For December I decided to only use inks from last year’s Diamine Inkvent. The pens are just shiny and I like them. I also kept the Magic Green pen and the Forever Purple pen. I want to try to keep the green pen filled for a full year, so need to keep it going until March 2023. And I don’t think I could exist without a really solid purple ink, so had to keep that one! The rest of the palette inks are a mix of Inkvent ones I have used before and some I’ve always wanted to try but I couldn’t fit them into other palette’s this year.
December Pen/Ink Palette combos!
And just to list all of those out, if you’re curious! I couldn’t find links for any of the inks, my apologies, but if you google the names you can read a lot of different reviews. Or wait for mine in January! And the links for the pens are mostly going to be to the creator themselves or the model of pen from that creator. Most of these pens use resin blanks from various other creators, and aren’t available all of the time, but I wanted you all to be able to find the creators at least!
I am very excited to try these pens – picked up a couple of new brands. And I really like the ink palette, it feels nice, the colors are pretty. Wish me luck that they all work well!
Alright, to review, this whole palette started with the idea of a “comfy” theme, and when I started thinking about comfy pen/ink combos I started thinking about combos I had used before that worked well. Which led me to the idea of picking a combo from each month between January and October of 2021 and using that as my palette.
So I did. I went back through all of my palettes. Although the palettes from before April were definitely not documented in my Monthly Palette Journal where I recorded what I ended up using – which made things a bit tricky. But, I picked pairs out and started using them – but I ended up making some changes, which I’ll explain later:
This combo clogged as well, and was equally frustrating! These two inks really did reflect my experience in January and February of 2022 with my palettes.
I immediately had trouble with the January and February pens. Looking back more closely at my notes I realize I had always had trouble with them. So I thought, welp maybe I’ll try a different pair – and when I looked more closely at both of those months it became clear those two palettes were kind of the worst.
The thing is, I discovered shimmer inks later in 2021, and my Daily Samples for December were all Van Dieman shimmer inks, so by January and February of 2022 I was very hooked on shimmer inks. And I struggled to use them in my pens which I found incredibly frustrating! Which is why when the Ferris Wheel Press Moonlight Jade worked without a single issue in my Hong Dian pen in March I was so absolutely thrilled!
As I was looking into this and trying to decide if I wanted to keep struggling with those two pens, I ran across and instagram post from @claire_scribbles (check) about the #30Inks30Days challenge for November being about sampling old favorites. Which is similar to what I was doing for my November palette…except the favorites part. That got me thinking, maybe I’ll look back thru all of the palettes and see if I had any other favorites – and turns out – I did! So I threw the whole “one combo from each month” out the window, and went back looking for any combos that worked and were loved. I looked thru the Monthly Palette Journal, where I make notes about the combo performance, and for anything prior to April I went looking in my Captain’s Logs for those times and looked for any complaining or performance issues. And came up with more than 20 options. Since I try to only carry around 10 pens at a time in my palette, I needed to narrow it down.
I started by keeping the 8 pens I had picked out already and were behaving. And mostly looked for combos that helped me round out the ink palette color range wise. But what was interesting to me were the combos that stood out – like Bloom in the Peach Punch Twsbi Diamond – it was the first pink I used and liked, in my April palette. I’d used a bunch of pinks in February and it made me so grumpy that they both didn’t work and the colors were irritating that I switched to the March palette early. And in April I found a pink I liked AND it performed well. So I kept using it in May! Or Kon-Peki, which was a blue I used really early on, first time in September of 2021. I’d gotten into all of this pen stuff in late August 2021, and I got a sample pack of blue inks and Kon-Peki was in it, and I liked it, and I put it in a pen when I built my first rainbow palette. I put it in my Twsbi Diamond Mini. And I loved it. Used it into October 2021 before I switched it out. I wasn’t using month palettes at that point. But it came back in my May 2022 palette in a Kaweco, and continued into June just in another pen. One of the reasons this one stands out is it is not a shimmer ink and yet, I still adore it. And there were other examples like that, combos I liked enough to pull into the next month’s palette, and inks I liked enough I swapped them into different pens to keep using them.
My 2022 November Ink/Pen Palette!
I ended up with 12 pens – rather fitting, considering it’s a year review, although I did stick to combos from 2022. When I started listing out which combos were from which months, I realized some combos could be from multiple months! Actually, only 2 of the 12 are combos I only used once, but I distinctly remember wanting to use them more than once. In case anyone is interested: 1 of them is a pen I inked in late April but ended up using through May. 2 of the inks I put in a pen and never took out. 2 inks I used in multiple months but not back to back and in different pens. 3 more are pens I used across 2 months. And there are 2 from October I am using in November, so I guess technically one of those joins the “used across 2 months” club, and the other counts towards the group that I used in multiple months but different pens!
So this ended up being a proper review, because each of those categories hits a 2022 trend for my palettes. Even washing out 2 pens almost immediately fits a decision I made pretty early on to not persist for too long with a pen that bugged me. Made that decision after the February palette. I remember being SO GRUMPY which utterly defeated the entire purpose of using these pens in the first place. The Narwhal pen with Sosdajgh in it – pen arrived IN November, so never used it before, but that’s something I did often, adding a pen completely unrelated to the palette purely because I wanted to use it IMMEDIATELY. Usually I decreed it an accent color. Actually, Bloom was my accent color for May, since that theme was all Blues. So even that one fits!
I will list the pens I did end up using – and why! I find this rather fascinating. I really enjoyed the things I discovered and learned and developed. Like how I don’t reeeeally need a whole rainbow. (Even tho rainbows are absolutely delightful and satisfying and completely legitimate.) I figured out what was satisfying for a palette and worked out good themes along those lines. I learned how many pens I could actually use in month. I worked out how to deal with shimmer pens when they clog. I started filling the removable converters with a syringe. I settled on a good way to use the different colors for work. I discovered new pen makers and new inks. I even did art. Yay art.
November Pen Test, sans the Ghost pen which had to be cleaned out early when it ran out of ink, and the Forever pens because I use those all the time anyway!
January: NOPE. Could not find a pen combo from January I wanted to use.
I tried Subzero in the Twsbi Diamond, altho originally this ink was in a Twsbi Eco. It didn’t perform well in either of them so after trying to make it work with my new found skill set at handling shimmer inks and having that fail, I decided to put this one away. February’s palette made me so very very grumpy this year that I decided moving forward to just clean out a pen if it was bugging me too much.
February: NOPE. This was a very frustrating month for me. The pens either didn’t work or the ink were colors I really didn’t like. I actually ended up emptying almost all of these pens about half way through the month!
I really like shimmer inks, but at this point nothing was working well and it made me want to throw things because Van Dieman shimmer inks are so gorgeous. The one I felt truly betrayed by in January was another Van Dieman: Twilight Mist, but! I kept trying. I had a theory with that brand that I just needed to find a good pen and the shimmer inks would behave. (The secret usually is having a wide nib, for the record.)
And lo and behold – a pen and shimmer ink that WORKED. I swore I would never put it down. Never. We shall see how long that is true. But please know – I was so incredibly delighted. (AND this is an EF nib! Why does it work?? No one knows.)
This was another satisfying combo – both of the TWSBI Diamond pens I tried to use in the beginning with different inks ended up with shimmer inks from brands I had looked in to after Van Dieman frustrated me so badly. I was chasing a theory that each brand handle shimmer differently, largely stemming from how Diamine shimmer inks and Van Dieman shimmer inks performed so differently between November and December of my 2021 samples. The only reason Zoanthid didn’t go from my 2022 March palette it into my 2022 April palette was I had chosen bright rainbow colors for April, and a teal didn’t really work.
Pink? Seriously? Pink. I needed a red for my 2022 April rainbow and I loathe red inks more than I dislike pinks, so I picked a pink for my April Rainbow Palette. And I liked it so much I justified using it in my 2022 May palette because I was going to use all blues and I needed an accent color. And it remains one of the only pink inks I actually enjoy using.
