Montblanc's Leonardo Red Chalk Limited Edition

These Montblanc limited editions are pretty great, right? Leonardo's Red Chalk is a fantastic red ink that dries to a medium dark matte red color. It's actually a little bit chalky-looking, which is a look that I'm really into. It's great to have an ink that glistens with sheen, but this ink shades so well, that the right hand could probably make it look like they were drawing with chalk.

Like other LE inks from Montblanc, this one comes in a smaller bottle than the regular MB inks. At 30ml, this is a fairly expensive ink, but I think it's worth the cost. It's a very classy bottle, but I'd hate for the ink to fade out, so it'll be staying in it's very cool box. This is my favorite of the LE boxes aside from the Einstein box.

The ink is a combination of reds and something darker at the top. A bit of blue/green, perhaps? You don't see any of that darker color, though. The ink on the page shades between a light red-brown and a dark red-brown.

The written review below was written with a broad stub, which is a bit on the wet side. This shows the darker side of this ink, and a good bit of shading. You should expect a bit lighter color from a drier nib. (I've written examples with several other nibs to show how this would look. Those pictures will be further down the blog.)

Picture-Fest, engage!

 The shading!

It's a great shader on good papers, but it also performs well on common copy paper. That's a big plus, in my book.

 There's just a little bleed, but that's to be expected from a broad stub on this paper. In other nibs, this wouldn't be a problem.

Below, you'll find writing samples with all of the nibs I have for this pen. The extra fine nib is a bit dry, but this ink even looks good from that nib. I wouldn't really recommend that this ink be used in an extra fine, but it could be.

 This is my new favorite panagram. Thanks Reddit!

The Copper Burst below was the a late addition to the comparisons. It's a bit closer than the others, but it's much more brown than the Red Chalk color. I don't have anything like it, that I can find. Maybe R&K Morinda, but that's more like ketchup than chalk.

Water Test and Review Video

Spoilers below!

The one draw-back to this ink is that it has absolutely zero water resistance. It comes off of the page almost instantly, and there's hardly a shred left behind. As draw-backs go, this one is not a big deal. I wouldn't address any envelopes with it, but it's great otherwise.