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Mont Blanc - Jungle Green (Writer's Edition 2019 - Homage to R. Kipling) The 2019 Mont Blanc Writer's Edition pen pays homage to Rudyard Kipling, the English author who's probably most remembered for his tales centering on Mowgli and the wolf pack. But Kipling was also a poet, best known for the 1910 poem "If—". When a Writer's Edition pen appears, you can be sure that there is an LE ink in its wake. Accompanying this Writer's Edition pen comes the aptly named corresponding LE ink "Jungle Green." The ink's packaging looks lovely, with a design inspired by the famous poem "If—" and images of the wolf pack. The colour of the ink is inspired by the cover of the Jungle book's first U.S. Edition. In the box you'll find a very nice 50ml bottle of Jungle Green. Jungle Green is a blue-leaning green ink that manages to perfectly ride the dangerous edge between blue and green. Not yet a teal, definitely a green ink, but the blue undertones are there simmering just beneath the surface. And this is also toned down green with some grey in it, which gives the ink a faded look and a definite vintage character. This ink immediately charmed me, and made a great first impression... I really like the way it looks. The ink is well-saturated, and looks great in all nib sizes. With really fine nibs, I noticed a bit of a subpar lubrication, resulting in more feedback from pen on paper. With broader nibs or wetter pens, the ink behaved perfectly. Jungle Green's faded grey-green look also fits well in the workplace, and can perfectly replace blue & black inks in a more business-type setting. A great everyday writing ink. Shading is very prominent, due to the ink's wide colour range. A bit strong for my taste, but still tolerable. Jungle Green has quite a broad dynamic colour span. To illustrate this, I did a swab on Tomoe River paper where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. This beautifully illustrates the ink's really wide colour range. The ink moves from a wispy light blue-green to a very dark green-black. The broad saturation spectrum explains the heavy shading demonstrated by this ink. On the smudge test - rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab - the ink behaved quite well. There is some smudging, but the text itself remains perfectly readable. Water resistance is remarkably good. The green colour disappears completely, but you are left with a grey ghost image that is still readable without too much effort. This is also apparent from the lower part of the chromatography, which shows that the grey components of the ink remain on the paper. Drying times are close to the 5-second mark, making Jungle Green a relatively fast-drying ink. The fast drying time, combined with the relatively good water resistance make this Mont Blanc ink really well-suited for the workplace. And by deviating from the standard blue & black, your writing will be guaranteed to draw some attention. I've tested the ink on a wide variety of paper - from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On each scrap of paper I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation An ink scribble made with a Lamy Safari M-nib fountain pen The name of the paper used, written with a Lamy Safari B-nib A small text sample, written with an M-nib Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib) Jungle Green looks really nice on all my test papers. This is an ink that looks good on any type of paper, both the white and more yellow ones. The ink behaved perfectly. Only with the fountain-pen unfriendly Moleskine did I notice a tiny amount of feathering, and quite some see-through and bleed-through. Writing with different nib sizes The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing. All samples were written with a Lamy Safari, which is typically a dry pen. I also added a visiting pen - a wet Pelikan M405 Stresemann with an F cursive-italic nib (from fpnibs.com). Here the ink leaves a much more saturated dark-green line with less pronounced shading. I quite like the faded green character of Jungle Green, and the way the blue undertones remain just below the surface. Mont Blanc created a great writing ink with this release! The ink works well with all nib sizes, and shows off a subdued & serious colour. Combine this with good water resistance and relatively fast drying times, and you have an ink that is quite suited for office-related note taking. Related inks To compare Jungle Green with related inks, I use a nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test - all in a very compact format. The grid format makes it easy for you to compare the Mont Blanc ink with similarly coloured inks. Inkxperiment – Eye of the Tiger As a personal experiment, I try to produce interesting drawings using only the ink I'm reviewing, keeping things simple and more-or-less abstract. Crafting these single-ink mini-pieces allows me to stretch my drawing skills, while showing what the ink is capable of in a more artistic context. Inspiration for this drawing comes from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. The villain of the story is Shere Khan, who's usually found sneaking through the jungle with its mind set on catching the young wolf-boy Mowgli. I started with an empty sheet of 300 gsm watercolour paper on which I painted a background with heavily water-diluted Jungle Green. I then added the flowers and Shere Khan's eyes, and painted in the jungle with different mixtures of ink&water, applied with a Q-tip cotton swab. Finally I added the palm trees on the horizon line, and added some texture to the jungle with a B-nibbed Lamy Safari and pure Jungle Green. The resulting drawing shows quite well what can be achieved with Jungle Green as a drawing ink. Conclusion Mont Blanc's Homage to Rudyard Kipling is a very nice-looking faded green with blue undertones that has a vintage feel reflecting the time period (early 1900's). Jungle Green works well with all types of nibs and all types of paper. This is an ink fitting my tastes: faded looking, vintage vibes, and very nice for both writing and drawing. And as a welcome bonus: fast-drying and fairly water-resistant. In my opinion, one of the better Mont Blanc inks. Just be aware that this is a Limited Edition ink, so if you like it, grab it while it's still out there. Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib Backside of writing samples on different paper types