It’s the right color purple – a cool purple, that is desaturated enough to LOOK purple, and has shimmer that showed nicely. In this pen it mostly behaves. And the pen is sparkly. So I decided to also never put this combo away. I’ve only had to empty it once completely so far and that is because I made an absolute mess filling the converter with a syringe the first time I tried it. Which made me nervous the next time I went to fill it so! The entire pen top to bottom got beautifully cleaned sometime in August 2022 and otherwise I just keep refilling it.
I actually started using this ink in April 2022, late April, the day the custom architect nib I had ordered arrived. This ink was originally in my Gravitas pen, with this same nib. I put it in a different pen for my 2022 November palette because I really love this resin. I love being able to use both top and bottom of the nib to get those different line widths and I think this was the nib that I decided to use for headers in my notebooks.
Okay this one is fun! It was one of the original inks I used in the first set of pens I ever kept inked. I put it in the Twsbi Diamond mini first in September of 2021, then used it into October 2021, but switched it out sometime in that month. It re emerged in May of 2022, with a Kaweco pen. Then I swapped it into another pen in June, a Cult Pens x Kaweco collaboration. And now it’s back in the first Kaweco pen I had it in! This ink is delightful and NOT a shimmer ink and yet I still adore it. May 2022 was when I started to accept that if I wanted a pen that worked well without having to fuss with it every time I used it, I might need to find non shimmer inks I enjoyed using. Sigh. For the record, there is like, a thousand blue inks that fit this category. But not many purples.
This was another fun one – I fell in love with this ink fast, because it is a blue, but also can shade purple, and has rose-gold shimmer. I adore it. And finding a pen that would write consistently was difficult. It wasn’t until August that I actually found a Sailor pen with a MF nib to put it in and be able to trust it worked consistently. But since June was another month with a disappointing palette, I fudged which pen I put this ink in a tiny bit. I first used this ink in November of 2021 in a Twsbi Eco. Kept using it in December and then January of 2022. In February I moved it into the Twsbi Navy Blue Diamond, where it lived until April. I put it back in the Twsbi Diamond for May and June, cleaned it out in July, and it joined my palette again in August in the Sailor. So technically an ink I used in June, just not the pen. The ink works pretty consistently in this Sailor pen, but to be honest it isn’t perfect. I was originally thinking that this would be my third forever pen alongside the Purple and Green I am using, but alas. Still too frustrating to be kept inked forever.
I desperately wanted this pen – it has a fidget built into the clip on the cap. It’s not intended as a fidget but it is one and I needed it. The one I got has a lot of orange in it, so! For my July palette theme of Summer, I needed a really good orange. Enter Wonderland! Loved it so much I managed to justify using it into August, for my Sunset theme. It performs so beautifully. I was super excited to have it back in my November palette. And it worked beautifully as usual!
A non shimmer purple that I like! What! So excited. SO EXCITED. I loved how this pair worked. I didn’t use it in the September palette, because it didn’t fit into the Fall theme, so enthusiastically added it back in for the review theme in November!
Wearingeul inks sampled in August brought me Flowing Leaves which is a truly delicious green – and distinct enough from Moonlight Jade that I was able to justify keeping them both in my palette. I had started insisting inks of the same color had to be distinct shades, because sometime in June or July I think I started using two different color inks in one day for my work notes, alternating per line item so I could read my notes easier. In August I switched to just using the entire palette, mostly because I couldn’t find 2 ink shades for the whole palette that I liked enough. But, I ended up liking this ink so much I used it in my October palette for my Zombie Spoopy Monster. Yet another ink brand with excellent shimmers! I am going to have a very hard time putting this ink away.
