As promised, here's the other Online ink that I've had a chance to try out. Smaragd is a green that runs a little more towards blue-green than straight green. It's got about the same characteristics that the Brown does, but it will bleed/feather/spread if your paper is cheap. That's probably because it flows a little bit wet from my Lamy's M-nib. This makes it look like it shades just a bit, but I think that's really just ink-pooling before it dries.
This is pre-water-test, of course.
You can see in this pic that it's a bit more blue than some other greens.
This last set of pictures are done on the cheapest little pad of paper I have sitting around. You can see the bleed on the page, but you'll have to trust me on the spread. It's mot much, but it does make my M-nib look like a broad. Not much feathering, but there is some.
I suggest that you give it a shot if you're in the market for a new green ink. It's not unique, but it's different enough that it is worth adding to your collection if you can find one of these little bottles.
I'm sure most have seen this set of inks already, but mine were due to arrive shortly before we moved house, and they were lost in the post for a couple-or-three weeks. Then I couldn't find my normal sampling paper so I just used a sheet of paper from the printer. It doesn't give as much depth of color as Rhodia or other heavy papers, but it does show what the inks are likely to look like on normal office paper.
I've got Grenade in a grading pen right now, and its not bad. It tends to have a high surface tension ( which keeps some of it stuck up in the top of my converter) but its an interesting color to grade in. And it's kind of fun to use a Grenade on some student's work.
(Ooof. The photo isn't the best. I'm trying out this new iPad, and I'm not all that good with it yet.)
Okay, here are some more pictures.
This paper was all distorted by the ink I smeared on it. You can see the wrinkles. Take that, Staples 20lb basic copy paper!
I know it's been a couple of weeks, but I think the house-getting has settled down, and I've finally caught up on work-stuff enough to justify coming back to the blog. I tell you what, getting settled in a new house is exhausting. I went to bed last night at about 8:30. Ugh.
Anyway, Online is a German company that has some interesting pens and Goulet used to carry some of their inks. They came in really small bottles (15 mls), and I picked up samples from the line shortly before Goulet stopped carrying them. Actually, I don't know if Online even makes ink any more. They don't seem to have any on their site, but it looks like a fair amount of their english-language site is down. I've only tried 2 of the inks (the green is going up next), but I've liked both of them.
This brown ink is very...medium. It's a medium brown that is medium wet. Does it shade? Well, maybe. I had it in an XF pen, so I really can't tell what it'll do in a broad, but I think it might do a little shading with a bigger nib. It did shade a little on Rhodia, but I didn't see it do that elsewhere. If you're into brown inks, then you're probably going to like this one. It's not yellow, and it's not super-dark. It's medium-brown.
I had a little pad of cheap paper, so I wrote a little to show the ink on the worst paper I could find. It feathered and bled there, but you'll be fine using it on anything else.
I'll try to have the water test video up soon, but I've only just found the box that I hope has the original write-up in it. We've moved, but I haven't had a chance to unpack my office at all.
My Pentel Stylo does this weird thing where it scatters ink on some strokes. You can see it around "Lower per" in the picture, and also in the scattered dots in the top left corner. Is this a feature or a problem? I kinda like the effect.
The Mrs. and I have just moved into our house, and I might not be blogging much for a while. We're going to be busy figuring things out and getting the house squared away for the next while. So far, all of our stuff is moved, and the water heater probably failed last night. Hooray for home ownership.
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