Diamine Blood Orange (150th Anniversary II)

[namrehsnoom]

Diamine Blood Orange (150th Anniversary II)

The ink maker from Liverpool is one of the staple brands in ink-land. They consistently produce solid inks for a very reasonable price. In 2017, Diamine released their second ink series to commemorate their 150th Anniversary. I obtained my set shortly thereafter, but more or less forgot about them when my attention drifted to Japanese inks. About time to finish the reviews. Fortunately, these anniversary inks are still easily obtainable, so if you like what you see you can still get them.

 

Blood Orange is a nicely saturated dark red that looks quite lovely. It’s muted and subdued, not a screaming red that jumps from the page. Quite suited for marking up papers, or correcting a pupil’s homework – it won’t scream “You made a mistake!”, but is more subtle “Look, this is not what I expected… here a some pointers to learn more about the topic, and to improve your test next time.” With this ink, it’s definitely the fruit that is referred to, no orange colour that I can see in this ink. Diamine might just as well have called it Vampire Juice. As we are used to from Diamine, the ink performs well, and writes a saturated line in all nib sizes. Shading is present with M nibs and above, but fairly unobtrusive – there is not a lot of contrast between the light and darker parts. 

 

The ink itself is on the wet side: combine it with wet pens, and you get a deeply saturated red-black line that accentuates the shading. I simply love the way my Yard-o-Led with F-nib makes the most of this Diamine ink – see the nib-size sample below. Blood Orange plays well with both white and cream paper. Personally, I like it a touch better with the yellow papers in my test set… they soften up the ink a bit more. The ink easily handles low-quality paper, with only a tiny amount of feathering on Moleskine. Expect some show-through and even a little bit of bleed-through – not a lot, but too much to use low-quality paper on both sides.

To illustrate the colour span of Blood Orange, I did a swab on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. Blood Orange has a fairly narrow colour span, with not much contrast between the light and darker parts. This translates to soft shading when writing. Shading is definitely there (starting with M nibs and above) but remains fairly unobtrusive. Just enough to accentuate that you’re writing with a fountain pen.

 

On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – the ink showed only a limited amount of smearing, with the written word remaining crisp and clear. Water resistance is totally absent – most colour disappears from the page, leaving only some red-purple smudges. Not an ink to use if water-resistance is high on your list. This is also evident from the bottom part of the chromatography.

 

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 the Lamy Safari M-nib
• Source of the quote, written with a wet F-nib Yard-o-Led
• Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari)

The multi-paper writing test shows that Blood Orange handles all papers well, looking good on both white and cream paper. There is a small amount of feathering on the worst-quality paper (Moleskine), but nothing really extreme. With cheap paper, you do get a lot of see-through and some bleed-through, making it nigh impossible to use the backside of the paper. Drying times with the Lamy Safari M-nib varied widely, depending on the absorption characteristics of the paper (from 5 seconds on absorbent paper, to more than 20 seconds on hard Japanese paper).

 

Because scans don't always capture an ink's colour and contrast with good precision, I also add a photo to give you an alternative look on this Diamine ink. To my eye, both scan and photo capture the colour quite well.

 

Writing with different nib sizes
The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing (written on Rhodia N°16 80 gsm paper). All samples were written with a Lamy Safari. I also added a couple of visiting pens: a Pelikan M600 with M-nib, and my wet Yard-o-Led with F-nib. Blood Orange looks good in all pens, but really shines in the wet F-nib on the Yard-o-Led with some awesome-looking shading that looks almost 3-dimensional.

 

Related inks
To compare Diamine Blood Orange with related inks, I use my 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. Blood Orange looks like a slightly darker version of TACCIA benitsuchi. Oh – and by the way – while writing this review I noticed that I selected benitsuchi twice (apparently I had two sample cards of this ink, and I just selected on colour without paying attention to the ink names).

 

Inkxperiment – Jack the Ripper
As a personal challenge, I try to create interesting drawings using only the ink I’m reviewing. I consider this a fun extension of the hobby, and these single-ink drawings are great for exploring the colour-range nuances that are present in the ink. I love doing them! 

Inspiration for this drawing comes from the book “A Sympony of Echoes” by Jodi Taylor (one of the books in the Chronicles of St Mary’s series – highly recommended for a light and enjoyable read). The book chronicles the adventures of a group of time-traveling historians documenting major events in our history. In this novel, our historians travel to London of 1888, where they have a nasty encounter with a wraith-like Jack the Ripper. I tried to capture this particular moment in my drawing.

 

I started with an A4 piece of HP photo paper to which I added a background of squares representing the city blocks and winding streets of London. I then added some city elements (Big Ben and city lights) to set the scene and painted in our brave historians. I then used a fine brush to add the wraith-like figure of Jack the Ripper, roaming the streets in London’s Whitechapel district, ready to slay and maim his victims. I got carried away a bit while drawing the figure of Jack the Ripper resulting in too much clutter in the drawing. But still, you get a good feeling of what can be achieved with this Diamine ink in a more artsy context. For a red ink, there’s quite some potential there.

 

Inkxpired – computational art
I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper.

 

Starting from the original drawing, I did a square cut-out and converted the drawing to black-and-white. Next I used a negative filter with gives a more ghost-like Jack the Ripper. I finally  used an art filter to add some colour, and applied a radial blur filter that centered on the killer’s victim.

 

Conclusion
Diamine Blood Orange is a good-looking dark red – muted and with lots of character. What makes this ink stand out for me is the way it looks in my wet F-nib Yard-o-Led … simply amazing: an almost red-black with tons of shading and a 3-dimensional feel. The ink works well with both white and cream paper, and writes wet and well-saturated in all nib sizes. I enjoyed experimenting with it – both for writing and drawing -  and can definitely recommend it if you like dark red inks. 

Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib

 

 

Backside of writing samples on different paper types

 

 

 

[LizEF]

Thank you, @namrehsnoom, for another amazing review!   I think I like the darker range of this ink.  Perhaps I'll sample it one year...   As always, your artwork is the best part.  I think the "clutter" works in this case - blood is messy.  And the computational version is just plain creepy!   Well done, both!

[mizgeorge]

Wonderful! Thank you as always @namrehsnoom for an outstanding review of an often overlooked ink from a rather underrated series. There are a number of these that I really like, and this is definitely one of them. I definitely agree that it's more blood than orange though!

 

I love the artwork especially the original, but the computational version as well. The wraithiness is beautifully communicated - I'm especially taken with the hands and feet.

 

These are always such a treat - what a tonic on a very gloomy day.

 

 

 

 

[yazeh]

Another excellent review @namrehsnoom,   fun and creative quotes and eerie art. 

I was intrigued by this ink, as I loved blood oranges as a child and preferred them to ordinary ones  but I think I'll stick to the fruit and forget this ink, even though it look quite tempting in your talented hands

 

 

[Doc Dan]

Thank you for this review. It is funny, I just bought this ink yesterday morning and am awaiting its arrival. I'm glad to see I made the right choice. 

[InesF]

Thank you, @namrehsnoom, for another excellent and comprehensive review! It is difficult to find a good behaving and well saturated red ink. Therefore, every one found does count!  

I didn't know this Diamine ink before. Red Dragon, which I know, makes me perfectly happy and so I guess, Blood Orange can safely enter my "do not miss, but buy later" shopping list. I also love my P.Edelstein garnet and the newest acquisition of Fritz Schimpf Morgenröte. All of them quite similar.

 

I love your inspiring interpretation of Jack the Ripper - physically present but as difficult to catch as a ghost!  It reminds me a bit to Marc Chagall.

[chromantic]

I bought this expressly for my M600 Red Tortoise and was pleased that it's a perfect match.

[Doc Dan]

 

Here is the Blood Orange in my TWSBI Eco Heat. It is a deep red-orange. Very nice. 

[amberleadavis]

Wow, I loved your reviews before, but the artwork is amazing. Thank you for sharing.

I think I didn't buy this ink because it was so close to Deep Dark Orange, but you make it look much prettier.