really well. With sabimidori, you get an aesthetically pleasing look with blue undertones in the light parts and a green-copper look in the darker parts. These complement each other wonderfully well. As you might guess, this ink is totally to my liking and surely one of the better inks I tried this year. The ink comes in a 40 ml bottle, that is packaged in a beautiful box showing the corresponding Ukiyo-e painting. Lovely packaging for an excellent ink. To show you the impact of saturation on the ink’s look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I really saturated portions of a strip of 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. Sabimidori has a medium dynamic range, without too much contrast between the light and darker parts. The ink is special though: blue-leaning in the lighter part of the spectrum, and becoming greener the more it saturates. The red-copper sheen appears in the most saturated parts, and is even visible in a scan. The result is an ink that almost looks multichromatic, with really nice contrast in the shading. Shading is most obvious in wider nibs, but you already get some with the EF nib, which is quite impressive. The aesthetics are superb, and add tons of character to your writing. If you use high-sheen paper – like Tomoe River – and look at your writing from an angle, the “rust” component is very obvious. Sabimidori then looks like a blue ink, with a very prominent copper sheen. Wonderful stuff! TACCIA’s ink makers have really outdone themselves with this sabimidori. The ink’s chromatography shows a blue-heavy ink with yellow in the mix, which results in the green-looking appearance. From the chroma, I would have expected a more blue-leaning ink, not the rust-green teal that appears on paper. There definitely is some complex chemistry going on here! The bottom part of the chroma shows the bright blue that remains when water washes away the yellow dyes. This is confirmed in the water test: the ink is fairly resistant to water, and can survive an accident. A lot of the colour disappears, but a bright blue ghost of your writing remains that is quite readable, even after 30 seconds under streaming tap water. That makes sabimidori an ink you can use at the office – where it will certainly attract some well-deserved attention. I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On every small band of paper I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation An ink scribble made with an M-nib Lamy Safari The name of the paper used, written with a B-nib Lamy Safari A small text sample, written with the M-nib Safari Source of the quote, written with a Pelikan M405 with cursive-italic F-nib Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari) Sabimidori looks good on all types of paper, but I personally like it best on the more cream-coloured variety which enhances its green complexion. No feathering in general, just a teeny tiny bit on HP multipurpose paper. Some bleed-through on low-quality paper, but nothing too excessive. The ink expresses itself totally different, depending on the paper used – from blue- to green-leaning teal. I simply love this complexity … you get totally different experiences from a single bottle! Drying times for sabimidori are on the long side, with up to 30 seconds on hard-surface paper. I’ve also added a few photos to give you another view on the ink. Scanned images and photos often capture different aspects of the ink’s colour & contrast. That’s why I present them both. In this case, scan & photo are very close-matched, with the photo closest to what my eyes can see. One thing that I feel obliged to mention: sabimidori is not the easiest ink to clean out of your pens. It stains a lot, and needed extra effort to completely remove. It’s devilishly difficult to remove it from non-shiny plastic: I couldn’t completely clean it from re-used cartridges using only tap water: soap and hot water were needed. This is not an ink I would use in a clear demonstrator! Writing with different nib sizes The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing. The EF-nib already shows the shading that the ink is capable of. Depending on the nib, you get more blue or green, but always a good-looking result. Shading truly is a feast for the eyes – it is heavy, but the blue & green parts complement each other really well, resulting in an aesthetically pleasing look. Related inks To compare sabimidori with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. The ink is different from other green-leaning teals in my collection. Murky Waters is a mix of my own: 3 parts Pelikan Edelstein Jade with 2 parts Edelstein Onyx. Inkxperiment – Cradle of Life With every review, I try to create a drawing using only the ink I am reviewing. These small one-ink pieces are an excellent way to show the colour-range nuances that are hidden within the ink. And I totally enjoy the fun couple of hours these inkxperiments provide me: playing around with the ink in a creative way. Not surprisingly, the inkxperiment is for me the most