Diamine Inkvent (Red edition) Calendar 2021

[PithyProlix]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

I don't expect Diamine will, certainly not at the lower price(s) at which one may be accustomed to seeing 30ml bottles of Diamine ink in ‘standard’ colours, or even ‘refill‘ bottles for the Flower and Music sets. Nor is Diamine likely to do it on account of it making shipping by post to the end-customer cheaper, instead of using containers made of glass.

 

Assuming how much it costs (per millilitre?) you as the end-consumer effectively is not what makes you ‘hope’, but you have other concerns such as the ‘carbon’ costs of transporting something heavier, then perhaps there's a good reason to try and sell the idea to Diamine.

 

As long as the customer is not trying to lower his/her spend for a given (volume of a) product that is wanted in the marketplace, I think most companies would be interested to hear his/her thoughts.

 

I don't expect they will either and do realize the hope is likely futile. Thank you for your perspective.

[JulieParadise]

Someone already spoiled it yesterday, but some might still wonder what yesterday's ink looked like, eh? 😉 (I could not make it to my computer again yesterday.)

 

So, this is No. 2, Garland, a sheen & shimmer ink. The first picture shows it in a small A6 Life Vermilion (lined with red lines) cahier with cream coloured paper. On the right I used a Leuchtturm 1917 A5 book, pen was a wet Pelikan M350 with a custom 18k italic medium nib. 

 

 

As some sheeners do, this one made my normally cooperative pen act up a bit after being out of use for some days. I had filled all pens already on November 20/21, so that the inks do have some time to "soak in" and show any peculiarities, something you might not notice when only dipping ink. This also ensures that the ink is not fainter than it should be or watered down from a freshly cleaned pen. 

 

As you may see on the lower left, this ink is so dense and saturated, that when applied with a glass pen (dipped) it almost looks black, with the fountain pen the lines still appear very dark, so only in some parts you get a glimpse of the actual colour. The lower right pic shows the ink on Midori's MD sticker calender (which feels like regular MD paper but with an adhesive backing, so that you can stick a monthly calender in MD's calender layout anywhere) where the sheen comes out more pronounced than the glitter. Maybe I just did not "catch" enough glitter particles.

 

The next pic shows the ink on a little punched out piece of Life Noble lined paper stuck to the bottle and a writing sample.

 

 

Above the writing sample is a detail shot in the Life Vermilion cahier and a splash on Life Noble lined paper. The textured paper is Fritz Schimpf Feinpost Leinen, an A5 "linen"-like textured letter pad.

 

The heavy sheen is visible at best on Tomoe River (upper left) and Cosmo Air Light (lower right). The Glassine paper (upper right) becomes crinkly when ink is applied and shows loads of sheen, too. The writing sample is a detail from the Leuchtturm 1917 blank book.

 

 

Some last details of writing samples and splashes (lined = Life Vermilion, blank is Leuchtturm 1917):

 

 

[Matthew TWP]

@JulieParadise Beautiful photos, once again! This ink is pretty flashy. My mom would have called it "festive", but it's a little all over the place for my taste. Pretty fun, though. Nicely done... I love the variety in your images.

[Uncial]

Sorry, I was the spoiler. 😒

[JulieParadise]

26 minutes ago, Uncial said:

Sorry, I was the spoiler. 😒

 

You were probably just enthusiastic about your findings and did not pay attention to the spoiler part for sure! 🤗

[JulieParadise]

Day 3 in Diamine's advent calendar gives us Ash, a standard ink in mid grey. As you may see on the pics, its actual colour on paper depends on the paper itself and the wetness of your writing instrument.

 

The top two lines with the ink's name on the right (A5 Leuchtturm 1917 blank notebook) are written with a dipped glass pen, the other writing is done with a vintage OMAS Desk Pen Extra Italic Fine (I giggle about having such a weirdly kitschy-cute thing as this Bambi desk base every day when I adjust the calendar module). As the desk pen does not "cap" perfectly, the water portion of ink tends to evaporate a bit, making many inks a tad darker than in other pens. So, the "Ash" in the lower middle pic might represent what you get when using a drier to moderately wet nib, the writing in Kurrent script is the saturated version of Ash.

 

 

The ink splatters above and below also indicate the range that is possible to get from this grey.

 

Could not resist: Ta-daa, Bambi!

 

 

More splashes and some writing:

 

 

 

[Matthew TWP]

I also found that this ink was pretty different on different papers 🙂 I really like this one.

 

 

[essayfaire]

16 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

Diamine ink in ‘standard’ colours, or even ‘refill‘ bottles for the Flower and Music sets

I did not know about the Music set; uh-oh.

[JulieParadise]

Today's ink, No. 4, is called Tempest, and wow, this is fitting: Tempest is a very, very dark blue black when flowing out of a wet pen. In my Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with a modified (flattened to more of an italic nib) FA nib the writing looked almost black, only the peaks respectively the drier parts of the lines reveal the actual colour:
 

 

The ink is supposed to be shimmer & sheen, but to be honest, I could not produce sheen, just shimmer. This ink sits in the pen since Nov 20/21 and does not exhibit hard starts or skipping.

 

 

Papers are, as before, a lined A6 Life Vermilion (red lines) cahier and a blank A5 Leuchtturm 1917 notebook.
 

 

As over at the German PenExchange forum someone complained about the trueness to colour, I might add that you need to seek out different pictures of an ink and not base your buying decision on one user's photographs. I take my pics with my Samsung A? (I do not even know which model ... on the back it says A40?) on daylight and brighten them up with a freeware program called PhotoScape before cropping and creating these collages that can be uploaded much easier than dozens of separate photos. Neither my smartphone is calibrated, nor is my laptop/computer. When I switch eyes, my left eye sees everything a bit paler and greyer than the right one. I try to adjust my photos as much as I can to match what I see next to the laptop in the notebooks and cahiers, but there are so many variables that I cannot guarantee colour accuracy. The discussion or rather the personal message I got today made me very sad, as it accused me of deliberately manipulating my photos to a point where all inks look prettier than in reality and that the person was very disappointed about an ink before when buying it and that I was hiding a greenish hue.

 

So, tl;dr: Compare pictures of ink from different users before buying an ink and don't be disappointed even if none of those pics looks as the ink does on your paper. Paper, light, how a photograph is taken and how it is processed and then how your device shows it and how you see it ... there are so many variables that it is nigh impossible to represent an ink completely accurate. Uff.

[PithyProlix]

31 minutes ago, JulieParadise said:

Today's ink, No. 4, is called Tempest, and wow, this is fitting: Tempest is a very, very dark blue black when flowing out of a wet pen. In my Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with a modified (flattened to more of an italic nib) FA nib the writing looked almost black, only the peaks respectively the drier parts of the lines reveal the actual colour:
 

 

The ink is supposed to be shimmer & sheen, but to be honest, I could not produce sheen, just shimmer. This ink sits in the pen since Nov 20/21 and does not exhibit hard starts or skipping.

 

 

Papers are, as before, a lined A6 Life Vermilion (red lines) cahier and a blank A5 Leuchtturm 1917 notebook.
 

As over at the German PenExchange forum someone complained about the trueness to colour, I might add that you need to seek out different pictures of an ink and not base your buying decision on one user's photographs. I take my pics with my Samsung A? (I do not even know which model ... on the back it says A40?) on daylight and brighten them up with a freeware program called PhotoScape before cropping and creating these collages that can be uploaded much easier than dozens of separate photos. Neither my smartphone is calibrated, nor is my laptop/computer. When I switch eyes, my left eye sees everything a bit paler and greyer than the right one. I try to adjust my photos as much as I can to match what I see next to the laptop in the notebooks and cahiers, but there are so many variables that I cannot guarantee colour accuracy. The discussion or rather the personal message I got today made me very sad, as it accused me of deliberately manipulating my photos to a point where all inks look prettier than in reality and that the person was very disappointed about an ink before when buying it and that I was hiding a greenish hue.

 

So, tl;dr: Compare pictures of ink from different users before buying an ink and don't be disappointed even if none of those pics looks as the ink does on your paper. Paper, light, how a photograph is taken and how it is processed and then how your device shows it and how you see it ... there are so many variables that it is nigh impossible to represent an ink completely accurate. Uff.

 

You are right, of course: so many variables. Not to mention these odd devices that we view them on with their illumination from behind. So artificial compared to the real thing. 

 

But, all in all, we are spoiled by the development of technology that allows these reviews and other pictures of ink to be shared with the world with a level of accuracy that is actually surprisingly good generally, at least to this almost-old timer. And without the technology we have now - not only displays, cameras, image processing software, etc. but also the Internet, communications, computer processing, global distribution of consumer goods, and other things I am probably not thinking of at the moment - it's hard to imagine the current explosion of ink choices. For this we are also spoiled. 

