Tag Archives: Mad Science Pen Company

Fountain Pens

February Palette Review!

Hullo folks, this one is being posted suuuuper late because February was a ROUGH month in our house. Lotsa meltdowns, broke my favorite fountain pen (Magic Green), lotsa possible exposure to covid, all kinds of fun stressful things. But never mind! Let’s talk pens. And inks. Fun stuff for real real.

Pen/Ink Palette:
My theme for February was our wedding colors, purple and green because I do not like reds and pinks so when I think of love, I think of those colors! I did include one pink but it was more of a peach so, cheated a little bit.

Two pens on a palette journal page. One is a slightly translucent warm purple with gold trim, and the other is a swirly cool purple mixed with white.
Sailor Pro Gear Slim and a London Pen Co. Christopher 13 Jr., loved for different reasons haha.

Favorite:
I had a tie in favorites this month. Both of these pens worked so well with the inks in them – and NEITHER ink was a shimmer! Yeah, surprised me too. I had Akkerman 13 Simplisties in the London Pen Co. pen, and PenBBS #506 Grain Rain in the Sailor. They were very soothing to write with which I definitely needed the latter half of the month. Very reluctant to put these away when the ink ran out!

Least Favorite:
I am going to write about the Magic Green drama in another post, so I’ll put a different pen in this spot.
There were actually a couple of pen combos I was having trouble with this month, I really need to stop buying vacuum pens for example. But the least favorite I settled on was a Mad Science Pen Company pen with a 1.1 stub nib and Diamine Inkvent 2022 Alpine. Pen worked great, fine performance flow wise. But the ink was basically black on most of the papers I used it with. Very very faint green in the right light. Silver sheen was pretty visible, but I found the whole thing kind of unappealing. So I think I found one of the few shimmers that looks WORSE in a broad nib! I will do a comparison. Some day.

Learned:
Uhm. I think the biggest thing I learned was really WHY the Magic Green pen was magic for me. Oh and that I really do not like vacuum pens. I have 3. I think I am done at this point haha. Oh and the Osprey nib was annoying – I don’t think flexible nibs are for me. Two years in a row I had a very disappointing February pen/ink experience. Ah well. Third years the charm right?

Daily Samples:
I forget exactly why I picked up so many PenBBS samples but. I did. So another month of PenBBS samples! I do like how these inks behave overall, so this was a nice, chill, reliable start to my day!

“PenBBS” and “February” are at the top of the page. There are 30 different colored thick lines of ink. Each line is numbered 1-30.
I have started using this part of the notebook to find colors I want to use for my palette – and it is brilliant.

Favorite:
Honestly, I was mostly just enjoying how the ink performed. But wasn’t too excited about the colors this month. I did enjoy the weird of #408 Xiamen on the 11th. You can kind of see it in the photo how the ink sort of shades, it’s mostly a pastel blue but there are brief and very faint hints of pink. It’s too light to write with but I bet the chromatography of it is going to be SUPER fun. Whenever I get into that.

Least Favorite:
No real strong feelings for the daily samples this month so I guess I’ll go with #387 Mark Twain because it ended up being a pretty basic black. I don’t think I have ever used a black ink. Nor will I!

Learned:
I should probably stop just buying sets of ink to get all of the numbers. Maybe. But it is easier. I am not sure how much longer I’ll end up doing daily samples, which I realized this month. I still find it soothing, and I still appreciate including it in my daily routine. And I DID just start a year long planner for this haha. I probably won’t abandon this until I find something else to replace it, but I will be building some fairly odd palettes in future, often augmented by the Subscriptions samples.

Subscription Samples:
Nope! I got Truphae and Ink Flight but I did NOT sample them in February because for my March Daily Samples, I only had 20 inks. And 12 samples fills in the last 11 needed nicely.

So that’s it. I was incredibly focused on March starting for a couple of reasons – I am trying out planner specific stickers in March from HubmanChubgirl for one, which could be fun – and for another thing, it would be a brand new month to hopefully not go horribly. Also, one month closer to my birthday, yay!
Thank you for your patience my delightful readers!

Fountain Pens

November Pen/Ink Palette- 2022 Review

A purple notebook and pen case, with 10 pens on the left side, and a notebook on the right side. The notebook has two stickers, the one in the top left corner is 4 ghosts peeking out of a front door holding a cupcake, and with a welcome mat. The one in the bottom right hand corner is a green octopus with a red knit hat, and a blue flannel coat. He seems to be playing in a pile of autumn leaves and holding a fountain pen, a pumpkin, and a drink.
10 pen and ink combos for November. One from each of the previous 10 months in 2022.