enjoyably part in the making of a review 😉 Inspiration for this inkxperiment comes from the namesake Lara Croft movie I revisited recently: a fun constant-action adventure movie. Definitely not a brainy movie, but the title got me thinking about the origins of life. In puddles of nutrient-rich water on infant Earth, complex molecules arose, that – given aeons of time and billions of tries – resulted in self-replicating structures, that ultimately form the building blocks of life. And from these humble beginnings come the variety of species we know today, like the majestic pine forest… For this drawing, I started with a piece of A4 HP photo paper. I first drew the land borders, drawing them with water into which I dripped pure ink. The colours are real… bright blue, bright green, teal – all this from that single sabimidori bottle. Next I created the sky for the pine forest, printing a pattern with a piece of kitchen paper dipped in ink. I then drew the spheres where the “life cooking” happened, that created the complex molecules. All that in puddles of nutrient-rich water, which I drew with Q-tips dipped in multiple water/ink ratios. Finally I used my fountain pen to draw the pine forests, and to add some texture to the water. The final picture gives you a good idea of what can be achieved with sabimidori as a drawing ink. Inkxpired – computational art I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper. Conclusion TACCIA Ukiyo-e Hokusai sabimidori is a wonderful rust-green teal. An ink with unexpected complexity, that has a lot going for it. I love its looks on paper, with the great aesthetics of shading and sheen. This is one of the nicest inks I tried this year. If you like teals, you cannot go wrong with this one: highly recommended! Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib Back-side of writing samples on different paper types

Sui-gyoku is one of three new Pilot Iroshizuku colours released late in 2021. Photo: Scan: (Some other colour comparisons can be found here.) p.s. No show-through, no bleed-through, and no sheen observed.

Ink Shoot-Out : Diamine Safari vs Super5 Dublin Green In 2014, Diamine surprised us with a series of six inks to commemorate their 150th Anniversary. Within this set, Safari is one of my favourites. Some two years ago, I discovered the Super5 inks from papierlabor.de which are waterproof inks. One of them – Dublin Green – looks very similar to Safari in written text. That of course piqued my interest … time do a detailed comparison and find out which of these inks I like the most. Enter... the Ink Shoot-Out. A brutal fight spanning five rounds, where two inks engage in all-out battle to determine who is the winner. Today the billboard announces the exciting fight between two middle-weight female fighters. In the left corner – from Liverpool, England – the reigning champion Denise “the Dancer”. In the right corner the challenger from Darmstadt, Germany: Hildegarde “the Hook”. Both champions are evenly matched, so this promises to be an exciting fight! Tension in the boxing hall is building up... when the fighters enter the arena, they are welcomed to a thunderous applause. The bell rings, signaling the start of the first round. May the best ink win… Round 1 – First Impressions Both inks make a great first impression on me: murky, dirty greyish greens with a touch of yellow. Really nice-looking on all kinds of paper. This is the type of colour that appeals to me. Even though these are muted inks, they provide excellent contrast with the paper even in the finest nibs, leaving a well-saturated line on the Rhodia N°16 notepad paper. Both inks exhibit strong and elegant shading, without too much contrast between the light and darker parts. This immediately elevates the aesthetics of your writing. The inks look nearly identical in writing, but there are some differences: Safari has a broader colour span, and shows more elegant moves. They don’t call her “the Dancer” for nothing. This is clearly illustrated in the saturation sample. Both inks shade nicely, but Dublin Green is a lot more subtle. Due to its narrower colour range, the shading is more subdued, and looks a bit more elegant to me. Dublin Green is a bit greyer, with no yellow in its dye composition. Both inks make a superb first impression – a choreography of dancing moves, circling their opponent and exchanging probing flurries of strikes and counter-strikes. And the public agrees – encouraging their champions with roaring approval and deafening applause. At the end of this first round, it really shows that these fighters are evenly matched. No clear winner emerges, and this round ends with a draw. Round 2 – Writing Sample The writing sample was done on Rhodia N°16 Notepad with 80 gsm paper. Both inks behaved flawlessly, with no feathering and no show-through or bleed-through. With the EF nib, Safari shows its strength, and looks much more saturated. Dublin Green feels less lubricated and leaves a less saturated line with the EF nib. With broader nibs, the Super5 ink no longer has lubrication issues, and both inks write equally well. Colourwise both inks look similar in writing, although there is definitely more of a grey undertone in the Dublin Green ink. Both inks also shade nicely, without too much contrast between light and dark parts. This aesthetically pleasing shading gives more character to your writing, and shows up even with the finer nibs. For this round, the focus is on writing, and here both inks are strong performers. At the beginning of the round, the Dancer from Liverpool broke through the defences of the German ink, delivering a powerful punch. But the Super5 ink recovered nicely, and for the rest of the round both champions were evenly matched. Almost a draw, but that initial punch counts, and so this round goes to Safari on points. Round 3 – Pen on Paper This round allows the batlling inks to show how they behave on a range of fine writing papers. From top to bottom, we have : Midori notebook paper, Paperblanks 120 gsm paper, Tomoe River 52 gsm, Fantasticpaper, Original Crown Mill cotton paper and Clairefontaine Triomphe 90 gsm. All scribbling and writing was done with a Lamy Safari M-nib. Both champions did really well, with no show-through nor bleed-through. But this round is not about technicalities, it is about aesthetics and beauty. Are the fighters able to make the paper shine ? One thing is immediately apparent: these inks are at home on a wide range of papers, both white and off-white ones. On white paper, Dublin Green clearly shows its greyer nature – on cream paper, both inks look more or less the same. The Diamine ink is a bit more expressive and complex-looking in the swabs. Dublin Green, on the other hand, looks more subtle in the shading. Overall, really strong inks with only minimal differences in style. Both inks are on par with each other, with neither of the champions giving any ground. Both fighters gave their all, providing quite a spectacle. The crowd is loving it! But in the end, neither ink could score a solid hit, and as such the third round ends with a draw. The tension in the hall is now going up by the minute. Are both fighters really each other’s equal ? Will one of them show some weakness ? Let’s continue the fight to find out. Round 4 – Ink Properties With the ring of the bell that announces the fourth round, Safari immediately dances to her opponent ready to bring more action to the fight. But wait… what’s happening? The German ink breaks through the defenses with a solid left hook… wham! Oh my god! Safari goes down and hits the canvas! The crowd is shocked into silence, then roars its approval! 10… 9… 8… 7… Oh no… this is a disaster… Safari is groaning, and struggles to right itself … 6… 5… finally Denise “the Dancer” scrambles to her feet, groggily shaking her head. But the round is lost! The referee rightfully grants this round to the German fighter. In this round, the biggest difference between Safari and Dublin Green emerges. The Super5 ink is designed to be water-resistant, and it shows: no smudging, and the ink effortlessly survives a 15-minute soak in water. For the smudge test, I let both inks dry for 30 seconds, and then rubbed a moist Q-tip cotton swab over the text. For the droplet test, I dripped water on the grid and let it sit there for 15 minutes. The difference is clear: Super5 Dublin Green definitely is very water-resistant, making it a good ink for use at the office. Round 5 – The Fun Factor Welcome to the final round. Here I give you a purely personal impression of both inks, where I judge which of them I like most when doing some fun stuff like doodling and drawing. Both inks do well, and show off a lovely colour spectrum, ranging from very light grey- and yellow-green to a really dark and saturated green. I really enjoyed using them. The drawing was done on a piece of 10x15cm HP photo paper. Personally I prefer the slightly greyer looks of Dublin Green. This ink also feels a bit more complex, with more character in the drawing. Safari looks soft and restrained – an ink with a joyous appearance but not too wild. Dublin Green on the other hand is more of a bad girl showing more temparement. In my opinion, the Super5 ink definitely looks better in this drawing. For this round, both champions are again well matched. But for this judge, Dublin Green showed the best moves, and wins this round on points. Mind… this is a relative comparison. Standing on its own, Diamine Safari is still a terrific ink to play around with. But side by side, I definitely prefer the Dublin Green from Super5. The Verdict Both inks are real jewels, that work on all types of paper. These are real champions, that both deserve a place in your ink collection. But counting the points, it’s clear that the challenger from Germany proved to be stronger. Even if you ignore the whopping win in round 4 (i.e. you don’t care about water resistance), Dublin Green still manages to be the slightly better ink. So for this judge, the conclusion is clear: Super5 Dublin Green is the winner of this exciting fight.

