Diamine Writer’s Blood
Ink Review #112
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
This is the 2020 ink of the year made by Diamine for r/fountainpens.
Overview
The color/properties
Diamine Writer’s Blood is a dark purple-red with brown undertones. Despite being so dark and saturated, there’s still a surprising amount of shading in the form of a soft gradient between light and dark tones where the ink pools. With that said, depending on the paper, nib size, and how wet the pen is writing, it’s likely that you may not experience any shading at all. Something I wasn’t expecting to see was an occasional green sheen, especially on the Midori and Tomoe River papers. It’s minimal, and mostly a light edge around the letters, but in the right lighting you might notice it. However, I wouldn’t expect much more than that as, in most cases, the ink is too wet to properly pool on top of the paper to dry into a sheen before it begins to bleed into the page (and we’ll get to that).
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance on paper:
The performance isn’t the best here. The wet flow and saturation makes this ink really aggressive towards most papers. Surprisingly, I didn’t get as much bleed-through on the Kokuyo sheet as I thought there would be, but it does seem to push the paper to its limits. On the Leuchtturm and Maruman specifically, I noticed light signs of the ink beginning to bleed through. Even while working on the writing sample, I had light feathering on the 52 gsm Tomoe River I used. Heavy-handedness could also push the paper too hard. I would suggest keeping this ink away from wet-writing pens, but even then, it’s not going to be a paper-friendly ink.
In regards to the dry times, they’re not great, but also not as bad as I thought. On Rhodia and Maruman especially, the dry times were noticeably lower, but otherwise the dry times mostly sat between 20-25 seconds with the larger nib sizes and 5-10 with the smaller sizes. Keep in mind that because this ink is so saturated, there’s always the possibility of smudging no matter how long it’s been dry.
There’s some water resistance, but water exposure instantly causes the ink to cloud up, and while there are some dark shadows left behind that should be legible, it’s messy and hazy.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Writer’s Blood has one of the wettest flows I’ve seen on an ink. Many people may enjoy that, but I think it’s too wet. It wasn’t too much of an issue in the test pen, but the wetness seems to increase dramatically if the pen is even a little too generous with the flow and it becomes a disaster. I didn’t find it any more pleasant to write with than a less flowy ink, and if anything it was inconvenient, but at the very least, it should be able to keep up with the fastest writing. With that said, it wasn’t perfect, and I had a few hard starts while writing, especially while writing S’s. I didn’t notice any serious nib creep while writing or crusted ink around the bottle, but there was a visible layer of ink drying on the top of the nib units while working on my tests. It didn’t seem to cause any problems for me, but it’s worth mentioning.
The cleaning experience was okay: it takes slightly longer than the average ink to get out of a pen, but that’s not out of the ordinary for a saturated ink like this. A few soaks of the nib units cleaned the ink out easily, and I didn’t find any stains or residue on the inside of the barrel.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper
Performance in a pen: 8/10
Performance on paper: 6/10
Color saturation: 8/10
Sheening: 1/10
Shading: 4/10
Dry time: 6.5/10
Water resistance: 4/10
Ease of cleaning: 7/10
Shimmer: None
My Personal Thoughts…
I hate to say it because I know it’s so popular, but I don’t really care for Writer’s Blood. Being a fan of the original Diamine Oxblood, I bought Writer’s Blood shortly after it was released. While it’s certainly not the most aggressive ink I’ve ever tried, most of my experiences have been met with some kind of feathering or bleeding through the paper. My very first experience with writer’s blood was on the test page of my Leuchtturm journal with a Lamy fine nib. Instant feathering and bleed-through. It was so unusable that I’ve barely looked at it since. And I wish I could say I was more upset about that, but to be honest, I still prefer the color of Oxblood, and after this review, I don’t foresee myself ever opening the bottle again. Are there any positives? Well, the name seems appropriately edgy, because it feels like this ink woke up and chose violence.
Written in 52 gsm Tomoe River notebook with a Retro51 Tornado “The Raven” fountain pen (1.1 stub 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 are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A Midori MD A5 Notebook
A 52gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook