Ink Review - Noodlers Black Swan in English Roses

Here's another ink that was given to me as a gift, and therefore, I decided to review it!

This is a fairly new ink from Noodlers, and I think it's going to be quite popular with the release of their new "flex pens". This ink is made for flex pens, providing lots of shading with the variation that comes from a flex nib.

As a normal thing now, I'm going to add a text version of the review since my handwriting is so bad. :) The underlined parts are afterthoughts. Things I may have forgotten, or changed my mind on since the original review.

Enjoy!



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Ink review: Noodlers Black Swan in English Roses


Pen and nib: TWSBI Diamond 530 with a B nib


Color: I'd call it a brown with a slight red undertone. In the bottle, it appears to be a beautiful blood-red color. I was hoping it would stay that way but it dried as a more light-brown color.


Dry-time: 20 seconds - That's not bad considering this nib is very wet.


Smear when dry: NO


Lubrication: Good - not much to report here


Shading: Excellent! This ink was made for shading in flex pens. Honestly, I would expect nothing less from this ink. My TWSBI, though not a flex pen by any means, does exhibit a slight amount of springiness. Just enough to give a little variation and produce some great shading.


Feathering: None, even on my cheaper paper (like this...) I think the slow dry time can be forgiven on account that this ink doesn't feather hardly at all.


Bleedthrough: It all depends on your paper. Certainly no more than any other ink.


Notes: Overall I find this ink a very nice one, but I probably won't buy any. The color just isn't to my personal liking. I'm not, and never have been, a fan of understated colors such as: blue-blacks, grey-blacks, or any other dull, non-vibrant color. This is all just my personal opinion though. I do like the shading though! I'd say if you like the color - go for it and by some. This ink some really neat qualities to it.


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Now for some scanned images of the actual ink! Please note: The picture below look a tad darker to my eye than the actual ink in real life. The color is accurate, especially the swab in the second page, but the first page is a bit dark...

I hope you've enjoyed this review of a semi-new ink that I find quite interesting. Let me know what you think of the review, and the ink - Drop me a comment below!

Be sure to subscribe too, that way you won't miss out on my next review coming out soon!

Regards,

777 - Tyler Dahl