Just a brief note on a recent comparison: a bottle of Robert Oster Signature Bronze had been lingering in my ink drawer until I decided to use it a new acquisition by Atelier Veleray (more on that in the near future). It turned out greener than I'd expected, similar to KWZ Green Gold but slightly lighter. The attached image is an unprocessed photograph hastily taken with a smartphone. Still, it comes close to what I see on paper, especially in the lower part, where Bronze and Green Gold are separated by Callifolio Olivastre. In the upper part, where the two inks are next to each other, Green Gold appears a bit too dark. The other two inks included as a kind of control in the comparison are Callifolio Olivastre (in a Diamond Point with a flexible broad nib) and Rohrer & Klingner Sepia (in a Delta Tech & Web with a stub nib). KWZ Green Gold came from a Montblanc 149 with a medium nib and the Atelier Veleray pen sported a broad nib I had from a Visconti Rembrandt. Bottom line: nice colour and a well-behaved ink. As my interest in shading increases, Bronze may replace the darker KWZ Green Gold among my favourites.

Diamine Dark Forest (150th Anniversary II) The ink maker from Liverpool is one of the staple brands in ink-land. They consistently produce solid inks for a very reasonable price. In 2017, Diamine released their second ink series to commemorate their 150th Anniversary. I obtained my set shortly thereafter, but more or less forgot about them when my attention drifted to Japanese inks. About time to do the reviews. Fortunately, these anniversary inks are still easily obtainable, so if you like what you see you can still get them. Diamine Dark Forest is another lovely ink in this Anniversary series. A dark & saturated green with strong blue undertones. My first reaction when seeing the ink was “definitely a dark green”. And then I got like “hmm… maybe a dark teal… lots of blue in there”. And after preparing the review material, I got to “well… not a teal yet, but going there.” I love it when inks leave the well-trodden path, and meander between the colour lines. More often then not they gain in complexity and beauty. Dark Forest is no exception – I find it to be a very interesting ink with lots of depth. This Diamine ink is very saturated and lays down a dark blue-green line when writing. With a wet-writing pen, the colour can almost turn black. Where the ink gets overly saturated, you can often glimpse a reddish sheen. I like it that the ink looks totally different, depending on the wetness of the nib/pen combination. Teal-leaning in drier pens, and going dark green to green-black in wetter pens. To illustrate the colour span of this Diamine ink, I did a swab on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper, where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. Dark Forest has a broad colour span, with a substantial difference between the light and darker parts. This translates to strong (even harsh) shading when writing. Shading is present in all nib sizes, even the finer ones. Personally, my preferences go to soft & muted inks, and this Dark Forest is quite the opposite. But still, I like the complexity of its character. On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – the ink behaved badly. Tons of smudges, although the text itself remains very readable. Water resistance is almost zero in practice – from the bottom part of the chromatography, I had expected a better result. But no, this ink is very prone to watery accidents. This makes it - for me at least - unsuited for use in the workplace. I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On each scrap of paper I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation An ink scribble made with a Lamy Safari M-nib fountain pen The name of the paper used, written with a Lamy Safari B-nib A small text sample, written with the Lamy Safari M-nib Source of the quote, written with my Yard-o-Led Viceroy Standard with F-nib Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari) The multi-paper writing test shows that Dark Forest can cope with a wide range of papers. With the lower-quality papers (Moleskine, copy paper) there is just a tiny bit of feathering, and a small amount of bleed-through. Drying times are in the 10-15 second range on