 

Uff indeed. You obviously put so much effort into your beautiful reviews and I hope that the complainers don't dampen your desire to continue doing them. Not only are we spoiled by the technology and the many ink choices we now have, we are also spoiled by reviews like yours. I really appreciate them - thank you very much. Please keep them coming! 

[AmandaW]

I'm following along with the opening of the days, intending to choose one (or few) to order in bottles when they're available. So far it's definite Ash! Thankyou.

 

(From the Blue Inkvent I chose Triple Chocolate - and still enjoying it.)

[Matthew TWP]

4 hours ago, JulieParadise said:

As over at the German PenExchange forum someone complained about the trueness to colour, I might add that you need to seek out different pictures of an ink and not base your buying decision on one user's photographs.

 

That's very disappointing to hear; I'm sorry... you deserve better than that. I will say that I have a fairly expensive camera, a calibrated monitor, I use color checkers and create custom profiles, and I have an external colorimeter to get a reading on how a color measures... and even still, I often don't think that the inks in my pictures are identical to my perception without a little adjustment. And of course, there are differences between papers and probably batches of ink, etc. Naja. 

 

I thought that the ink was more of a dark teal, this time, but it was really dark. I had to intentionally swab my second one a bit thin to make the color more visible. 

 

 

[JulieParadise]

Day 5 of Diamine's Inkvent Calendar gives us Harmony, a standard ink with a greyish rose tone, leaning towards a dusky purple and very hard to capture in photographs. I did not quite get the muddy red that exhibits here and there, but the pics might give you an idea of what to expect:

 

 

Pen is a Sailor Pro Gear Slim Mini(fied) Shikiori Yakitsubaki with a 14 k Italic Medium nib.
Papers are a Life Vermilion A6 cahier with red lines (hence the name) and a blank A5 Leuchtturm 1917 notebook. On the creamy paper of the life cahier the ink looks a bit warmer than on the Leuchtturm paper. You might see that below where on the lined paper in the collage the inks appears a tad more reddish.

 

 

In a more generous nib you might even some shading, but I only got very subtle variation here with the stiff nib in my Sailor pen.

 

 

[essayfaire]

@JulieParadisethese write ups are so fabulous that I sometimes can't help but peek even before we've opened the nightly door!  I'm sorry anyone has complained - my pictures are always awful and terribly lit, and your examples are amazing and so complete.  Thank you for all your work on these.

[DvdRiet]

+1 to everyone else who has said your write-ups and photos are amazing and that it's too bad about the complaint on the German forum. FWIW from my own experience there, things turn a little too judgemental a little too quickly, which I think is really a shame because it puts me off participating. (And it's difficult enough for me because I have to try to translate everything into something that makes sense. 😊) Please don't let it keep you from posting your reviews either here or there! 

[DvdRiet]

18 hours ago, JulieParadise said:

and then how your device shows it

 

Came back to say this. You have zero control over how well calibrated a person's monitor or other screen is. 

[RevGina]

5 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

 

Came back to say this. You have zero control over how well calibrated a person's monitor or other screen is. 

 

Or how someone's eyeballs see color for that matter! (I like your stuff, too, @JulieParadise!)

[AmandaW]

On 12/5/2021 at 7:07 AM, JulieParadise said:

I take my pics with my Samsung A? (I do not even know which model ... on the back it says A40?) on daylight and brighten them up with a freeware program called PhotoScape before cropping and creating these collages that can be uploaded much easier than dozens of separate photos. Neither my smartphone is calibrated, nor is my laptop/computer.

 

It doesn't matter what you have, it's what you do with it! That's art. You're making art. Thankyou for doing so.

[A Smug Dill]

On 12/5/2021 at 10:07 AM, JulieParadise said:

As over at the German PenExchange forum someone complained about the trueness to colour, …‹snip›… The discussion or rather the personal message I got today made me very sad, as it accused me of deliberately manipulating my photos …

 

I am so sorry to hear there are such ingrates among hobbyists who choose to participate in discussion forums; and that you copped entirely undeserved criticism and/or abuse, in a one-to-one confrontation no less. I'll refrain from posting the rest of my rant about some passive information consumers' sense of entitlement, and up which ink reservoir they can shove it.

 

Please keep up your great work, and don't let parasites and vermin spoil your enjoyment!

[amberleadavis]

@JulieParadise Thank you for doing these!  I love seeing your work.