Another Wearingeul shimmer ink – one of 3 in the October palette actually, all 3 of which are still being used in November. This was originally in a different pen, but I actually can’t remember which one? I HAD to put it in the Mad Science Pen Company “Ghost” pen the instant it arrived. The INSTANT. And it has performed beautifully, and I love continuing to use it. I ended up having some trouble with the ink dribbling out into the nib when it was resting capped so I ended up having to clean this one out early, mostly because I completely ran out of the ink sample. I spilled this vial, if I recall correctly, when I was first sampling it. And of COURSE it is out of stock everywhere. Sigh.
This entire year I tried very hard to create palettes I would find engaging and delightful. Occasionally a pen or ink arrives after the theme is put together and I just HAVE to use it. And that is how I justified using this pen in this palette! I put together a palette to review pen and ink combos that worked well, one from every month between January and October of 2021. But THIS pen arrived in November – and I was having an extremely bad day when it showed up and Aaron encouraged me to put an ink in it I love just for the night. And now I refuse to put it away muahahah because I love it. So, technically, it fits in this year’s review! 🙂
November Monthly Palette Journal
I think it’ll be interesting to see what ends up happening around this time next year. Will I have even MORE options to choose from because I get amazing at combining pens and inks and they all work beautifully? Or will I take more risks because I’ve gotten better and now I think I can do ANYTHING. Hmmm…I do want to try some more custom nibs. I want to keep trying new brands of inks, and paper types, and experimenting. So who knows? I guess we’ll just have to find out.
November begins! This month I got Maiora inks from Truphae and Octopus Fluids from Ink Flight! Interestingly named inks, I must say.
Maiora Inks
Maiora inks are made in Italy and are most often described as vibrant when googled. I have been super tired lately so I didn’t get to look into this brand as much as I’d like. I know I’ve seen other reviews of it and they have a good reputation.
Rossa Pompeiano, looks red in the photo but in person it looks like a nice pink to me.
Blu Caprese, a purply blue, or a blue with faint purple tones, my favorite!
Nero Vesuvio, tough to find a true black ink. Looks black when wet, but dries to a very dark grey, hints of brown undertone.
Maiora: Giallo Tufo, Viola Amalfitano
Giallo Tufo, a lovely bright orange, yum!
Viola Amalfitano, nice medium purple, feels slightly multi chromatic, I really like it’s tone. Slightly worried about staining my metal nib – but ended up fine.
I haven’t tried this pen yet, and I’m not sure when I will. The Monteverde pens I have tried I liked, but the coloring of this one isn’t something I usually use.
Octopus Fluids – these inks are pigmented, water proof and smudge proof – I think. Because of that I was super careful with them when I did the samples, and I expected to have some trouble keeping my metal nib clean. I only had an issue with one ink which I’ll describe below. I will include the text on the piece of paper that describes the inks below my own thoughts and in quotations.
Octopus Fluids: Aubergine, Brilliant Rot, Karibik
Aubergine, purple! It’s pretty! Concerned about how sticky it is though. I had some trouble getting it cleaned off the holder for my metal nib. And I did not see the halo or the sheen, but that might be the paper I am using. “This charming purple ink has a blue halo with some light sheen.”
Brilliant Rot, weird name but okay! Very bright red. “This bold red stands out on the page like fire.”
Karibik, nice turquoise, although I did get it all over me! I shake the vials gently before sampling and when I opened the lid it burst out all over me and my desk! I think it was me though and not due to the ink haha. ”Sail the refreshing waves of this aqua blue-green ink.”
Sepia Schwarz, kind of a smoky brown. I drew a tree. Which I will not be showing the internet haha. “Write with vintage style using this dark, woody, neutral brown ink.”
Orange, pretty orange! Bright, yellow tones. Did not see any shading but again, could be my paper. “Bright and cheery, this juicy golden-orange color has smoky shading.”
Pebble Stone, very light grey, and I thought I saw some purple hints in it. “Part of the ‘pastel,’ this light grey ink has a soft appearance that shades well.”
Weinrot, dark maroon or burgundy I think, with very faint sheen. “This saturated, deep burgundy red has a dark sheen.”
