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Triple Ink Shoot-Out : J. Herbin Violette Pensée vs TACCIA naka murasaki vs Callifolio Violet It’s been a year since I last did an ink shoot-out … so it’s high time for a new and exciting ink battle. Because I need a bit of colour in my life right now (it’s a grey, dark and wet winter here in Belgium), I decided to select some purple/violet inks. And why not throwing three inks into the ring at the same time to fight it out? Enter... the Triple Ink Shoot-Out – a special edition of the usual brutal fight. In five rounds, these three inks must engage in fierce battle to determine who is the winner. The backdrop for this battle … a backwater place in some remote corner of our galaxy. An up-to-now unknown race of intelligent beings – the Reyah – reaches out to the stars. Their home planet is situated in a turbulent region of space, smack in the middle of three spheres of influence: the United Federation of Planets, the Klingons and the Romulan Empire. Too small to stay independent, the Reyah decide to join whatever power block wins a starship race among the spatial anomalies surrounding their system. From the heart of the Romulan Empire: the famous Warbird Haakona with centurion Tomalak at the helm – J. Herbin Violet Pensée. From the Klingon home world Qo’noS: commander Kang flying his Bird of Prey, the Ki’tang – TACCIA naka murasaki. And finally, representing the Federation: captain James T. Kirk on the Enterprise NCC1701A – L’Artisan Pastellier Callifolio Violet. Three vessels. Three captains. All eager to win. Let the Great Starship Race begin, and may the best ink win… Round 1 – First Impressions The first part of the contest is a straightforward speed-run from start to finish. What vessel and crew can reach the highest warp? Ambassador Reijin from Reyah pushes the button that signals the start of the Great Starship Race. Three vessels jump ahead… warp 1 … warp 4 … warp 7. On the bridge of the Enterprise, the ship starts shaking with an audible groan. The warp engine containment field is in the red… warp 8.4 … 8.5 … “Captain! She’s gonna blow!” “No she won’t! Sulu – give me warp 9”. All three inks make a fine first impression. Great-looking colours. All writing smoothly in my Safari test pens. Also technically solid: nice flow, good contrast with the page, pleasing to the eye. Inks that bring a bit of colour to your life. All three are violet purples, but there are obvious differences: Violette Pensée is a strong blue-leaning violet. A delicate colour that brings life to the page. But also lacking somewhat in depth and complexity. A minimal amount of shading that is easily overlooked. Also a nightmare to capture its colour correctly … it looks too blue in scans and photos, and shows a much more striking violet in person. Naka murasaki is a totally different ink. Dark and mysterious. Melancholic. Toned down. A more somber purple-leaning violet with excellent shading. Callifolio Violet combines the best of both worlds. A well-balanced violet with great aesthetics. Subtle and beautiful shading. Lots of depth and character. A true beauty! The chroma comparison clearly shows that naka murasaki takes a totally different approach: a complex combination of dyes that together create that melancholic purple-violet. The other two inks seem to be built from single dyes, their chromas lacking a bit of excitement. Its engines roaring, the Enterprise is the first vessel to cross the finish line, closely followed by the Ki’tang. Trailing behind is the Romulan Warbird, with centurion Tomalak screaming in frustration at his crew. Federation and Klingon Empire stand up well to one another, with neither of them giving in. The Romulans disappoint a bit. But it’s still early in the race. Anything is still possible. All three inks are solid performers, looking beautiful on paper, and writing smooth and well-lubricated. Callifolio Violet looks the best though, and gets first place. Second place goes to the TACCIA ink – just because it looks a bit somber, and I’m yearning for a more happy colour right now. Violet Pensée finishes third. Not an inferior ink at all, but it lacks a bit of depth and complexity. Round 2 – Writing Sample The next leg of the starship race leads through the swirling fields of a raging plasma storm. This typically wreaks havoc with the navigation sensors, and drains the shields like crazy. The Romulans seem to have some new technology though – they sail through the plasma fields