harder paper, and around 5 seconds on the more absorbent low-quality papers (with the Lamy Safari M-nib). This dark blue-leaning green works well with both white and creamy paper. Because scans don't always capture an ink's colour and contrast with good precision, I also add a few photos to give you an alternative look on this Diamine ink. In this case, the real colour seems to sit a bit between the two. Writing with different nib sizes The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing (written on Rhodia N°16 80 gsm paper). All samples were written with a Lamy Safari. I also added a couple of visiting pens: a wet-writing Yard-o-Led Viceroy Standard Victorian, and a Pelikan M120 (which writes quite dry for a Pelikan). As you can see, the ink can look quite different depending on nib/pen combination – almost a teal in the 1.9 calligraphy nib, almost black in the Yard-o-Led. But in all cases quite saturated and with heavy shading. Related inks To compare Diamine Dark Forest with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. The ink that comes closest in comparison is the 2017 LE ink Lamy Petrol, which has just a touch more blue. With Lamy Petrol being unobtanium these days, this Dark Forest could be the replacement you were looking for. Inkxperiment – excalibur With each review, I try to create an interesting drawing using only the ink I’m reviewing. This is often quite challenging, but it has the advantage of showing the ink’s colour range in a more artistic setting. I enjoy doing these little drawings immensely – it’s quite a fun extension of the ink hobby. Always good for a fun couple of hours. For this inkxperiment, I had zero inspiration. So I started with word associations to get me going: English ink, dark forest… medieval woods… runes and druids… Avalon… King Arthur… Excalibur. OK - good enough to get the drawing started... I used an A4 piece of HP photo paper, that I covered with a paper towel on which I dripped water-diluted ink to create the textured background. Next I used pure Dark Forest to paint in some darker patches for the stone & sword, and as a background for the runes. With the side of a piece of cardboard dipped in ink, I added the branches of the medieval forest. Finally, I used cotton Q-tips with bleach to draw in the runes and Excalibur. The result is not a masterpiece, but it gives you an idea of what can be achieved with this Diamine ink in a more artistic context. Conclusion Diamine Dark Forest is a saturated blue-leaning dark green that can look substantially different depending on your nib/pen combination – it can span the whole range from green-leaning teal to dark green black. A heavy shader that shows a bit of a reddish sheen in heavily saturated areas. For me personally, this Dark Forest is a bit too dark & harsh, but it’s certainly a complex and interesting ink. I enjoyed playing around with it. Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib Backside of writing samples on different paper types

A Note About My Ink Reviews: All of the images in my reviews are scanned at 1200dpi on a Brother MFC-J6720DW in TIFF format, converted to A4 at 300DPI in Photoshop CC, and saved as a compressed JPEG. All scans were edited on a color calibrated ASUS PA248Q with aΔE<3 to ensure maximum color accuracy. TL;DR: The colors should be as accurate as is possible. Not having a suitable green (well, any green at all) in my ink collection, and not having any Montblanc ink to speak of, I decided to pull the trigger on a full bottle of Irish Green from Amazon. Rarely do I ever feel like buying a full bottle sight unseen (aside from such reviews as I can find on the internet), but in this case I liked the color enough and the price wasn't awful, so I bought it, along with Lavender Purple (also Montblanc) at the same time. I usually prefer blues to anything else, with my go-to being Diamine ASA blue, with the backup of Noodler's Midway Blue for the times I need something more water resistant. I have a single black, Noodler's X-Feather, and then Noodler's Apache Sunset, J.Herbin Stormy Grey, and Diamine Oxblood, and those have been my only inks for ~18 months, and I felt like I needed something new and more exciting. Enter Irish Green. So let me delve into the properties of this ink for a moment. Scores, where applicable, are represented on a 10-point scale, with 10 being better/larger than 1. Flow: When I tested this in my Edison 1.1 Stub, which is quite the wet pen, I found the flow to be wet, as expected, but not so wet that I found it difficult to use on lesser papers. What I did find, however, on lesser paper, is that the ink loses some of this flow and becomes a bit dryer when writing, and this is a noticeable difference, but should not be troublesome to most potential users. 7.5/10 Saturation: This ink is what I'd describe as a very saturated shader, but this could be due to the properties of the test pen. Stubs (at the very least the ones which I have had the pleasure of using) seem to have both a darker, more saturated output, but also seem to encourage shading. Lubrication: Better than most of the ink I own, but I have tried a sample of the Noodler's eel series and can say that it is similar. Very smooth, very much like glass, but not uncontrollable like some I've tried in a stub. Show-through: Virtually none on any of the Clairefontaine paper's I've tried, but quite a lot (as expected in a wet stub) on cheaper paper. Rhodia 90gsm as well as 80gsm Rhodia and CF Triomphe etc. handle it very well. Copy paper (which is what I did the review on) shows significant show-through, and the back of cheaper papers is simply not usable. Shading: It varies with the nibs used (also tried this ink in a Visconti Rembrandt M, and got almost no shading), but is usually enough to be noticed, but not enough to qualify it as one of those inks that is nothing but shading. Also varies with the paper used, CF and Rhodia papers which are less absorbent exhibit more shading. Bleed-through: None, even on cheap papers. Spread: None noticed on any of the tested papers. (Rhodia, CF, and #22 copy paper) Smear (dry): None on any of the tested papers. (Rhodia, CF, and #22 copy paper) Feathering: Extremely slight (not noticeable unless you look for it) on less-than-FP friendly paper, but none on higher quality papers. Water resistance: While it wasn't sold to me as water proof or resistant, and I fully expected it to wash off the page, I could not get it to rinse off. *Dry time for the water test was roughly 12 hours after it was applied to the paper, if immediate water resistance is your primary concern. (In which case I recommend X-Feather, from personal experience.) Other: The color is nice, but not so vibrant to be in your face and scream at you, but rather it is more of a muted plant green. It reminds me of foliage, to be honest, which isn't a bad thing, but it isn't light like Gruene Cactus Eel or dark like Diamine Sherwood green. It has quickly become one of my favorite inks for annotations and some general notes, but I don't think it fits for general writing, simply due to the fact that it is green. I have experienced no startup issues or nib creep. On another note, I really like the bottles, as they are both a significant design departure from Noodler's, Diamine, and J.Herbin bottles that I've owned. Overall, I am highly impressed by my first Montblanc ink, Irish Green.

Taccia Uguisi Review of a sample of Taccia Uguisi received from Vanness Pens. Taccia inks are "born in California", but manufactured in Japan. Vanness calls the color "olive green". I am not sure that I would label the color that way. It is a balanced green with a strong blue component (see chromotography below). The ink is not strongly saturated but dark enough in fine nibs to be quite readable and much darker than Pilot Iroshizuku Chiku-rin. The ink flows very nicely from the nib, and is lubricated in much the same way as Sailor inks. There is a very nice reddish-copper colored sheen to the ink on Tomoe River paper, which also shows up on the ink swab as well. The ink also shades moderately well especially in medium and wider nibs. The ink dries fairly quickly and is not water resistant. It does not bleed through or show through except on very cheap paper. Pros: Excellent flow Moderately lubricating Minimal bleedthrough, showthrough, feathering Fast Drying Moderately saturated. Moderate shading. Some sheen. Cons: Not water resistant Price: In the US: $12 for 40 ml at Vanness Pens, Anderson Pens, PenChalet Overall: An Excellent ink in terms of quality and price!