Ink Swatch Wednesday: Revisiting Diamine Inkvents (and a bonus)

Last year I made a calendar grid for Diamine Inkvent swatches so that I could have them all visible on one page, in addition to having individual ink swatch "cards" for my library. I hadn't re-swatched the older Inkvents on this calendar grid...until today (well, yesterday and today, #pedantic 😆). It was fun to revisit the older Inkvents, but I realize how many dang inks I have from these 3 sets alone, ack! I'm going to have to think of some creative ways to use up the inks that I wouldn't use for writing. 🤔

Diamine Inkvent Green 2022

2022 was the year I started collecting fountain pens and inks. I was pretty excited when I found out about Inkvent because it sounded like an awesome daily activity for December, and a cool way to try a bunch of new inks!

Out of all of these, my favorites are Yule Log, Ghost, Dusted Truffle, Three Kings, Arctic Blast, Deck the Halls, and One More Sleep. At the time, I was fascinated by shimmer inks, so the standard inks didn't interest me as much as they do now (now I'm much more interested in standard inks with great shading/chromoshading, but my tastes are open to changing). Arctic Blast and Yule Log were inks I used most after opening all the Inkvent bottles that year.

Diamine Inkvent Purple 2023

At the beginning of this Inkvent, I was getting worried I might not like the inks in this batch, but I did end up liking a few of the set: Early Dusk, Jacaranda, Bah Humbug, Weeping Willow, Rainbows End, Walnut, Merry & Bright, Tranquility, Fireside Snug, and Sugar Snap. I was kind of disappointed by how many black or really dark inks with shimmer there were in the set since those often just look black to me in regular writing (I do not like using black ink).

I was surprised at how much I liked Merry & Bright since I don't like bright green ink, but the base color and silver shimmer remind me of Loki's colors (from Marvel), even though his colors are green and gold. I also surprisingly like Fireside Snug even though it's an orange. I think it's because it's a darker orange with maybe some brown tones? It's definitely an ink I'll break out again soon, as we enter the fall season.

Diamine Inkvent Black 2024

In retrospect, I think last year's Inkvent started out stronger than 2023's, and there were some pretty interesting sheening inks that made me somewhat change my mind about sheening inks (I'm not a fan, generally). At first, because I saw that the new gimmick for that year was "extreme sheen" inks, I thought, "oh no..." but they at least were intriguing base color and sheen combinations.

I'm kind of tired of the bright or medium blue bases with strong red sheen inks, as they seem most common. And yes, Vibe and Cosmic Glow are both blues with strong red sheen, but Vibe is a darker blue that leans teal (I think), and Cosmic Glow's blue is also quite dark. I guess they're both moody. I was also surprised that Grotto piqued my interest since I don't like orangey, tomato reds, but the combination with gold sheen was at least different from what I've seen before. Same with Sleigh Ride's brownish-red base and greenish sheen. Somehow the combo is thought-provoking rather than bleh to me. 😅

My favorites from the bunch: Forest Gateau, Marley, Wishing Tree, Tundra, Nutmeg, Salted Caramel. Close runners up: Snow Globe, Lullabye, Vibe, Potpourri, Cosmic Glow, Pine Needle.

Bonus: The Pen Addict Slackvent

I additionally did an ink swap with someone from The Pen Addict's Slack group last year, which ended up being referred to as "Slackvent". 😄 My generous ink swap partner sent 24 inks instead of the prescribed 12, so I had a lot of ink swatching to do last year. 😅 This person did a great job at selecting lots of colors I'd like, and colors I wouldn't have picked for myself, but am keen to try.

Out of the batch, my favorites are: Sailor Ink Studio 223, Anderillium Tolype Moth Warm, Pilot Iroshizuku Kiri-Same, Dominant Industry Manschurian Violet, Taccia Ume Murasaki, Sailor Manyo Hinoki, Papier Plume Honey Island Swamp Monster, Anderillium Atlas Moth Brown, and Colorverse Hwang Cho. I want to buy bottles of many of these, but my ink library is already getting way out of hand, so I'll at least use up the samples first before considering buying!

Ink Swatch Grid Template

You might've noticed that last year's ink swatch grids were hand-drawn (if you look closely you can see pencil marks from the grid I drew). I didn't think to make a grid template on the computer at the time, but after doing the swatching, I knew I at least wanted to do the same for my older Inkvents, but didn't want to do it by hand again. I was able to reproduce the grid in a Google Doc for an A4 sheet of paper, so if you're interested in using this template, you can make a copy of it. Let me know if you end up using it! I'd love to see your ink swatch grids, whatever you end up swatching, Inkvent or not.

Inkvent 2025, and more?

At this point, it feels like a given that I'll get this year's Inkvent, even though my ink library feels like it's bursting. Colorverse got into the Advent calendar game last year, but I didn't buy it. Besides the cost, I felt like it'd be overwhelming (though I ended up doing the ink sample swap). I'm kinda bummed I didn't get it because it seems like there were several cool browns/neutrals/odd colors I would've liked, but Colorverse only released full bottles of the top 3 or 5 (can't remember) colors voted on by purchasers last year. None were the colors I wanted. 😕 So, who knows if I'll convince myself to get Colorvent this year... How about y'all? Are you going to buy Diamine Inkvent or Colorverse's Colorvent? Or will you roll your own ink Advent calendar swap? Please share your swatches, whatever you end up doing. 🎨

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