Van Dieman's Inks In Oz

[Luci]

I’m close to running out of a couple of colours so would be happy to direct my Pulp Addiction, er, addiction, to these and do some reviews. Might be a while though, still going through my StandardGraph collection to review. 

[Dione]

I like the look of styx valley forest green

[Loke]

Ordered Black tongue spider orchid, Azure kingfisher, Ghost ship and Blue ringed octopus on their website.

Will post pictures if anyone is interested.

[Dione]

4 hours ago, Loke said:

Ordered Black tongue spider orchid, Azure kingfisher, Ghost ship and Blue ringed octopus on their website.

Will post pictures if anyone is interested.

I notice you aren't in Oz. Does Van Dieman's automatically include the VAT for safe import?

[Loke]

2 hours ago, Dione said:

I notice you aren't in Oz. Does Van Dieman's automatically include the VAT for safe import?

 

I am afraid not... will let you know how it goes 🙂

 

[amberleadavis]

19 hours ago, Loke said:

Ordered Black tongue spider orchid, Azure kingfisher, Ghost ship and Blue ringed octopus on their website.

Will post pictures if anyone is interested.

 

YES PLEASE

[inkstainedruth]

+1 to what Amberlea Davis said.  They carry those at Vanness, but they don't have actual swabs of the colors, just printouts.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

They carry those at Vanness, but they don't have actual swabs of the colors, just printouts.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you meant by ‘printouts’.

 

 

It shows the same swatches of the ink colours as found on Van Dieman's Ink's web site.

 

VDI's direct retail sales channel is having a promotion at the moment:

Our 50ml bottles are finally back in stock and you can claim 25% off when you buy 2 or more in a single purchase, but only before this Friday the 23rd at 11:55pm.*

⋮

*Offer valid until 23rd July 2021 11:55pm ('m sure they mean Australian Eastern Standard Time)

 

While not the best offer I've seen, it's nevertheless a non-trivial discount from the regular price.

[inkstainedruth]

That must be newer than the last time I went ink shopping on their website then.  Because I don't remember seeing the swabs.  All I saw was the little color icons above the photos of the bottles.

Thanks for the heads up.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[awaking]

I got bored a while ago and ordered the sample pack of the underwater colour set from Van Dieman's Ink (although two are still yet to show up).

 

I'm currently going through all the samples and will put up a comparison once I have done so.  Theres a wide variety in the set - a real mix of sheen and shimmer in both quantity and colour.  Some of the colour combinations are really interesting.  Parrot fish has a aqua leaning blue ink with a purple leaning blue shimmer.  I have found some variety in how wet they are across the range so it seems like it really is the colour 'theme' that holds the group together.  One of my favourites is bioluminescence which is very interesting and despite being dark is anything but subtle.   Most of them write pretty well although I had trouble with a couple clogging due to massive amounts of shimmer.  So far only seashell has been too light for everyday use but it pretty much goes down like a metallic due to the quantity of shimmer.

 

I am a bit curious about whether I am going to be able to catch the different ink properties in photos given the differences in them all.

 

The one thing I haven't liked about van dieman's though is the lack of writing sample in their product listings - sometimes the swabs have not been very representative for how the ink appeared in writing and I don't usually buy ink just to (deliberately) pour splodges on paper.

[inkstainedruth]

That's why I'd been holding out on trying any of the Van Dieman inks.  I can get them through Vanness Pens, but they don't have actual sample cards for most of them, just the printed off swabs provided to them.  Admittedly though, some of them did sound interesting.  But I have way too many samples I haven't tried at the moment, to even consider ordering more.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[awaking]

@inkstainedruth I agree the temptation to order ink samples is a bit of a problem!  For a while I kept my credit card under my box of samples just to make myself think twice - It's not the cost, it's managing the volume.

 

If you want to have a look in person I don't mind sending you letter with a page of notes I have been doing in the different underwater VanDieman's inks (mostly).  I have been doing it to get a feel for them when I start each one.  Sending ink and samples internationally is getting a bit ridiculous plus you can't do it in a volume of colours but a letter should be easy and give you a reasonable idea if you would like them.  I just do it it in the back of my notebook so if you are ever interested PM me.

