Tag: TWSBI Eco

January 2026’s Currently Inked Fountain Pens

It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these, mostly because through November I was still working through the Pelikan Hubs pens and then December was Inkvent time. However, I have just cleaned out all of my fountain pens and started out with a fresh batch for the new year. Here’s the lineup for January, and it’s mostly dedicated to new pens with interesting inks.

The pens top to bottom: Leonardo Bohemian Twilight, Pelikan M600 Red and White, Sailor Pro Gear Sunlight from the Ocean Floor, TWSBI ECO indigo blue and bronze, TWSBI ECO Serpentine and bronze and TWSBI ECO Plum and onyx
  • Leonardo Momento Zero Bohemian Twilight fine nib inked with Montblanc Around the World in 80 Days. I love this pen so much – the minute I saw it as I was stowing away my cleaned out pens I realised that I have to ink it again. It hasn’t been far from rotation from the minute I purchased it, because it’s a gorgeous pen with a wonderful nib that is comfortable for long writing sessions. The ink is beguiling – ever since I realised that it isn’t the mustard green that I was expecting I keep trying to figure it out. It’s on the spectrum between dark grey and blue-black, and there’s something about weirdly undefinable inks that appeals to me.
  • Pelikan M600 Red and White fine nib inked with Diamine Inkvent 2019 Candy Cane. I reviewed the ink here (it was from the first Inkvent calendar) and I liked the ink enough to buy a full bottle of it. Pelikan M600 is my favourite Pelikan size (even though there’s not much difference between it and the M800) and I didn’t have any of the red editions of the Pelikan Souveran line. When this one went on sale I just had to buy it. Pelikan’s are workhorses with a giant ink capacity and fantastic nibs. If you don’t have one, I recommend buying an M200 at least, and splurging on the M600 or M800 when you can. Note that Pelikan nibs are wider than their Japanese counterparts.
  • Sailor Pro Gear Sunlight from the Ocean Floor fine nib inked with KWZ Exclusive for epiora.pl Błękit Warty Poznani. This is my first sparkly Sailor fountain pen (most of my Sailor fountain pens are black, from the time before they started issuing pens in wild colours and sparkly finishes) and I bought it on sale. As Sailor have raised and raised their prices over the years I only buy them when they’re heavily discounted. Sailor fine nibs as usual are very fine and with plenty of feedback. The ink is an exclusive that KWZ created for a lovely local fountain pen store in Poznan, Poland called Epiora. I bought my Pelikan Art Edition there during the last day of the Urban Sketchers symposium and I got this ink for free. My plan is to review it, as it’s an attractive blue-black.
  • TWSBI ECO Indigo blue and bronze extra fine nib inked with Robert Oster River of Fire. A brand new pen for me, purchased at the same time as the other TWSBI ECOs in this rotation. The ink is old, from 2017, and an ink that I haven’t used in years. It’s very saturated, we’ll see how well it behaves on various notebooks.
Writing sample
  • TWSBI ECO Serpentine and bronze 1.1 nib inked with Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-Gaki. A new TWSBI ECO with a new (to me) classic Pilot Iroshizuku ink – Fuyu-Gaki. I’ve learned to love orange inks in recent years, and so I’ve decided to purchase this most classic of orange inks. Looking forward to giving it a try.
  • TWSBI ECO Plum with onyx extra fine nib inked with Robert Oster Caffe Crema. New pen with an old ink – recently gifted to me from an ex-fountain pen user. It’s an interesting shade of brown and I look forward to giving this ink a try.
Writing sample

Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 18

Day 18’s ink is Diamine Laurel, a dark, saturated blue-green “extreme sheen” ink. It has a LOT of red sheen and it takes ages to dry (although I will say that the TWSBI Eco 1.1 nib lays down a generous amount of ink, which didn’t help things).

Col-o-ring swab

Look at the amount of sheen on this ink – Diamine isn’t kidding when it says “extreme sheen”. You can see the lovely ink colour when you’re writing with it, but the minute it dries you can barely see it under all that reddish-purple sheen.

Close up on the extreme sheen

I used a new fountain pen to test out this ink – a TWSBI Eco Serpentine and Bronze fountain pen with a 1.1 nib. I really like the combination of the bronze, the dark green, and Diamine Laurel. They work well together.

TWSBI Eco Serpentine and bronze

The sheen really gave my camera a hard time, so this photo looks smudged. In any case on Apica CD paper (coated, fountain pen friendly paper) Diamine Laurel took a very long time to dry, so if you’re someone who tends to smudge wet ink, be aware of this.There was no bleed through or show through to the other side of the page.

Writing and sketching sample on Apica CD paper

Here’s a closeup of just how much sheen there is in this ink:

Extreme sheen

Everywhere the ink pools, red sheen glows through:

Extreme sheen

Today’s bear is Milan, made by Bear in Mind. He’s a nice but slightly worried looking bear.

The bear

Red and green work well together, especially in this time of year, and Diamine Laurel is perfect for an Inkvent calendar just on that merit. It’s an attractive ink, especially when combined with a generous nib and paper like Apica CD and Tomoe River Paper. You want a coated paper to make the most of this ink, and you need to take care not smudge this ink while it’s wet. The end results do glow on the page though, so I think that Diamine Laurel is worth the effort. What do you think?