Diamine Night Shade
Ink Review #119
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
This ink is part of the Inkvent Red Edition (2021)
Overview
The color/properties:
Diamine Night Shade is a dusky blue ink with a soft purple cast. There are some subtle pink tones as well where the ink lays down the lightest. The ink shades with a soft gradient in cursive, and a still soft, but harder cut between its light and dark tones when writing in print. There are some much darker, almost black edges in the ink splat and droplets, however, that’s not something I observed in my own tests. The color is lighter, but I wouldn’t call it pale and I didn’t have any issues with the ink’s visibility.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance on paper:
I didn’t notice any bleeding or feathering on any of my test pages, and Night Shade should be safe on most fountain pen-friendly papers. The dry times were average, with the large nib sizes mostly drying between 15-20 seconds, and the fin nibs drying within 10-15. They’re slightly longer than expected, especially with the fine nibs, but still more than usable.
The water resistance is poor, although better than expected. Most of the color quickly washes away after water exposure, but there are crisp violet shadows left behind of anything that was written. There’s minimal clouding as well, but the results aren’t the best in regard to legibility.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Night Shade has a medium-dry flow, and I had some serious hard starting issues while using the 1.1 Stub, but otherwise, it was well-behaved, without any hard starts, skips, or stops from the other nib units I tested. It’s not a slick ink, and if you have a pen that gives more feedback, you’ll absolutely feel it, but I found it to be comfortable enough with all of my test nibs (that weren’t the stub).
The cleaning was easy as expected and only required a single flush to quickly clear this ink from the pen, without any remaining stains, color, or residue left in the pen or nib units.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper
Written on Midori MD (White)
Performance in a pen: 8/10
Performance on paper: 10/10
Color saturation: 6/10
Sheening: 0/10
Shading: 5/10
Dry time: 7/10
Water resistance: 2/10
Ease of cleaning: 10/10
Shimmer: None
My personal thoughts…
Let me just paint a picture: It’s a late winter afternoon, the windows are frosted over and there are some thick flurries coming down. The windows are frosting over and the sun is on it’s way down but there’s still a dim cast of pale winter light coming in from outside. I’ve been playing Castlevania for the last 36 hours, but it doesn’t matter because it’s winter break and I don’t have to worry about school tomorrow. Yep. Good times. And for whatever reason, that’s what Diamine Night Shade reminds me of. It might not be as flashy as many of the other Inkvent inks, but nonetheless, it’s more than welcome in my collection.
Writing samples written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (cursive) and Midori MD white traveler’s notebook inserts (print) with a Scriveiner EDC (medium nib)
More images/info:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A Midori MD A5 Notebook
A 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook