Dronak
May 5th, 2018, 10:31 AM
Hi, all. In the thread about recently acquired inks, I mentioned that I got a number of Colorverse inks and there was a request to provide information about them here. I wouldn't really consider this a review, so I'm posting it here, but the admins can move it if they think it's a better fit for another forum.
First, a scan of writing samples of the inks, then a picture with a close-up of the two glistening inks, trying to show off the shimmer.
Paper = Rhodia DotPad No. 12 = 80 gsm = 21.3 lb. Dots are spaced 5mm apart; they may not show up well here, but my writing (except for descenders) is within the dot spacing.
Pens = J. Herbin smooth glass dip pen (the low-cost model) when not specified; other pens are named and have medium nibs.
For the glistening inks, I re-dipped the pen between the two samples. For all of the other colors, I did not; both lines were written on one dip.
39439
39441
Some brief thoughts:
I don't normally use non-bluish inks, so I don't have that much to say about Andromeda Glistening. It's a darker red and while the shimmer is there, it doesn't seem to show up as well as Crystal Planet Glistening does. Of course, that could be the dip pen or how how well I got the simmer particle distributed. I think Colorverse says the colors of the glistening and regular Crystal Planet colors are slightly different, but it's kind of hard for me to tell that, at least if the lighting doesn't really reveal the shimmer. However, the shimmer on Crystal Planet does seem to show up fairly well, possibly because the ink is a lighter color than Andromeda?
Gravity Wave and Morning Star would both be classified as green inks, I think, with Gravity Wave appearing darker than Morning Star. With my general preference for bluish inks, I think I like Gravity Wave better, but both of them are generally nice colors. Morning Star does seem a bit like Pelikan Edelstein Aquamarine to me, but a bit darker and maybe greener. (Aquamarine wasn't what I hoped it would be, and to me is a bit like a faded green.) I haven't used either of them outside of this writing sample, so I can't say much else right now.
The other colors are all basically in the blue family. Extra Dimension looks like a rather dark blue, but it also sometimes seems to have a bit of a greenish tint to me. In that sense, it reminds me a little bit of how Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo tends to look fairly green in finer nibs and a sort of darker greenish-blue in broader nibs, but overall this seems like a darker and bluer color than Tsuki-yo. Sometimes it also looks a bit more black than blue, I think.
I think Proxima B and Saturn V are basically blue-black inks, with Proxima B looking like the darker one to me. I haven't used these outside of this writing samples here, so I don't have too much to say about them either.
Quasar looks to me like a nice, very dark blue, maybe something in the kind of midnight color range. At the moment, I don't have many dark inks like this in my pens, so this was the first Colorverse ink I put into a fountain pen. The Waterman Phileas medium nib does seem to write a little wet/broad, but maybe it just seems that way because I basically always have one or two Pilots inked up and the Japanese nibs seem to lean a bit fine for their size. Warped Passages seems like a nice medium sort of blue color, but I haven't used it to say much more. I will note that the second line looks darker than the first for it here because I rotated the pen around -- while the dip pen is generally pretty good, it's not exactly consistent at all rotations, and apparently my first line was written in a drier orientation than the second line, even though there should have been less ink for the second line having already written the first. Anyway.
Crystal Planet and Supernova seem like similar colors to me. With the dip pen here, Crystal Planet looks lighter than Supernova, but as you can see from the writing sample with the Pilot Prera, Supernova looks somewhat lighter in a fountain pen than with the dip pen, at least as written here. Also, Supernova reminds me a lot of Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki, but a slightly darker version of it. For me, Kon-peki never seemed to appear quite as dark as I thought it would be from what I saw on the web; Supernova is more like what I thought Kon-peki would be.
I think that touches on all of the Colorverse inks I have right now. I could probably go for the other blue/bluish inks in the Multiverse third season, but in-stock samples of them aren't that easy to find and being sold in two different sized bottles, I'm not a big fan of the ink colors they're paired with, so I'll probably pass on buying full bottles like I did with Extra Dimension and Warped Passages (they're both blue, so I figured I'd be fine with them).
I hope this is of some help to anyone looking at the bluish range of Colorverse inks. :)
First, a scan of writing samples of the inks, then a picture with a close-up of the two glistening inks, trying to show off the shimmer.
Paper = Rhodia DotPad No. 12 = 80 gsm = 21.3 lb. Dots are spaced 5mm apart; they may not show up well here, but my writing (except for descenders) is within the dot spacing.
Pens = J. Herbin smooth glass dip pen (the low-cost model) when not specified; other pens are named and have medium nibs.
For the glistening inks, I re-dipped the pen between the two samples. For all of the other colors, I did not; both lines were written on one dip.
39439
39441
Some brief thoughts:
I don't normally use non-bluish inks, so I don't have that much to say about Andromeda Glistening. It's a darker red and while the shimmer is there, it doesn't seem to show up as well as Crystal Planet Glistening does. Of course, that could be the dip pen or how how well I got the simmer particle distributed. I think Colorverse says the colors of the glistening and regular Crystal Planet colors are slightly different, but it's kind of hard for me to tell that, at least if the lighting doesn't really reveal the shimmer. However, the shimmer on Crystal Planet does seem to show up fairly well, possibly because the ink is a lighter color than Andromeda?
Gravity Wave and Morning Star would both be classified as green inks, I think, with Gravity Wave appearing darker than Morning Star. With my general preference for bluish inks, I think I like Gravity Wave better, but both of them are generally nice colors. Morning Star does seem a bit like Pelikan Edelstein Aquamarine to me, but a bit darker and maybe greener. (Aquamarine wasn't what I hoped it would be, and to me is a bit like a faded green.) I haven't used either of them outside of this writing sample, so I can't say much else right now.
The other colors are all basically in the blue family. Extra Dimension looks like a rather dark blue, but it also sometimes seems to have a bit of a greenish tint to me. In that sense, it reminds me a little bit of how Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo tends to look fairly green in finer nibs and a sort of darker greenish-blue in broader nibs, but overall this seems like a darker and bluer color than Tsuki-yo. Sometimes it also looks a bit more black than blue, I think.
I think Proxima B and Saturn V are basically blue-black inks, with Proxima B looking like the darker one to me. I haven't used these outside of this writing samples here, so I don't have too much to say about them either.
Quasar looks to me like a nice, very dark blue, maybe something in the kind of midnight color range. At the moment, I don't have many dark inks like this in my pens, so this was the first Colorverse ink I put into a fountain pen. The Waterman Phileas medium nib does seem to write a little wet/broad, but maybe it just seems that way because I basically always have one or two Pilots inked up and the Japanese nibs seem to lean a bit fine for their size. Warped Passages seems like a nice medium sort of blue color, but I haven't used it to say much more. I will note that the second line looks darker than the first for it here because I rotated the pen around -- while the dip pen is generally pretty good, it's not exactly consistent at all rotations, and apparently my first line was written in a drier orientation than the second line, even though there should have been less ink for the second line having already written the first. Anyway.
Crystal Planet and Supernova seem like similar colors to me. With the dip pen here, Crystal Planet looks lighter than Supernova, but as you can see from the writing sample with the Pilot Prera, Supernova looks somewhat lighter in a fountain pen than with the dip pen, at least as written here. Also, Supernova reminds me a lot of Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki, but a slightly darker version of it. For me, Kon-peki never seemed to appear quite as dark as I thought it would be from what I saw on the web; Supernova is more like what I thought Kon-peki would be.
I think that touches on all of the Colorverse inks I have right now. I could probably go for the other blue/bluish inks in the Multiverse third season, but in-stock samples of them aren't that easy to find and being sold in two different sized bottles, I'm not a big fan of the ink colors they're paired with, so I'll probably pass on buying full bottles like I did with Extra Dimension and Warped Passages (they're both blue, so I figured I'd be fine with them).
I hope this is of some help to anyone looking at the bluish range of Colorverse inks. :)