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  • Joost Plattèl

    Great review, great ink, I use this ink a lot. And yes it looks very special :-)

  • Michel de Montreal

    is that the ink asterix used to write insults to the romans?

    WAIT WAIT, DON’T TELL ME!!!!! I DON’T WANT TO RUIN THE DREAM! ;)

    • http://twitter.com/sakisaki6 SakiVI

      lol

  • ethernautrix

    For a long time, it was a toss-up between this MbMB and Sailor BB as to which was my favorite blue, and then I started using brown inks — mostly Noodler’s browns and Noodler’s Black, then NB and NBrns, and now, since the end of July when I brought MbMB back into use, it’s been NB and MbMB. There is something alluring about this blue-black that makes me want to use it.

    Nice review, Doc Brown!

  • Breck

    I sitll don’t understand the purpose of the 2nd writing sample after the drying time 3 strokes. The first is a flex which makes sense. But then there are a medium, bold and italic and I can’t see if they are flex or what?

  • http://twitter.com/sakisaki6 SakiVI

    Maybe it’s the lighting, but I see a purplish tone that’s sort of goth-chic. Love it!

  • http://fpgeeks.com/ Dan Smith

    Stephen, @2:10, Serial killer? Hitchcock Red, silly.

    • ArtJourney

      Hehe!

  • kondro

    Great ink… you made me go out and buy this today. Definitely like it over the Diamine Eclipse and Rohrer & Klinger Blau Shwarz.

    This may sound strange but I quite like the metallic tang in the air when writing with iron gall inks and the slight squeekiness they have.

  • http://twitter.com/Januaryman13 J. Blackie

    Great review as usual, Stephan. One suggestion; when you spoke about cleaning, you rightly differentiated between 1) an ink *requiring* a good cleaning, and 2) an ink having properties that *make* the pen hard to clean. Very true. I suggest that, if a pen falls in the latter category, you call that property “Staining,” as demonstrated in your changing the clear Ahab pen into a blue pen using only a bit of Noodler’s Bay State Blue. I, for one, would welcome an indication that a certain ink MAY stain my demonstrator pens. So that is my suggestion – a property called “Staining.” My own database of inks that I have used has that same category that is populated with datum marked True for any ink that is too stubborn to be willingly removed from a pen.

    So. That’s it. Bye for now.

    • Stephen Brown

      I see the point: the next installment was already shot when I read this, but I will see what I can do next time!

  • Tamara

    This is my #1 ink, tied with Iroshizuku asa-gao actually. Great review!

  • http://twitter.com/sakisaki6 SakiVI

    Will you do a shoot out with the new j. Herbin 1670?

    • Stephen Brown

      Do you mean that blue ink?

  • ArtJourney

    What colour is the sky at 00:00am? A very dark, almost blackish blue…. lets call it…Midnight Blue.
    Glad to see this ink reviewed as I do not think it is a typical Iron Gall ink. Iron Gall is usually very very water resistant (think Diamine’s Registrar’s Ink) and it did not seem like this ink was very waterproof. I wonder if it would really stand up to a soak test? I wouldn’t use it for artistic endeavours as there is way too much colour runoff and it’s not pretty enough for a nice washed out pen and ink effect.
    Thanks for the review.

    • Stephen Brown

      I did some sserious soaking at some ppoint (not in this video, though), and the ink remained legible, which is good enough for me. But for artists (or people like you :-P ), more water-resistance (and/or colour-fastness) may be needed!

  • vhr5

    Stephen, I know time is a factor with these videos, have you considered using a hot air dryer to quickly dry the ink?

  • Breck

    This dark blue and the previous Diamine Twilight seem quite similar. I hope that in future you will not duplicate hues and such so closely. As it is you will be limited in the number of inks you can “-cyclopediate” for us hence each one of your videos is precious time and should be well spent on the full gamut. N’est pas?

  • Tim Marshall

    Really interesting ink. I agree that with a wide nib pen it looks very good, with the fine, it didn’t look special to me. On my monitor it did look a very dark blue. If I were to do artwork or italic text, I would try it.

  • Alexi

    It would be interesting to compare this ink to Noodler’s 54th Massachusetts.

  • Ced Nocon

    I just got this ink. I’ve been reluctant because of the whole iron gall thing. But I just love it! I think the reason why people enjoy it’s unique color/tonal value is for the same reason a lot of artists either love or hate Payne’s Gray paint. If you look at many of Patrick Nagel’s original serigraph works, Midnight Blue comes close to a lot of his greys. Payne’s Grey… and Midnight Blue… are both much like mixing the acrylic or oil colors Ultramarine Blue and Ivory Black. You get almost the same look and as close to the same shading when used as a wash painting.