I was originally going to theme this months palette “Comfy” but I started thinking about which inks and pens I would deme comfy and then realized I was thinking of pens and inks I had used in palette’s already this year that I enjoyed using. Then it hit me – I was already going to do a sort of review of the Monthly Samples – I could use one combo from every month palette this year! Matchy matchy. Since April I’ve been keeping track of the performance of each combo, so the only ones that would be tricky is Jan – Mar. Those will probably be wild cards. (Oooo except Magic Green from March!)

And it was EASY. Because in each month there is usually a combo that I enjoyed memorably. There were two difficult months, and very little info on how I felt about the pens I used in January thru March, but I ended up with 10 pens I am extremely excited to use. I did end up swapping out the pen paired with three of the inks – I’ll explain in the list. And to determine the best choice for the January and February pens I had to sort of look at how long and how often I would use the pen. There were a couple I remember filling early on and then reluctantly keeping them filled but not wanting to use them… I did that, of course, until I remembered this whole monthly change of pens and inks is supposed to be fun. And if I don’t like a combo nowadays I give it a day or two and then clean it out. Hopefully that won’t be an issue this month?

10 pens paired with 10 ink sample cards.
Tada! The list of inks and pens is below.

Let’s look at our options this month, shall we!

  1. Twsbi Diamond – Prussian Blue (F), Diamine Inkvent 2021 Subzero
    – this ink was originally in a Twsbi Eco and I decided the Diamond is just a little step up.
  2. Twsbi Diamond – Punch Pink (F), Van Dieman – Underwater, Moon Jellyfish
  3. Hong Dian 5019, Lan Tian – May Flowers (EF) / Ferris Wheel Press Moonlight Jade 
  4. Sailor Pro Gear Slim – Purple Northern Lights (MF) / ColorVerse 54 Hayabusa Glistening
  5. Bonecrusher7Studios – Monet (1.1stub), Ferris Wheel Press, April Showers 
    – this ink was originally in my Gravitas, but it was using the custom nib, so I figured I’d just put the nib in one of my favorite pens and go from there!
  6. Sailor Pro Gear Slim Mini – Night Blue (MF) / ColorVerse Cat
    – Cat was originally in the Twsbi Diamond Prussian Blue soooooo…leaving it in the Sailor.
  7. Leonardo Supernova (F), Diamine Inkvent 2021 Wonderland
  8. Esterbrook JR Paradise Pocket Pen – Purple Passion (F), Van Dieman, Harvest Collection, Beetroot Relish
  9. Esterbrook JR Picket Paradise – Key Lime (F) / Wearingeul Flowing Leaves 
  10. Mad Science Pen Company, Modified Clingman – Ghost (F) / Vinta Inks, Fairytale Collection – Clouds of Grey

One of the things I liked about this palette was that I could use the three favorite pens without them just being extra to the palette, they are actually part of it. And I am really looking forward to a nice cozy month with pens I know I like, even when they get a little blocked and won’t write. Because the inks and pens are WORTH it. 

Some of my choices were combos that I continued using into the next month. And the palette actually really came together. I was sitting and contemplating it, and Husband looked over my shoulder and was like WHOA That looks incredible! 🙂 Hope it goes as well as it looks! 

November Palette Dip Test! And the phrase “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” written out ten times, each line in a different color ink.
Dip test! Look at those COLORS.
Fountain Pens

October Pen/Ink Palette: Monsters/Spoop

A purple notebook and pen holder. There are 10 pens on the left, 9 of them in loops, 1 loose. From top to bottom, a light silver, a darker grey, a blue, purple, white swirl, a dark purple, a light blue/purple, a light green, a dark green, an orange, a red, and a yellow. Above the notebook/pen case is a 3 pen pen case, with the Forever Purple and Blue pens, and the Magic Green pen. On the right of the notebook/pen holder is a purple notebook with two stickers on it. In the top left corner the sticker is 4 ghosts looking out of a front door and a welcome mat. In the bottom right hand corner is a green octopus with a red knit hat and a blue flannel coat. He has a fountain pen in two tentacles, a pumpkin in another, and a coffee cup in another. He is sitting in a pile of autumn leaves.
These are the pens and Captain Log I will be using for October!

