EFNIR: Vinta Armada

[LizEF]

Extra Fine Nib Ink Review: Vinta Armada

This is review #94 in my series.  Here's the YouTube video:

Post-recording notes: I tried capturing the pink sheen / flecks from the blot on the swatch card, but my cameras wouldn't capture it.  My eyes see it, though!  Super easy cleaning - which confirmed the presence of green.

And here is a screen of the final result, for those not interested in the video:

Scan of Completed Review:

Zoomed in photo:

Absorbent Paper Closeup (top is puzzle paper like thick newsprint, bottom is old 20lb copy paper):

Images also available on Instagram: @zilxodarap

Previous Review: Robert Oster School Blue.

Want to influence the inky sequence?  Take the "next ink" poll.

Hope you enjoy.  Comments appreciated!

[mizgeorge]

Thank you so much Liz - I was hoping you might do some Vinta inks some time.

 

I absolutely love this ink, and I've been using it a lot for the last few weeks. I've been getting all sorts of colours from it, depending very much on the paper - on TR it's almost blueish, but when I swatched it, I got pinks, blues plenty of green and even some interesting brown bits! 

 

I used it for a 'guess the ink' recently, so I have some shots taken - obviously the name is blanked out because it was a guess the ink...

 

 

 

I'd highly recommend it to any of the other lovers of grey!

[LizEF]

16 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

Thank you so much Liz - I was hoping you might do some Vinta inks some time.

You're very welcome!  This ink was a gift, along with some other greys.

 

There's a guy over on reddit who says this ink goes down bright green and dries to a dark teal for him.  I think I see some of that in your swatch.

 

I find the EF nib really doesn't show the complexity of this ink.  It seems like a really good ink for ink-art.  (Love your ship! )

[mizgeorge]

2 minutes ago, LizEF said:

You're very welcome!  This ink was a gift, along with some other greys.

 

There's a guy over on reddit who says this ink goes down bright green and dries to a dark teal for him.  I think I see some of that in your swatch.

 

I find the EF nib really doesn't show the complexity of this ink.  It seems like a really good ink for ink-art.  (Love your ship! )

I find it goes down fairly blue, and the green comes out as it dries - but I suspect it's one that may vary a little from batch to batch, and it definitely depends on the light and paper. It's a wonderfully complex colour though, and there's a lot going on. I must try it with some colour washes to see what it does. Perhaps I'll go and brush over the sea

[LizEF]

43 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

I find it goes down fairly blue, and the green comes out as it dries - but I suspect it's one that may vary a little from batch to batch, and it definitely depends on the light and paper. It's a wonderfully complex colour though, and there's a lot going on. I must try it with some colour washes to see what it does. Perhaps I'll go and brush over the sea

Interesting.  I figured on the light and paper making a difference, but didn't consider they might make batches slightly differently each time.

 

If you do brush over the sea, please share!

[yazeh]

This seems like quite a complex ink. Thanks for the review Liz, I was subject to mizgeorge's guessing game, which I totally enjoyed

If you ask her nicely, she might do some preliminary sketches of Makhabesh and gang

 

 

[LizEF]

2 minutes ago, yazeh said:

If you ask her nicely, she might do some preliminary sketches of Makhabesh and gang

Oooh, that would be lovely.

 

I've been thinking about taking a poll:  If something bad happens in Bicbiro, and Makhabesh needs to go get help, who should he go (try to) get?

1. The other four wizards?
2. Some wizard-apprentice(s)?
3. His mother? (et alia?)
4. The disenfranchised Bicbiroans (Bicbiroites? Bicbirites? Bicbiroese? Bicbirolians?)
5. A mythical / magical / legendary creature / person?  (Suggestions?)
6. Or....?  (Your idea here: new character? old character?  Someone from the big sphinx? ...?)
7. No one?  (Solve the problem himself?)
8. Other ideas?

[yazeh]

8 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Oooh, that would be lovely.

 

I've been thinking about taking a poll:  If something bad happens in Bicbiro, and Makhabesh needs to go get help, who should he go (try to) get?

1. The other four wizards?
2. Some wizard-apprentice(s)?
3. His mother? (et alia?)
4. The disenfranchised Bicbiroans (Bicbiroites? Bicbirites? Bicbiroese? Bicbirolians?)
5. A mythical / magical / legendary creature / person?  (Suggestions?)
6. Or....?  (Your idea here: new character? old character?  Someone from the big sphinx? ...?)
7. No one?  (Solve the problem himself?)
8. Other ideas?

If I may be bold to say. Your hero always need to find the strength to overcome all odds. Otherwise you lose your audience.  

To oversimplify at least in movies, you have an introduction (Quintus, the order of zucchini, an inciting incident, full of himself he gets caught in a sphinx/pyramid, fun and games, friendship with Makhabesh, Midpoint, going with the gang in the cheeseburger joints and capturing Marsell or Marcel (if he's French-ish), Marcelle (a gal) or Marcellus (Roman-ish) Dark night of the soul, traditionally all is lost here and a (character/ plant/ friend dies, symbolically part of the old character's psyche)..... there's betrayal, Quintus betrayed Makhabesh, etc.... and finally the grand final, Quintus finds his strength, make amends to Mak- and they beat bicibiro conspiracy.....

 

Inspired by Blake Snyder, Save the Cat.... 

Check for his beat sheet. It's a simplistic but practical structure for beginners 😛

 

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, yazeh said:

If I may be bold to say. Your hero always need to find the strength to overcome all odds. Otherwise you lose your audience.  

To oversimplify at least in movies, you have an introduction (Quintus, the order of zucchini, an inciting incident, full of himself he gets caught in a sphinx/pyramid, fun and games, friendship with Makhabesh, Midpoint, going with the gang in the cheeseburger joints and capturing Marsell or Marcel (if he's French-ish), Marcelle (a gal) or Marcellus (Roman-ish) Dark night of the soul, traditionally all is lost here and a (character/ plant/ friend dies, symbolically part of the old character's psyche)..... there's betrayal, Quintus betrayed Makhabesh, etc.... and finally the grand final, Quintus finds his strength, make amends to Mak- and they beat bicibiro conspiracy.....

 

Inspired by Blake Snyder, Save the Cat.... 

Check for his beat sheet. It's a simplistic but practical structure for beginners 😛

 

Thank you.  I shall ponder further.  Of course, I'm pretty sure the Bicbiro story line will end long before the story does, so this is more like a soap opera (comic strip? sitcom?) than a traditional novel story arc...   Still, we're headed into that "dark night of the soul" and now I'm pondering how we get out of it...

[yazeh]

It really depends what are you looking for. 

But each story follows more or less the same arc. Each series episodes has one challenge, normally resolved (Like in the Star Trek episodes) or most sitcoms... But some series have the overall arc. Arc of the episode and arc of the series (Lost in space) ....  

For me this falls on the lighter side of the spectrum but if you really want to go full on then you can add a moral dilemma for Quin....but that's more like Greek Tragedy,, El Cid and the gang

 

[LizEF]

10 minutes ago, yazeh said:

It really depends what are you looking for. 

But each story follows more or less the same arc. Each series episodes has one challenge, normally resolved (Like in the Star Trek episodes) or most sitcoms... But some series have the overall arc. Arc of the episode and arc of the series (Lost in space) ....  

For me this falls on the lighter side of the spectrum but if you really want to go full on then you can add a moral dilemma for Quin....but that's more like Greek Tragedy,, El Cid and the gang

Yeah, there's nothing serious about any of this in my mind.  I'm just having a bit of fun.  I don't feel bound by any given rules about how a story is supposed to go - though your suggestions are helpful in feeding the back of my brain, which is where it all comes from.  Anything that seems to have been done deliberately has more likely been done entirely by my subconscious in fits and starts - e.g. when I needed the story for review #96, I wrote 96 through 102 and some questions for 103 as the inspiration died there.  So my "poll" is because my subconscious needs ideas...

[yazeh]

8 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Yeah, there's nothing serious about any of this in my mind.  I'm just having a bit of fun.  I don't feel bound by any given rules about how a story is supposed to go - though your suggestions are helpful in feeding the back of my brain, which is where it all comes from.  Anything that seems to have been done deliberately has more likely been done entirely by my subconscious in fits and starts - e.g. when I needed the story for review #96, I wrote 96 through 102 and some questions for 103 as the inspiration died there.  So my "poll" is because my subconscious needs ideas...

