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Troublemaker inks seems to be be everywhere lately – new dealers in the United States and the addition of several new inks as well. I’m showing off a couple of these new inks here – Butterfly Dream and Polar Lights.
Troublemaker packages their ink in 60mL dark plastic bottles. I have found some variation in price, but you can find it at Vanness for $24 (for shimmer inks) or $16.50 (for non shimmer inks).
Now for the inks themselves!
The base ink color for Butterfly Dream is an avocado green of medium saturation while Polar Lights is a dark purple-grey. Each ink shows some shading but nothing dramatic. I’ve seen a touch of sheen in each as well.
The two inks really stand out when the light is at the right angle. Butterfly Dream has a blue/purple shimmer and Polar Lights has a turquoise or green shimmer.
Polar Lights is a darker ink than Robert Oster Sterling Silver, but the two are close.
Polar Lights on Midori MD paper:
Midori MD paper at a different angle:
Polar Lights on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
Cosmo Air Light paper at a different angle:
And Tomoe River (52gsm TR7) paper:
Tomoe River paper at a different angle:
Butterfly Dream is my favorite of these two inks and is incredibly close to KWZ’s Prairie Green (Galen Leather exclusive ink). Prairie Green has lots of gold shimmer, however, while Butterfly Dream is a blue/purple.
Butterfly Dream on Tomoe River (52gsm TR7) paper:
Tomoe River paper at a different angle:
Butterfly Dream on Midori MD paper:
Midori MD paper at a different angle:
Butterfly Dream on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
And Cosmo Air Light paper at a different angle:
I have kept a pen (a TWSBI Go pen, medium nib) inked with Butterfly Dream for the past two weeks with no sign of blockage or slow ink flow so far. TWSBIs are a favorite of mine with sparkle inks since the feed has a slightly wider channel than other pen feeds.
What is your take on the new Troublemaker inks? Will these be on your to-buy list?
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Ink Review: Troublemaker 2022 New Inks appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
I get so excited when I find a new line of ink! The manufacturer of this line is Teranishi and I’ve come across two lines of their ink – Guitar and Taisho Roman. I have three of the Taisho Roman inks to show today. I picked these up from St. Louis Art Supply for $18.95 each which works out to $0.47 per mL.
The external packaging for the Taisho inks is almost identical to some of the Taccia inks, perhaps giving hints to the actual ink manufacturer. The bottle contains 40mL of ink and has a small tag attached with space for a tiny swatch of the ink although the paper used for the tag is too absorbent to show the ink color accurately.
The three ink colors I have here are Gentle Green, Smoky Navy, and Opera Rose.
Opera Rose is an interesting color – a bit under saturated terracotta or salmon orange/pink/brown. It shades but not dramatically.
Papier Plume’s 011 ink is a few shades darker than Opera Rose, but the color is a match.
Smoky Navy has some great shading and is a lovely blue-black ink. Occasionally a hint of sheen shows up but only in the swatch.
I had a hard time finding a match to Smoky Navy in my collection. The lightest portion of the swatch is a match with Diamine Prussian Blue, and the darker areas appeared to match Robert Oster Thunderstorm, but the camera brings out much more green in Smoky Navy.
I saved my favorite of the batch for last. Gentle Green. It immediately reminded me of Taccia Sabimidori with the way is wrote blue but dried to a definite green.
When comparing Gentle Green to Sabimidori, though, the colors were further apart than I had imagined. The heavier applications of Sabimidori are close to the color in Gentle Green, but the overall color is quite different. Wearingeul Mad Hatter is a good match.
The first page below is Tomoe River (TR7) paper
Next is Midori MD paper – this paper is cream rather than the white of the other two examples.
Finally, Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper.
Here’s another shot of the Cosmo Air Light paper, turned to catch the sheen in both Gentle Green and Smoky Navy.
Scrolling through the photos of the paper types, you may have noticed how different the Taisho Roman inks appear on each. Gentle Green is the most obvious, but all three colors change between papers. I’ve photographed pairs of notebooks to show how much they can change.
Tomoe River 52gsm is on the left with Cosmo Air Light 83gsm on the right.
Cosmo Air Light 83gsm is on the left with Midori MD on the right. These don’t even look like the same inks.
So which ink and paper combination is your favorite?
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Ink Review: Taisho Inks, Part 1 appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
ColorVerse has released an amazing variety of ink over the last year. One of the most recent inks is ColorVerse 2023 New Year. A big thank you to Dromgoole’s for sending this ink for this review!
2023 New Year is a fabulous bright green ink with lots of sparkle – the closest I have in my collection is Anderillium Spirula green although 2023 New Year is darker.
2023 New Year surprised me with the amount of shading – that isn’t something I usually expect with sparkling inks.
The sparkle is a bit wild – both gold and silver particles. I had no issues with 2023 New Year clogging or even hard starts – ColorVerse uses a small enough particulate that the ink flows well.
Now for the paper. The first paper here is Tomoe River paper (TR7). Lots of shading on TR paper and a bit of a black halo sheen as well.
I’ve angled the same swatch so you can get an idea of the sparkle!
Cosmo Air Light paper, as usual, brings out the blue undertones of the ink, making it more of an emerald green
Sparkling inks have a great time on Cosmo Air Light paper, although the sparkle has the tendency to drift across the page.
Midori MD paper shows ColorVerse 2023 New Year much closer to a true green.
However, the sparkling characteristics of the ink are wasted on Midori MD.
2023 New Year is a 30mL bottle and is priced at $24 MSRP which works out to $0.80 per mL. While not as expensive as Sailor’s small bottles, it is a bit pricey, but I do think the novelty of both silver and gold sparkle makes this ink worth grabbing while it is around.
DISCLAIMER: The ink included in this review was provided free of charge by Dromgoole’s for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Ink Review: ColorVerse 2023 New Year appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
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