By Cheryl Lindo Jones in Fountain Pens — Nov 13, 2024

Ink Swatch Wednesday: Troublemaker Tablea

Troublemaker Tablea ink swatch on Tomoe River 52gsm (Sanzen)

To everyone who's not into brown inks, I'm sorry for this. I keep finding interesting brown inks to add to my collection! 😅 If you want to see a non-brown ink write up, may I interest you in Journalize Dark Matter (no shimmer), Papier Plume Bayou Nightfall, or Robert Oster Grey Seas? These were my latest 3 non-brown ink posts. ✌️

For the rest of you, I introduce Troublemaker Tablea. I picked this up on Fountain Pen Day along with a couple other browns (Robert Oster Motor Oil and Jacques Herbin Cacao du Brésil, which I'll write up in the near future) and 3 vintage NOS (new old stock) Pelikan P20 Twist pens from Endless Pens. I inked up one of the P20 Twist pens with Tablea almost immediately because I was enamored of this color-changing ink.

The color-changing effect seen as it dries reminds me of Sailor Yurameku inks. When I swatched Troublemaker Tablea, it first appears as a warm red-brown, and quickly starts to dry into olive-y green and medium brown colors. I tried to take a picture of the swatch before it fully dried so you can see the differences:

Fountain pen ink swatch with some ink still wet, the wet ink appearing reddish-brown, while the rest of the swatch appearing varying shades of brown and olive green

Around the edges of the swatch, you can see brown with varying shades of greenish undertones. In writing the ink doesn't look as dramatic, but you do still see the initial red-brown before the color dries to the swampy green-brown.

Like I said above, I wanted to ink a pen with this right away, so I used one of the Pelikan P20 Twists I bought in the same order.

A white plastic pen with a dark blue clip and a "bar graph" design of vertical bars with varying lengths in range of rainbow colors on the pen body — Pelikan P20 Twist, a vintage Pelikan pen from the 1980s that uses cartridges

I'll write more about these pens later, but I will quickly mention that these are very light plastic pens that because of their age feel a bit on the fragile side. We'll have to see how long they last under normal usage. I already got a chip in the threads for the section. 😐

Anyway, here are a couple writing samples, the first on Iroful paper, the second on Kokuyo Business paper.

Transcript:

Pelikan P20 Twist, F (?)
Troublemaker Tablea
[figure-8 doodles and alternating groups of 4 vertical and horizontal lines, "reverse writing"]
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

Transcript:

Pelikan P20 Twist, F (?)
Troublemaker Tablea
[figure-8 doodles and alternating groups of 4 vertical and horizontal lines, "reverse writing"]
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

This ink looks interesting, as it goes down as a slightly reddish brown, then dries with some greenish tones, & the red-brown colors go away. Very nice shading even with this fine-ish nib. It helps the nib is a bit italic. Out of the 3 inks today, this is my favorite, but I admit I haven't yet tried the other inks in pens.

For the Kokuyo Business paper writing sample, it starts out a bit light, but then darkens. And as it darkens, it becomes more greenish-brown, but in the lighter parts it looks more like a warmer slightly reddish-brown. I think this is because I syringe filled the converter I used in the pen, so the ink wasn't fully saturated in the feed at first. I think that may be why the writing on Iroful looks darker brown because it absorbs more and has the effect of making nibs write a bit wetter/broader.

Comparisons

I don't have an ink that is exactly like Troublemaker Tablea, but I have some swampy green-browns that remind me of Tablea, and I found a couple olive greens that look similar to a component of the Tablea swatch.

Swampy green-browns

Clockwise from top left: Troublemaker Tablea, Pilot Iroshizuku Yama Guri, The Wet Pen Gas Works Park, and Sailor Shikiori Rikyucha all on Tomoe River 52gsm (Sanzen)

Looking at these swatches together, Rikyucha looks the most similar, both in the mix of green and brown tones, and warmth. Yama Guri is cooler and darker, and Gas Works Park looks similar to Yama Guri, but greener. Maybe that's why I like Tablea; perhaps my brain recognized that it's very similar to Sailor Shikiori Rikyucha, which is a favorite. 🙂

Some olive-greens

Robert Oster Muddy Grass, Diamine Inkvent 2022 Olive Swirl (no shimmer), Troublemaker Tablea all on Tomoe River 52gsm (Sanzen)

Around the edges of the Tablea ink swatch, the ink looks a bit olive-y or muddy green, which is why I pulled these two comparison inks. So if you like more of the greenish bits of Tablea, perhaps you'd like to try Robert Oster Muddy Grass? Olive Swirl normally has an bright green shimmer, so I wouldn't buy that ink specifically for the olive green base color (unless you do want the unique shimmer also!). But if you happen to have Inkvent 2022 inks, you might want to play around with Olive Swirl without shimmer. Additionally I think something like Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldgrun would be a good olive green to try. It pops up a lot as a favorite in this color family.

Well, what do you think? Does Tablea's green-brown, color changing look appeal to you? Any other swampy browns you think I should check out? Please send me suggestions here, on Mastodon, or on Bluesky.

For more posts about fountain pens and inks, check them out here.