The Well-Appointed Desk

Inkmas has reached Day 8 and I reached into my stash to find KWZ Maple Red, the Scriptus 2018 exclusive color. I picked this up in Toronto at the Scriptus Show and paid far more than the original price because all I had in my wallet was a credit card and US currency. Unfortunately, the table set up to sell the ink didn’t take plastic so I ended up paying for the ink dollar-for-dollar with US currency. But that was the only way I was going to get a bottle of this ink. FOMO runs deep and I was willing to pay for it. Besides, it was probably cheaper than shipping to the US or trying to get a bottle of this on the secondary market.

That said, let’s talk about the color.

When applying the ink to my Col-o-dex card, it was the vibrant red of an autumn Japanese Maple tree. However, as it started to dry, it deepened into a more brownish red, and in writing, started to look almost walnut brown.

As you can see in the writing sample, the color is more of a warm brown than a flaming red orange. The water test spot hints at how bright the color was when  wet. With water, the bright orange is far more vivid.

In this close-up, the lettering seems to get progressively darker as I was writing. Though there is some nice shading this ink did not show any sheening properties either. Though I’m hard pressed to think of a single sheening red. It must be a very difficult task to make red ink sheen.

When I put Maple Leaves next to other warm red-orange and deep reddish brown inks, it became clear to me that there are definitely alternative options to Maple Red since this was a limited edition ink.

Birmingham Pen Co’s Mount Washington Sunset ($7.99 for 30ml bottle) is a pretty close match though ever-so-slightly more orangey. To be honest, if you are looking for an ink that reminds you of autumn leaves, Mount Washington Sunset is a great option. Diamine Ancient Copper ($15 for 80ml bottle) is also a good option. Noodler’s Antietam ($12.50 per 3oz bottle) is more fiery and Blackstone Uluru Red ($8.50 for 30ml bottle) is just a hint more reddish-pink.

With these comparisons, and my feeling that Maple Red dries a little too brown, I think there are good alternate options if you’re in search of a ruddy red. Which, look on the bright side, means you don’t have to beg, borrow or steal to get a bottle of this limited edition ink.

 

Welcome to Day 6 of Inkmas 2018! I just received my Ferris Wheel Press Kickstarter Backer package so I thought this would be a good ink to show today. First, the bottle and packaging.

Ferris Wheel Press packages their ink in a paperboard tube with lovely graphics and gold foil details. Inside, the bottle is wrapped in a color coordinated drawstring bag. The bottle itself is almost completely spherical with just a small, flat area on the bottom so it doesn’t roll away while filling your pen. The cap is hex-shaped and appears to be made of metal as its quite heavy.

The whole package is lovely but I’m not sure how practical the bottle or the bag is. It will take some time to determine how difficult it will be to get ink out of the bottle when it’s less full — and how difficult it might be to get ink out of the bottom of the bottle without making a complete mess. The metal cap is lovely but not necessary. A gold painted cap made of plastic would probably have been just as effective and considerably less expensive. The weight of the cap also made it a little challenging to screw on and off. If it was misaligned at all, it didn’t thread properly. Its not a huge deal but at upwards of $40CAD (approx. $29US) per bottle, the bottle and ink should be flawless. Each bottle contains 85ml of ink, slightly more than a standard sized bottle of Diamine (80ml per bottle, approx. $16 each) which has a bottle with a wide flat bottom. Sure, the graphics on the Diamine bottle are not nearly as nice as the FWP bottle but I’m not sure a metal cap and fancy packaging are worth an additional $11.

But, I digress…

Let’s get into the color. Tanzanite Sky is a deep, velvety blue-violet color. Its so dark and pigment-rich that there’s not a ton of shading. It had no discernible sheen on my Col-o-dex swatch card. The added pigment made the ink feel a little blobby when applied with a flexible dip pen.

Its a very dark blue that leans purple. I wouldn’t call it a blue-black but its a very deep blue.

In my writing sample, the ink performed better with a standard fountain pen but using the fine/medium nib of the FWP “The Brush” fountain pen but all shading aspects were lost.

When compared to other vivid blues in my collection, Tazanite Sky (third swatch down with the triangle border)  is definitely the darkest without adding black to the ink mixture. Above the Tanzanite Sky swatch in Sailor Nioi-Sumire and below it is Pilot Iroshizuku Asa-Gao. While Nioi-Sumire is a very cool blue shade, its much lighter. And Asa-Goa is a brighter, warmer blue in comparison.

Krishna Christmas Eve is dark in writing and pooled in places but it writes lighter and has a lot of sheen to it.

Overall, Tanzanite Sky is not a color that stirred my heart. I’m just not a fan of the color. It’s a personal preference thing more than anything. It performs adequately and it is not exactly like a half a dozen inks I already own. However, unless you are searching for a blue-violet with no sheen or shading, this is not an ink color I’d recommend. I received two other bottles from FWP that I have warmer feelings about. Tanzanite Sky just isn’t for me.

Tools:

• Paper: Rhodia Ice Blok No. 18 Lined with 6mm guide sheet
• Pens: Dip nib holder with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Acrylic dip nib pen (Approx. $15), FWP “The Brush” Fountain Pen
• Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10) & Col-o-dex Rotary Cards ($15)
• Brush: Silver Black Velvet #6 Round ($7.98)
• Ink:  Ferris Wheel Press Tanzanite Sky (starting at $40CAD for 85ml bottle)

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DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.