[A Smug Dill]

3 minutes ago, awaking said:

Sending ink and samples internationally is getting a bit ridiculous plus you can't do it in a volume of colours

 

I agree with the first clause, but disagree with the second clause. Sending >40 ink samples at once by 'standard' international parcel post to the US costs less than sending six ink samples of the same format and volume in an untracked international 'large letter' (back when it was allowed), on an attributed postage per sample basis. 

[awaking]

44 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

Sending >40 ink samples at once by 'standard' international parcel post to the US costs less than sending six ink samples

Fair point but I don't have that many inks to send samples of...  probably only 6! 😄

[A Smug Dill]

5 minutes ago, awaking said:

Fair point but I don't have that many inks to send samples of...  probably only 6! 😄

 

I was just doing and writing up the sums when you replied.  Never mind!

 

One could conceivably send a 2ml sample of each and every Van Dieman's Ink colour inside as an up-to-500g parcel, for A$29.40 to the UK or A$24.00 to the US. (That includes the weight of the corrugated cardboard carton, plastic vials, absorbent void fill, non-porous bags or shrink wraps for isolation, packing tape, and CN23 customs declaration paperwork.)

[awaking]

That's pretty reasonable 😊. You would need to have contributors for every ink however in order to provide such a variety of samples.  

 

Might be worth considering for brands which are inaccessible in other countries as long as there is sufficient interest.

 

I'm impressed you did all the sums on this one, it probably would have gone in my too hard basket until I hit the post office!

[A Smug Dill]

6 hours ago, awaking said:

You would need to have contributors for every ink however in order to provide such a variety of samples.

 

Or just a single contributor who has ‘every’ ink to be included , instead of making a coordinated effort between a number of users to assemble the entire set. But no, that's not me, when it comes to Van Dieman's Ink. I have only nine colours across different series the brand produced, and quite frankly am not sufficiently impressed by their performance characteristics overall (though there are a few that stood out as ‘good’) or the customer service to want to buy more.

 

6 hours ago, awaking said:

I'm impressed you did all the sums on this one, it probably would have gone in my too hard basket until I hit the post office!

 

When I decide on what to include when sending ink samples to specific recipients, as opposed to forum ‘PIFs’ open to all and of which the recipients are picked randomly from the applicants, the packages I send usually come within 1–3g of the maximum weight (as in under the limit) for the postage paid. I've come close enough before that I had to (re)print the manifest of the contents on Tomoe River 68gsm paper instead of the Reflex 100gsm paper that is usually in my printer's tray, just to fit under the weight limit. (The difference in weight between the two for an A5 sheet is 1.3 grams.)

 

[Loke]

On 7/21/2021 at 1:13 AM, amberleadavis said:

 

YES PLEASE

 

Very sorry, have received the inks but completely forgot that you were interested by some images.

Here are some quick shots of the 3 inks (and bonus Kékfény, because I love the ink and it is very close to Ringed Octopus from VD)

 

 

 

 

 

[awaking]

On 9/12/2021 at 6:01 PM, A Smug Dill said:

1.3 grams

Thats precision mailing 😆

 

I agree, I would not be motivated to invest in their whole ink range - too variable, although there are a few I do like quite a lot.  I'm not sure how many people would want to invest in the whole range but fp users never cease to surprise me!

[inkstainedruth]

On 9/11/2021 at 8:03 PM, awaking said:

@inkstainedruth I agree the temptation to order ink samples is a bit of a problem!  For a while I kept my credit card under my box of samples just to make myself think twice - It's not the cost, it's managing the volume.

 

If you want to have a look in person I don't mind sending you letter with a page of notes I have been doing in the different underwater VanDieman's inks (mostly).  I have been doing it to get a feel for them when I start each one.  Sending ink and samples internationally is getting a bit ridiculous plus you can't do it in a volume of colours but a letter should be easy and give you a reasonable idea if you would like them.  I just do it it in the back of my notebook so if you are ever interested PM me.

I had better not.  I have too much ink already (including a bunch of samples of black inks that have never been opened in probably 6 or 7 years of my having gotten them -- I had a project for testing them in specific conditions on cheap printer paper for use in Platinum Preppies set up as rollerballs, but never really got past the first few).  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth