Ink Review #95

*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.

Overview

The color/properties:

Endless Alchemy Wizard’s Pencil is a deep dark grey. By the name, I assume that it’s going for a kind of graphite look, but there’s a lot of green undertone in the lighter parts of the ink that throws it off. I find it a little too dark and shade-y to be graphite. Speaking of which, there is some soft shading that darkens the color to a near black. There’s some light edging around the letters too, but it’s not that easy to see. Interestingly, there was also a slight silver/purple/red sheen. Unlike the shading, however, the sheen isn’t that easy to see, and on most of the papers I tried, it wasn’t visible at all. I noticed it the most on Tomoe River and Midori, as well as the ink splat and droplets (on Rhodia), but I wouldn’t count on seeing the sheen if that’s what you’re looking for — it’s still not a sheening ink.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

Wizard’s Pencil performs well and didn’t show any feathering or bleeding on most of the test papers, and that almost included Kokuyo because there was barely any bleeding to be seen there. It should be just fine on most fountain pen-friendly papers. The dry times were slightly below average. The large nib sizes dried mostly within 15-20 with few discrepancies and the finer sizes dried within 5-10; however, there were a few instances where, for whatever reason, the dry times took abnormally longer than expected (for example, 25 seconds with the medium nib on Midori). The dry times were okay, and anything left over after water exposure might be readable, but the ink does cloud up and the whole thing is messy. Far from ideal.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

My experiences with Wizard’s Pencil were… mixed. It looks like it should have a wet flow, but in practice, it was awfully dry and unlubricated. There were a lot of hard starts with the needlepoint through fine nibs (that’s two fine nibs: one for the header, one for the test). It was a frustrating experience, BUT then I got to the broad nib, and the experience was completely different. It was wet, and lubricated — excellent. The stub was okay too, though a bit drier, but the architect was unfortunately no different than the finer nibs. So, it’s not the most consistent experience and your mileage will vary a lot from nib to nib. But at least the cleaning experience was excellent! A single flush with a bulb syringe and the color was gone.

• Performance in a pen: 6.5/10

• Performance on paper: 9.5/10

• Color saturation: 6/10

• Sheening: 1/10

• Shading: 5/10

• Dry time: 7/10

• Water resistance: 3/10

• Ease of cleaning: 10/10

• Shimmer: None

My personal thoughts...

I didn’t know what to expect with the Alchemy inks outside of a cool bottle, but I have to say I was impressed with my experiences, and I’ve been ecstatic over the past few weeks of trying them out. By this point, I so badly wanted the whole set to be good. I was ready, and I’m always fond of a nice grey ink, so I saved what I was hoping would be the best for last. I was going into Wizard’s Pencil with high hopes! The initial impressions were positive: the swatches were a little darker than I prefer my greys but it lightens up in writing. I thought it could have been a contender for a great everyday grey, and with that mindset, I was all set to get it in a pen! Unfortunately, I can’t say I could hold on to my excitement with Wizard’s Pencil. In practice, it’s just too dry and unpleasant. I don’t usually mind a dry ink if it at least works well enough, but doing the tests for this ink was honestly frustrating — that’s not something I often experience working on these reviews. I did mention that it was better in a few of the nibs, and I stand by that; it’s not so bad when it works, but I don’t enjoy that kind of inconsistency. Maybe you don’t mind that, and if that’s the case, there might still be some joy to be had here. But I can’t recommend it, and I really wish I could.

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