22 November Ink Flight: Octopus Fluids, Sepia Schwarz, Aubergine, Orange, Brilliant Rot, Pebble Stone, Karibik, WeinrotOctopus Fluids Ink Flight, 100 sheets of loose leaf A5 paper from Iroful, and a shiny Science Octopus sticker!
The inks turned out really cool, I liked all of the colors. I worry about pigmented inks in my pens and have even had warnings accompany some of them about not using them in that particular pen. Here is where I show my inexperience! Actually, the entire pack highlighted how much I still have to learn. For example, I thought this paper would be awesome to use, it’s a fancier grade and everything. But some of my pens end up sort of going dry and skipping when I write on it. Not sure why. Discovered a hard surface under the page instead of another page or a softer surface does help, but! Must still investigate. And I continue to love these stickers.
I enjoy how these subscriptions keep exposing me to new inks, pens, and accessories. I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing them but as of next month I’ll have been subscribed to Truphae for an entire year! They are certainly still fun.
Okay, remember how I told you that the Collection I was in charge of got stolen, and now I’m in charge of finding them? Well, I found one! I think. The thing is, I heard it was in a shop right here in Portal. So I headed down to just ask where he got the book, and maybe look at it quickly. But he argued with me! Can you believe that? I’m a librarian, and all I did was ask him if it was stolen, why in the world would he get so mad and defensive??? So, anyway, he pulled this stone out of his pocket and chucked it at the ground and said some nonsense word and a demon appeared! It was so cool looking, but it kept trying to bite me…
So, you know how you keep teasing me about the spells I know just being useful in the library? You…might be right. I got distracted trying to figure out how it was moving because it kept seeming to blur out of existence around the edges and it kept trying to bite me and it hurt! Anyway, this paladin came out of no where! I was yelling at the demon and trying to take some notes and the shopkeeper was literally hopping mad, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, come to think of it…But this paladin! Her name is Speak, and she just walked in, shut the demon down, healed my bites, and then…well honestly she looked kind of disappointed, but she did not say a single word! I actually didn’t learn her name until we got to the temple, oh speaking of which, so the book I thought the shopkeeper had, the one that was maybe part of my stolen collection? She took it! She took it from the shopkeeper, since it had caused a disturbance, and she took it back to the temple of Tyr! I think that’s how you spell it…feels silly, me, a librarian, not knowing how to spell something, but a girl can’t know everything right! Anyway I followed her back to her temple, so maybe I can convince her to get it out of the vault for me.
Oh! Also, I got that pen you made me – it’s gorgeous! The brass fittings are curved perfectly for my hand – of course they are, right, since we’re twins haha – but the glass ink vials that I can swap out are just incredible, and I know you know this but I also know your brain is mean to you sometimes – just like mine – so trust me, this is INCREDIBLE. The other librarians are jealous, and I love it. Also what are these glass vials made out of, because you know I drop things, like we do, and I haven’t broken one yet! Dropped, yes, broken, no. I appreciate the extra empty ones too, because I have been trying out some new ink recipes, and two things – one, the vials are perfect because I have a place to keep the experiments, and second, the pen is robust enough to handle any…misfires? It writes so smoothly and I don’t know why but I feel such a sense of…calm? Peace? Joy? I’m not really sure what it is, but I like it, whenever I write with it. I know you worked really hard on this and I think it’s perfect, I’m really going to be able to make a lot of use out of it, it’s really going to help me develop more of my spells. You’re wonderful.
Oh and you asked for my impressions, so more critically, haha, since I know you like that! There is a small burr on the edge near the back, I’m not sure if that rough spot is supposed to help hold the glass vials in the pen casing or whether it’s something you missed, but it is rough enough to cause scrapes, so I figured I’d mention it. Also, two of the seven vials you sent me are just barely able to fit in there, I can feel the glass sort of screeching quickly when I squeak them in there. I found that the feed doesn’t seem to like a thicker ink, so I am working on keeping as many particulates out as I can, but there are some spells that just…need them? So I was wondering if you could take a look at that a little bit? I could really use more vials too, I really want to experiment some more because I think I’m going to be traveling soon and I’ll have access to all kinds of things that could be really interesting. I am doing most of my mixing in larger vials, ones that aren’t designed for the pen, which are still small enough to carry with me, so no worries there, but what I am worried about is developing enough spells that I won’t have enough quick vials to put them in and…well.