Got it sub

[PithyProlix]

It's an ink that is high on my want list but it's not one an ink would occur for me to use in anything other than a broad or wider nib. I predominately use nib widths on the order of Japanese fines for my everyday writing so it is a very useful review for me. Thanks!

[Sailor Kenshin]

I love grays, and heard of Vinta, but don't have any of this line.  The short dry time and color complexity would make this a plus for me.

 

Thanks for another intriguing review!  

[LizEF]

9 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

It's an ink that is high on my want list but it's not one an ink would occur for me to use in anything other than a broad or wider nib. I predominately use nib widths on the order of Japanese fines for my everyday writing so it is a very useful review for me. Thanks!

You're very welcome!  And yes, broader nibs will show off this ink's complexity far better, while finer nibs will likely just show a nice shade of grey - good all around, depending on what you're looking for.

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

I love grays, and heard of Vinta, but don't have any of this line.  The short dry time and color complexity would make this a plus for me.

 

Thanks for another intriguing review!  

You're very welcome!  While my recommendation for EF users is "if you like the grey, try it", for users of broader nibs, I'd say try it regardless - "intriguing" is an excellent descriptor of what I saw in the little blot on my swatch card!

[Alice B Fermin]

Sad to say that I own a couple of Vinta inks but did not like them that much. 

[LizEF]

4 hours ago, Alice B Fermin said:

Sad to say that I own a couple of Vinta inks but did not like them that much. 

Fortunately, there's so much variety in inks out there that we can all find ones we like.   Since this is my first Vinta, I can't say whether I like the brand or not, but this particular ink is sure interesting.

[creagerc]

I am the 'guy from Reddit who sees this as teal.' I have to say that Vinta inks in general are very interesting in terms of their color properties.

 

I continue to see this as a green ink. Goes down a grassy-blue green and dries to dark teal with a grey cast. It also has some shading in swatches to what I would call a greyish-pink-khaki color, in addition to the teal-grey shading it presents in normal writing. I even bought a sample from a different source to compare to my bottle.

 

For me, this ink is a study in color perception. Lots of people describe it as a blueish-grey, and it appears that way to me in many photos. In real life there is a lot more green that makes the teal color dominate. Of course, blue and green already have a weird overlap (read about how the sky used to be considered 'green' by many). I think that I may also perceive green colors more strongly in general and perhaps red colors less vividly? I think a lot of people see green in many blue-blacks (and other dark blues - Diamine oxford blue is a good example of that).

 

It's a great ink but frustrating personally because I wish it was the dusky grey-blue it appears in many photos. On the other hand, several of your scans I would definitely characterize as a dark teal, so again there is the color perception issue.

 

Another really surprising Vinta ink to play around with is their 'Maskara' color. Normally in scans/photos it appears as a pinkish-purple. It will blow your mind when you get the bottle and it is very much a sky blue. As it dries the purple comes out, though. I find that curious because my general experience with purple inks (e.g. violette pensee) is that they go down redder and become more of a blue-ish purple as they dry. 

 

I am still on the fence if I find these to be 'good' inks or not in terms of writing properties - I haven't really used enough different Vinta inks in enough different pens to say anything good or bad at this point. What is undeniable is that they are cool as heck and a lot of fun to play around with to see the color variation. It's especially great because, although they do have some sheening/shimmer inks, their entire collection isn't premised on that and they have lots of milder inks that still have interesting visual properties.

[LizEF]

9 minutes ago, creagerc said:

I am the 'guy from Reddit who sees this as teal.'

  Welcome!  (I love finding the same people on multiple forums.  It's sort of like running into one of your neighbors at the grocery store - happy surprise!)

 

11 minutes ago, creagerc said:

For me, this ink is a study in color perception. ...

Yes!  Colors that a lot of people describe as blue, or that look blue to me in online photos, look teal to me in real life.

 

15 minutes ago, creagerc said:

What is undeniable is that they are cool as heck and a lot of fun to play around with to see the color variation.

Yes, they are really interesting.  I have to wonder if the paper doesn't play a part in the color variations, like with some other brands.  I haven't played around with all that many papers with this ink (yet).

 

Thanks for adding so much detail to the thread!