Diamine Inkvent (Red edition) Calendar 2021

[JulieParadise]

Today's ink, no. 17, is called Thunderbolt, a standard ink which might be misunderstood as just another pretty royal blue:

 

 

I have this ink in an OMAS Dama Grey Celluloid with a round fine nib for about four weeks now and never experienced hard starts or skipping. I think the rest of my Thunderbolt bottle will be used to refill the pen as pen & ink seem to be working really well together.
 

 

The first two lines on the blank page (one of the last pages of the otherwise lined Midori MD A5 Diary) are written with a dipped glass nib, all other writing was done with the OMAS Dama. You can see that although the ink does not exhibit any sheen in my OMAS pen with its average wetness there my be some sheen to be had in thicker applications (also on the bottle lable and the ink splats).

 

So IMHO this ink is a bit underrated or misunderstood as there are so many inks in this colour range (mid blue, royal blue, washable blue, blue blue blue ...). In and on itself it is not a bad ink or colour and only seems to be boring because we re used to this colour. 

 

In my cahiers and notebooks it does spark a little smile whenever I come across it and see it on page, and although this is not one of the inks I would buy from this calendar, I do like this humble blue. I would not be surprised to hear from calendar owners that although they did not think they liked Thunderbolt, they find themselves to have emptied this bottle without noticing and with all of the fancy and exciting inks remaining almost untouched.

[inkstainedruth]

Am I seeing haloing in some of the line strokes?  I would not call an ink that does that as "just another royal blue".... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[essayfaire]

23 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

the advantage of Pantone over some of the other companies is that they've standardized things (at least from the point of view of the print industry)

That's certainly true.  I wonder how many people get tired of seeing the same color in all the ads each year though, kind of like seeing the same font everywhere.  (Helvetica, anyone? It's tolerable in majuscules, but in lowercase it's become insufferably friendly when I'm trying to socially distance even more than in non-pandemic times).

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

Thunderbolt is the second Diamine Inkvent Red Edition ink that has that sickening (to me!) smell, although like (Day 1) Seize The Night, it's nowhere near as strong as from my bottle of Diamine Sargasso Sea. I'm glad I decided on putting Thunderbolt in a new, ~US$1.20, entirely expendable Jinhao 51A even before I snipped the shrink warp around the bottle.

[AmandaW]

7 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

a new, ~US$1.20, entirely expendable Jinhao 51A

 

Where are you finding 51As for so little? I paid rather more than that for the basic plastic. They are such good pens.

[DrDebG]

Yes, unfortunately for some of us, Thunderbolt is a gorgeous ink, but has an odor.  The minute I opened the bottle and caught of whiff, I immediately has a mild migraine that last through the time to swab and do some minor writing, then closed the bottle.  Thunderbolt seemed much worse to me than Seize the Night, but has the same odor as Diamine Sapphire Blue and Sargasso Sea - but they don't seem to give me a migraine.  Thankfully, once the ink dried the odor went away.  But while I love the color it isn't different enough for me to purchase a bottle, particularly with the odor. 

[A Smug Dill]

4 hours ago, AmandaW said:

Where are you finding 51As for so little? I paid rather more than that for the basic plastic.

 

AliExpress, during sales campaigns such as the Super Friday (which is its version of Black Friday) Sale and the 11.11 Sale.

[JulieParadise]

Ink no. 18 is one of my favourites in this year's calendar:
 

 

Subzero is a bright shimmer ink, a blue turquoise with blueish glitter particles. Some writing:

 

I have this ink in a modern Pelikan M200 Clear Demo, equipped with a vintage 400 nib, custom ground to a broad stub. On the upper right pic of the collage below you see a brief comparison with Peppermint Blue from Diamine's 2019 Inkvent Calendar Blue Edition. Peppermint Blue is leaning more towards green than Subzero.
 

 

The ink sits in the Pelikan M200 for about four weeks and still flows well, proof that not all shimmer inks destroy and clog pens immediately. 

 

I like the fresh and cheerful hue of this ink, I like its subtle shading and find myself thinking about getting a bottle of this once Diamine (hopefully) releases the inkvent inks in 50 ml units.

[JulieParadise]

Festive Joy, a purple with a considerable amount of sheen, although this ink is officially a "standard" ink:
 

Just from the beautiful rich and cheerful colour itself this could very well be THE INK OF THE CALENDAR, the no. 25, but it is "only" no. 19. Unfortunately, my writing, done about five or six days ago, did smear when I tried to get rid of some dust on the paper.
 

I used an OMAS Dama with a generous medium stub, hence the sheen, but I also got some sheen from dipping the glass nib and write the first two lines on the blank MIdori MD paper. The sheen also appeared on the lined Life Vermilion paper in the A6 cahier and the lined Life Noble paper that I used on the bottle.
 

Usually I am not a fab of violet or purple, neither when it comes to inks nor in general but this ink does certainly look pretty.
 

 

[essayfaire]

@JulieParadise, by any chance can you do a comparison of Festive Joy to the original Inkvent's Festive Cheer?  Looks suspiciously similar, but I haven't opened the Joy bottle yet.

 

Thank you for all these wonderful postings; I know they may be fun to do, but still require much work.

[JulieParadise]

15 minutes ago, essayfaire said:

@JulieParadise, by any chance can you do a comparison of Festive Joy to the original Inkvent's Festive Cheer?  Looks suspiciously similar, but I haven't opened the Joy bottle yet.

 

Thank you for all these wonderful postings; I know they may be fun to do, but still require much work.

 

I don't think the inks are similar at all, as Festive Cheer is definitely a blue, while this is a purple. The next time I take photos I try to think of doing a comparison.

[essayfaire]

2 hours ago, JulieParadise said:

Festive Cheer is definitely a blue, while this is a purple.

I'm in the camp that thinks Festive Cheer is definitely purple.  I ended up buying a bottle.

[dftr]

I saw video for today's color (Dec. 20th) on Bryan Marsh's channel.  Just a slight warning that the ink seemed to clog up his eyedropper.  

[A Smug Dill]

Festive Joy is pretty, but unfortunately also smells like Seize The Night and Thunderbolt. I made the mistake of planning to put it into a pretty Kaigelu 316A, without first checking for that smell, and got as far as filling the converter — detached from the gripping section, and dipped directly into the bottle — and had to quickly empty its contents straight back into the bottle so that I can clean the converter immediately. The ink is now in a ‘new’ $5 Jinhao X450 with a metal body that has been sitting unused in a stash for over three years.

[JulieParadise]

4 minutes ago, dftr said:

I saw video for today's color (Dec. 20th) on Bryan Marsh's channel.  Just a slight warning that the ink seemed to clog up his eyedropper.  

It didn't clog my Sailor 1911s with a 14 k music nib, sitting in the pen with use only every other day since Nov 20/21.

[essayfaire]

2 hours ago, dftr said:

I saw video for today's color (Dec. 20th) on Bryan Marsh's channel.  Just a slight warning that the ink seemed to clog up his eyedropper.  

👀

[essayfaire]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

Festive Joy is pretty, but unfortunately also smells like Seize The Night and Thunderbolt. I made the mistake of planning to put it into a pretty Kaigelu 316A, without first checking for that smell, and got as far as filling the converter — detached from the gripping section, and dipped directly into the bottle — and had to quickly empty its contents straight back into the bottle so that I can clean the converter immediately. The ink is now in a ‘new’ $5 Jinhao X450 with a metal body that has been sitting unused in a stash for over three years.

I might have missed where someone has already mentioned this, but did you, perchance, ink a pen and find the smell still present when writing?  As opposed to the obvious malodorous experience of inking up from one of these bottles.  I haven't inked up with the foul-smelling inks to try this, but if someone else has, it might encourage me to do so or refrain from doing so.

 

I have never found other Diamine inks to smell funny, so I wonder if this is a supply-chain issue.

[A Smug Dill]

38 minutes ago, essayfaire said:

I might have missed where someone has already mentioned this, but did you, perchance, ink a pen and find the smell still present when writing?

 

I inked up a Moonman 800 with Diamine Sargasso Sea once; and, as is usual for me, kept the ink in there for a number of months with very sporadic usage. I could not get the sickening smell — akin to algae infesting enclosed bodies of water such as in a cove — out of the pen body, no matter what after that. Soaking, airing, placing in direct sunlight for days, dilute ammonia, dilute bleach… and in the end, that pen got ruined by all that treatment (specifically, prolonged soaking in dilute ammonia solution corroded the metal parts), but the plastic still carried a faint whiff of that smell. It was when I uncapped the pen that it most ‘hit me in the face’ every time; I guess that gives the smell permeating and emanating from the plastic gripping section and/or nib housing to build up in that small amount of air inside the cap, even after the initial bouts of cleaning and changing the ink.

 

Seize the Night, Thunderbolt, and Festive Joy all smell like Sargasso Sea, but just not as strongly to my nose. Maybe half, or a third, of the strength, speaking really loosely since I have no way of objectively measuring it.

[Uncial]

I'm normally very sensitive to smells but I  cant say I've noticed any odours from any of the Inkvent inks.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I got Holly in the fancy bottle, and it has a bizarre smell.