like it’s a walk in the park. The Enterprise struggles… “Captain. There’s a resonance in the dilithium crystals. The shields…” A flash… circuit boards burning… “Scotty! Keep her together” “Ay captain. I’m tuning the shields manually now. They won’t fail again”. The writing sample was done on Rhodia N°16 DotPad with 80 gsm paper. All inks behaved flawlessly, with no feathering and no show-through or bleed-through. With the EF nib, Callifolio Violet is struggling. Lubrication and ink flow are not good. TACCIA naka murasaki also exhibits sub-par lucrication with the EF nib. Both inks recover when using M-nibs or above. J. Herbin Violet has no issues whatsoever – it writes smoothly in all nib sizes and also looks more consistent across nib sizes. It clearly is technically superior to the other two. The Romulan Warbird Haakona recovered beautifully in this second round, and took the lead. It rightfully deserves first place. The Klingon and Federation ships both had difficulties, but recovered with the broader nibs. The Enterprise fared the worst though, and takes third place in this part of the Great Starship Race. Round 3 – Pen on Paper The next part of the race is riddled with gravitational anomalies… clusters of rotating neutron stars turning in unpredictable orbits around one another. This part of the track is treacherous and highly dangerous and will stretch the vessels’ structural integrity fields to their limits. This round allows the batlling inks to show how they behave on a range of fine writing papers. From top to bottom, we have : Clairefontaine Triomphe, Midori, Tomoe River 52 gsm, Paperblanks and Original Crown Mill cotton paper. All scribbling and writing was done with a Lamy Safari B-nib. Up till now, it has been a tight race. Will this trend continue? Initially all seems to go well. The three inks look great on these high-quality papers 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? The Klingon Bird of Prey plows right through the anomaly field – no finesse there. Naka murasaki’s shading looks nice. But the ship moves sluggishly, with gravity tugging on all sides. This TACCIA ink is a bit too dark and somber compared to the others, which reduces its elegance a bit (my personal opinion – I might be biased a bit by the lousy weather outside). The Romulan Warbird weaves through the gravitational anomalies showing great maneuverability. Violette Pensée looks soft and delicate in the swatches. Unfortunately, it shows little to no shading, and lacks a bit of depth. The Enterprise handles this part of the race best. Captain Kirk uses his trademark maneuver: diving straight towards the central neutron star, slingshot around, and catapulting the Enterprise without much trouble outside the anomaly field. Well done! Callifolio Violet looks great on all papers, aesthetically beautiful soft shading, and a wonderful colour that works with both white and cream paper. The result is clear. The Federation wins this part of the race, with the Romulan a solid second. The Klingon strategy of plowing through the anomaly field backfired. They arrive a bit later at the finish line. Commander Kang doesn’t look happy… When looking at crappy paper, we see that all three inks behave unexpectedly well with no visible feathering. There is some bleed-through – as is to be expected with Moleskine – but minimally so with Callifolio Violet. Up to this round, the Enterprise is in the lead, with the other two starships closely behind. Anything is still possible and the race is certainly not won. I wonder what the following rounds will bring… Round 4 – Ink Properties The Great Starship race continues. For the next part, the Reyah have chosen a track that meanders through their system’s Kuiper Belt. The multitude of rocks – both large and small – that fills this region of space will absolutely wreak havoc with the navigation sensors. Some acrobatics at the steering wheel will be necessary, guiding the ships around the largest rocks, and absorbing the impact of smaller pieces of debris on the shields. All inks have drying times in the 15 to 20 second range, and all are quite smudge-resistant. Minor smudging but the text remains nicely readable. But halfway through the debris field, the ships begin to struggle. The Romulan ship Hakoona fails to navigate around a mountain sized rock, which strikes a solid blow on their shields. “Captain – look! The Romulans… their shields are failing!” Centurion Tomalak fortunately has the wits to steer his ship