Ink Exploration - Robert Oster Muddy Crown

One of my currently inked pens, my Leonardo Momento Zero, is inked with this great, dusky purple from Robert Oster called Muddy Crown. It's a medium purple with golden sheen.

Robert Oster Muddy Crown swatch showing dusky purple base color and golden sheen

My current jam is dusky colors, so this fits right in. It seems to be a well-behaved ink that isn't overly wet, even in broader nibs.

I wondered if, like some other inks, it would behave noticeably differently in different nibs, so I decided to do an exploration of various nib sizes in my collection. For all the other pens I used besides the Momento Zero, I thoroughly cleaned out the nibs and dipped into the ink instead of filling multiple pens. I was also going to use dip pens to show how different it might look from those nibs, but I ran out of room. :) Speaking of paper, I used a sheet of A5 Tomoe River (not Sanzen), 52 gsm weight.

I don't have an extensive sample of nibs, but I think the set of pens I used was diverse enough for this initial experiment.

The Pens

I ended up using 16 pens across EF, F, M, B, and some specialty nibs, like stubs, a fude, a "long blade" (architect), and an EF ultraflex nib.

Left to right: Leonardo Momento Zero, Kaigelu long blade; Jinhao X159, EF; Majohn A2, EF; Jinhao X159, F; Pilot Elite, SF; BENU Euphoria, F; Platinum Preppy, 03 (F); Kaweco AL Sport, F

Left to right: Pilot Capless Fermo, M (18K); BENU Euphoria, M; Pilot Falcon, SM (14K); Kaweco AL Sport, B; Hongdian Rainbow Forest, fude; TWSBI ECO, 1.1 stub; Kaweco Sport, 1.1 stub; Nahvalur Original Plus, EF ultraflex

The Writing Samples

I didn't do too much writing for each sample since there wasn't a lot of room. If you have other suggestions of writing I should try in future explorations, please comment.

Scan of writing samples from all the pens listed above

It's always tough to get colors represented as close as what my eyes saw, but I tried my best to adjust the scan accordingly.

Intuitively, the color and sheen shines through more, the broader the nib is. I much prefer the look of the ink from a wetter nib to get a deeper base color. I don't necessarily want to see the sheen too much, though, since it can obscure the base color, but notably the writing sample from the EF ultraflex nib was wet enough to leave a golden halo around my writing, which is cool to see in strong, angled lighting.

Notable Results

The nibs that allowed more pooling, and therefore more sheening were:

The wet F nib on the Jinhao X159,

the BENU Euphoria with M nib, which sometimes feels like a B, and

the Pilot Falcon with SM 14K nib (Pilot mediums tend to be gushers in my experience),

(ignore the shimmer in the Pilot Falcon sample; it apparently still had shimmer in its feed after I cleaned it)

very slightly, the Kaweco Sport with the 1.1 stub,

and finally, the Nahvalur Original Plus with the EF ultraflex.

Summary

Across EF and F nibs, the ink looked basically the same, except for the wetter Jinhao F nib (which is probably closer to M anyway). Between a F and M nib that had similar line widths (German F vs. Japanese M), the base color looked the same, and there was no sheening.

Wetter nibs made the base color deeper, but sheening only came out if there was enough ink pooling. The EF ultraflex is the wettest nib, but the pooling is different from all the other nibs, causing a halo of sheening around each letter, instead of sheening that overlays the writing. The sheen halo is a cool look combined with the line variation offered by the flex nib, even though I'm not doing calligraphic or stylized writing.

I'm surprised the B Kaweco nib didn't cause any sheening, but since it evenly distributed the ink across broader strokes, the pooling was non-existent.

Conclusion

Despite not getting any out-there, shocking results, I liked experimenting with one ink across different nib sizes and types. It helped me acquaint myself with the ink and observe, however briefly, how it behaved in different pens, so that in the future when I fill a different pen with this ink, I'll know what to expect.

Thanks for reading this far! If you have any ink exploration requests, feel free to ask. I may not have the exact ink, but I might have comparable ones. Depending on the ink, I might make a special purchase if I am interested enough in it. :)