Yeah, the theme for this month is definitely not hard to puzzle out – Halloween is in October, Monsters and Spoopy things are Halloween related, therefore! Yeah, it’s not hard. I actually ended up picking out the inks themselves and then relating them to “monsters” – although that word was definitely stretched to fit in several cases…

I concentrated on Purple, Greens, and Oranges, specifically in a saturated fashion. After a WHOLE MONTH with only my one usual Forever Purple in September, I was very excited to play with purples again! Which, ahem, has nothing to do with why I picked purples, I mean, purples are totally a Halloween color, right? Right.

I am using a lot of shimmer, and a lot of inks from my August Daily Samples – Wearingeul – and I am very excited. So, let’s take a look at what “spoopy monsters” I used to justify the colors I picked!

On the left side is a grey ink paired with a silver pen, a silver ink paired with a dark grey pen, a sparkle purple ink paired with a purple and white swirly pen, a dark purple ink with a dark purple pen, and a blue ish ink paired with a blueish pen. On the righ side is a sparkly green ink paired with a light green pen, a light green ink paired with a dark green pen, a bright orange ink paired with a bright orange pen, a dark orange ink paired with a sparkly red pen, and a yellow ink paired with a yellow pen.
All 10 ink sample cards paired with 10 fountain pens.
  1. Skeleton: Ohto – Tasche FF 10T (?) / Diamine Inkvent 2021 – Ash 
  2. Ghost: Pelikan M205 – Moonstone (EF) / Vinta Inks, Fairytale Collection – Clouds of Grey
  3. Witch: Mad Science Pen Company, Hooded Ranger – Proton (F) / Wearingeul, Yi Sang Series – Soyeongwije 
  4. Purple People Eater: Sailor Limited Edition Pro Gear Slim Sapporo – Demonstrator Wisteria Purple (MF) / PenBBS – #095 Lin Huiyin 
  5. Frank, the Demonic Octopus: Sailor Professional Gear Slim, Manyo – Dianthus (MF) / Diamine Inkvent 2021- Nightshade 
  6. Zombie: Esterbrook JR Picket Paradise – Key Lime (F) / Wearingeul Flowing Leaves
  7. Frankenstein: Kaweco AL Sport Aurora Limited (F) / Kyo No Oto – Moegiiro 
  8. Pumpkin Head: Kaweco AL Sport Limited Edition – Orange (F) / Troublemaker – Mango
  9. Vampire: Monteverde Strata – Red (F)  / Diamine 2021 Inkvent Vintage Copper
  10. Werewolf: Esterbook JR Pocket Paradise Pocket Pen – Yellow (1.1m Stub) / Van Dieman, Midnight Collection – Howl at the Moon

(Also the two forever pens and the magic pen – but technically they are not part of this palette, so! I will not be including them in this list.) 

I am very excited about the purple Wearingeul ink and the Vinta. Those look very promising in this dip test:

Each line is written in a different color. Each line reads the “monster” it is inspired by, and the phrase “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” I will describe the color of the ink and then the “monster” it was inspired by. . Dark Blue: “Oct “Monster” Pen Palette Dip Test” Dark grey: “Skeleton,” Ash Light Grey: “Ghost” Clouds of Grey Dark purple with shimmer: “Witch” Soyeongwije Purple: “Purple People Eater” #095 Lin Huiyin Blueish: “Frank, the Demonic Octopus” Nightshade Green: “Zombie” Flowing Leaves Light Green: “Frankenstein” Moegiiro Orange: “Pumpkin Head” Mango Red: “Vampire” Vintage Copper Yellow: “Werewolf” Howl at the Moon
October Monster INK Palette – it should say! Since I used a metal dip pen to sample each one.

Howl at the Moon seemed like an ink that is to pale to use very much when I first sampled it back in December, but now I have started using stub nibs and I want to see how well the ink shows up from a broader nib! And I got the Troublemaker ink in the September Ink Flight and I fell instantly in love, so barely looked at other oranges when I was picking those out haha. Oh! And Frank, the Demonic Octopus is a reference to a creature my Game Master for a game of Dungeons and Dragons introduced, we fought, and my character – an ambulatory wheelchair using Wizard Librarian, who casts spells with a fountain pen and ink – got a bottle of demonic octopus ink. 🙂 Really I am excited about all of these inks, but thought calling out those specifics would be fun.