You were right, I should have studied more spells that would be useful in a fight…you were right. But I can’t help it Veri! I can’t help it, the spells I get interested in are just more complex and interesting than something like shooting something at someone. You know what I mean. But I am working on it. Or I will. I will work on it. I promise. But more vials would help k thanks haha.
The tea you sent is much appreciated, I like what you’ve done with this latest batch, it helps me wake up a bit faster in the morning and it still takes the edge off my aches, but I wanted to mention that if I drink too much straight water after my morning cup of tea then the aches do come back. Which I thought you would appreciate. Feel free to send me more of your experiments, and I can send my notes back to you. And if you would like to try any of my experiments, let me know! I know you don’t like ink as much as I do, but you never know, you might learn something haha just kidding – or am I?
Veri, I miss you. I know you need to travel like this, but I just…I wish we could do it together sometimes. I know I was never really useful to the kinds of research you are doing but maybe once I find all of these lost books I’ll have learned enough to join you some day.
Loves you oodles and doodles, let me know if you hear from any of the rest of our sisters, and I’ll write soon!
I would like to begin with! This is all The Husband’s fault. But let me explain.
I have two characters in two different Dungeons and Dragon’s games. Run by two different game masters. The first one I created when I was getting really excited about tea – and the GM helped me make a character that was an alchemist artificer, to I could use the tea for my spells. He let me have her be an ambulatory wheelchair user, and she’s autistic, because I really wanted to play a character that felt like me and there are mechanics to support it now! Her name is Verin TrueStone, and I love her. Then I got invited to play in another game and I was like, well…I like Verin a lot, but I need someone else to play…ah heck what if she had a twin.
See the thing is, I find twins a really interesting mechanic. I am writing a book about twins actually, but that’s neither here nor there. So, of course, twins. Both human, both autistic, and both ambulatory wheelchair users, because both of my GM’s are a delight.
Now the differences are how they magic – because magic systems is yet another thing I find fascinating. So, Verin is an alchemist artificer. And Auster, her twin, is a wizard librarian. Verin casts her spells with tea, and Auster casts them with ink. Tada! I thought up Auster when I started getting hilariously into fountain pens and inks. Much like Verin came out of my interest in teas. It’s been fun so far.
Now, the bit about how what you’ll see next in this area is The Husband’s fault. In our last session of the Caterean campaign (Nov 4th 2022) I made a joke about how I should play the Letter Game with my two twin characters. And he was Iike oh heck do it and post it on your site! So here we are.
What’s the Letter Game? I don’t know if it has an official name or anything, but I played something like it when I was a kid on long car rides, and I’ve heard a bunch of different versions described, but I was mostly referring to what Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer did writing The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. If I remember correctly, they wrote letters back and forth to each other as the characters in what eventually became that book. So what I am doing here is writing letters back and forth between Verin and Auster, from their respective campaigns.
I will not necessarily be writing a letter per session, but rather whenever I feel like it. That will most likely be inspired by interesting things that happen in the games, or random backstory pieces I want to develop. This is meant to give me a creative writing outlet that I plan to thoroughly enjoy. I will title the posts by which sister is doing the writing and I’ll date it using the general month of whatever hame session prompted me. Keep in mind I will maybe be taking artistic license, but I will try to run things by my GM’s when I feel I need to. And I will try very hard to make sure I am not speaking for any of the other player’s characters without running it by them first. This is meant to just be a fun creative outlet, so don’t take any of this too seriously! Just enjoy.
Pennonia Inks! I found this page on how to pronounce the inks names and I was incredibly entertained. 😂 This brand has raaaange heck.
Heckin messed up the
11th haha look at that mess! At least it was with two pretty colors.
Now, I couldn’t figure out a way to really group these, so we’re just going to look at 10ish at a time. There are darks, lights, saturated, chromatic, pretty much everything but shimmer. And! This was one of those inks with a small enough library (at the time I was looking) that I could finish out almost the entire thing in one month! I have one more which I’ll try in my November set of Daily Samples. Let’s take a look! It was a little strange having so many pastel type shades at the beginning of a spoop month haha.
Pennonia 001 – 010!
001 Orgona Lilac – Another blue lilac, multi chromatic, but on the light side. Reminds me of fairy wings.
002 Balaton Kek – Multi-chromatic blues, faintest hint of lavender.
003 Ragu Bubblegum – Very light peach, soft and pretty.
004 Danuvius Danube – Light blue, with some pink shading, another multi-chromatic!
005 Zuzmo Lichen – Soft green, fresh looking, orange shadinf which doesn’t muddy it – unusual! And the last of the multi-chromatics for a while.
006 Abigel – Oh heck a hot pink! And readable!
007 Kekek Kekje – I like this blue, medium dark, jewel tone, performs really well.
008 Patina – Light teal, fairly readable, reminds me of a copper patina. Without the copper.
009 Gyermeklancfu – Burnt orange yellow.
010 Selyempezsgo – Pale peach, reminds me of tea! I like tea.
Pennonia 011 – 020!
011 Fekete Sas – Blue black, fun to write with, not a fun color tho.
012 Almazold Apple Green – Nice dark green, darker medium green.
013 Csillant Nettle – Reminds me of that first Granny’s Apple green apple of the summer – did that make sense? It makes sense. Ahem.
014 Dungo – Butter yellow, no! Egg yolk yellow.
015 Hupikek Whoopie Blue – Brigth blue, pool/beach blue.
016 Kekfesto – Nice standard dark blue, light blue is nice too.
017 Lila Arnyek Purple – Not one bit of purple in this ink, disappointed. However this dark blue ink is fun to write with, very well behaved and controlled. (But no purple, grumble grumble grumble.)
018 Meggyes Sour Cherry – Reminds me of cherry juice, not maraschino, like the bourbon soaked cherries we get sometimes.
019 Meregzold – Teal! Good teal.
020 Ordogi Volos Devil Red – Bright lipstick red. More pink than devil red.
Pennonia 021 – 031!
021 Roka Koma Fox Friend – Bright orange, with a red base that grounds it nicely.
022 Tihanyi Lila – Reminds me of the ink I have called Nightshade but a touch more purple. Shading inks are really interesting.
023 Torokkek Turkish Blue – Sheeny blue, purple sheen, dense lighter blue, with some aquamarine. Complicated ink!
024 Vattacukor – Dark pink. Rose pink, has a flower petal softness to it.
025 Viharfelho – Dark grey when wet, fades to a medium grey when dry.
026 Kekfeny – Medium blue, red sheen = purple! Yay purple.
027 Mustvoros Young Wine – Reddish orangeish/brownish tones?
028 Gesztenyebarna Chestnut – Maybe not a chestnut brown, exactly, but definitely brown.
029 Rezvoros Copper – Pastel, peach color – might be chromatic?
030 Zoldike – Grass green, yellow/tan undertones.
031 Godenyzold Pelikan – ooo caught the sheen! Dark green/teal, hint of reddish sheen.
Whew! Quite the month. I do miss shimmers tho!
All of my Pennonia colors!
I’ve got another set of solid standard inks in my collection. Two months in a row of no shimmer is tough tho, so looking forward to next month’s samples! Altho those chromatics were fun. These were nice and low maintenance. Which I hilariously appreciate.