immediately through the Z-axis, rising above the debris field, and abandoning this leg of the race. The Romulans finish last. On the 15 minute soak test, TACCIA naka murasaki doesn’t stand a chance. This ink has no water resistance whatsoever. “Sulu… look out. There’s a bunch of huge rocks ahead.” “Don’t worry Captain, I have it!” The Enterprise executes a spinning maneuver weaving its way through the rocks. The helmsman of the Ki’tang tries to emulate this tactic, but obviously lacks the expertise. He misses the first two rocks, but strikes a glancing blow against the third one. That must have hurt! Immediately the Klingon ship reduces speed, while the Enterprise blazes on. J. Herbin Violet Pensée is not really water resistant, but enough ink remains attached to the paper to make out your writings amidst the smudges. Callifolio Violet wins this round – this ink smudges only slightly, and even after a 15 minute soak the text remains clear and sharp. “Congratulations, Sulu. You’ve really shown our Klingon friends what real flying means. Well done!” Round 5 – The Fun Factor Welcome to the final round of the Great Starship Race. Here I give you a purely personal impression of the three inks, where I judge which of them I like most when doing some fun stuff like doodling and drawing. Surprisingly, these three inks show wildly different colour tones when used with the HP photo paper. I had not expected this. The final battle takes place in the vicinity of the Reyah home planet. And this time it’s a real shoot-out – phasers & disruptors only… no photon torpedos or plasma bolts. The ship whose shields drop below 20% is out – we want this to be a peaceful fight 😉. Ambassador Rejin fires the starting shot. Immediately all three vessels raise shields and take up tactical positions. “Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam. Qapla’!” “Uhura … what did he say?”. Uhura replies almost instantly: “Today is a good day to die. Success!” Both Klingon and Romulan vessels turn towards the Enterprise, and start their attack run. Disruptors fire. Shields sizzle. A wild return shot from the Enterprise just misses the Romulan Warbird. Before Kirk can organise his response, both ships have turned and fire again. “Captain!” “Hold those shields, Scotty!” “I’m sorry captain, I…” And then the Enterprise’s shields drop to 10%. The Federation ship is out. Immediately the Romulan Warbird races head-on to the Klingon ship, disruptors blazing. Tomalak clearly lacks experience: at that distance no damage can be done. Commander Kang keeps his cool. At the last moment … “vAng ghaH! – take him!” … A concentrated beam lances out to the Romulan bridge. “Yay! – victory!” … the Romulan’s shields drop, leaving commander Kang and his Bird of Prey Ki’tang as victors on the battlefield. On the HP photo paper, Callifolio Violet looks more like a bordeaux … not what I expected. And the ink loses a lot of its appeal in the process. Third place it is. J. Herbin Violet Pensée with its strong blue-leaning violet colour looks really nice. But being a single-dye ink means there is little variation in colour tones. It gets second place. The TACCIA ink shows its inherent complexity due to the multiple dyes used in its construction. It gives life and character to the drawing. Also, the more somber tones of this ink work well for artwork – the painting looks much more dramatic. All three captains beam down to the planet to join ambassador Rejin of the Reyah. Points will be calculated, and the Reyah will announce which power block they join. With al this excitement, I haven’t kept tabs… I wonder… The Verdict All three inks in this shoot-out are winners in my book. But a choice has to be made, so I will tally up the points as they were gained in each round: J. Herbin Violet Pensée: 1 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 2 = 9 points Taccia naka murasaki: 2 + 2 +1 + 2 + 3 = 10 points L’Artisan Pastellier Callifolio Violet: 3 + 1 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 11 points A terrific race. A great demonstration of technological marvel and crewmanship. Federation, Klingon, Romulan: all ships have given their all. And what a spectacle it was! But as with any race, only first place counts. It was a close call, but tallying up the points we see that Callifolio Violet and the Enterprise once again come out victorious. Kirk and his crew have added another member to the Federation of Planets. Well done! Best wishes to you all for a splendid 2026 !