Instead of a new ink – despite having like dozens I wanted to try – I decided to look back and pull inks from the brands I had tried this year. The idea came to me when I was looking at the Pennonia inks to follow the Akkerman inks. There were only a couple more than 30 in both brands (- at least when I was looking at them). And that completion rule I have kept bugging me, and I was trying to think of a way to use the extra ones. Maybe I could build a collection that finishes out each brand? I started looking at all of the other brands, and then the part of my brain that thinks it’s an archivist immediately started doing research into my own past. (It was super fun. Like, for real real.) I looked through notebooks, and looked up specific samples, and ended up realizing that there were some brands that would definitely not fit into a single month. Here’s the list of the ink brands I tried since January of 2022, and then the inks I am planning to sample this month:
So many potentially pretty inks!
January: I hadn’t quite figured everything out in January, so I didn’t focus on just one brand this month, instead it was tiny little glass bottles from Yoseko Stationary that I focused on, because they are adorable. Also I am still figuring out Brand vs. Line of ink. So! Much confusion, and this may not be correct, but I’m trying! Taccia: 1. Hokusai Benitsuchi 2. Sharaku Kurocha 3. Utamaro Usuzumi 4. Utamaro Ume Murasaki 5. Hokusai Fukakihanada
February: Robert Oster – so many inks! So none for the Daily Samples in November.
March: Kiwi Inks – finished everything they had at the time, I believe, but will definitely be checking back, because these are fun! Their multi-chromatic shading inks are awesome.
April: Ferris Wheel Press – I had tried a couple of samples based on a friend who recommended them. So, when I saw they had these ”collections” of every ink sample, and that there were enough to fill a months worth of daily samples, I was very excited. This is probably what gave me the idea to deliberately try to find brands with smaller libraries of inks to fit it into a month, after the second month in a row of that working out well.
May: PenBBS – these are always named so interestingly, and weirdly accurately. And numbering them just makes me want to GET THEM ALL. Some day. 14. (520) Light Snow 15. (508) Grain Buds 16. (392) Black Bread
June: Sailor Inks + Robert Oster – these both have super big libraries, as previously mentioned for RO, and this set was themed ”America.” I think there are more being added to the Sailor set, because I had to add Robert Oster ”Cities of America” inks to have enough samples for every day and obviously there are more than 30 states anyway. Maybe next time!
July: Vinta – I was SO EXCITED about these inks when I first heard about them (I still am for the record) because they came with stories attached! I enjoyed it thoroughly. Looking forward to more of these! Also the name on the sample vial is not the full name of the ink AND I KNOW IT. I will add them in the review. The full names are what points at the stories involves, so, that is important context. 17. Ubi 18. Andrada 19. Pamana 20. Lakbay (Fairytale Collection) 21. Romblon
August: Wearingeul – I enjoyed the Vinta inks so much that I looked for something like it – something that gave me an excuse to DO RESEARCH. Serious fun. Oh – these vials were ALSO missing very relevant information which I will add in the review… Because it is the stuff that points back to the literature influence, which means I have just…a whole bunch of new books to read. Which is an EXCELLENT outcome. I get to sample pretty inks, learn about authors that are new to me, and read books that are new to me? So excited. 22. Kyonghui 23. A Star Spattered Hill 24. Shooting at the Moon 25. Mature 26. Stars in Autumn 27. Human Problem
September: Akkerman – only ONE LEFT. (I think?) 28. (00) Royal Akkermanblauw
October: Pennonia – This is the one that really triggered my decision to do this theme for November’s Daily Samples! Because there were only two left, and after Akkerman, I thought, you know what… 29. (032) Csontvarys Blue 30. Draculea
Which brings us to November!
When I was putting this together I quickly realized that if I tried to finish the inks with every one of these brand, I actually have about 2 months worth of Daily Samples…so. I’ll do half in November and half in January. Tada! 🙂 I picked the ones I will be using in November randomly, so this should be interesting. If I get all reds and browns I will be SO SAD. So sad.
Since I enjoyed every brand I’ve tried this year, I am looking forward to this! I especially want to play with the Vinta and Wearingeul inks again. They both have story elements to them, and I love that. Mmmm…research.
An #ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #AmbulatoryWheelchairUser With Opinions
