Saw a weird ink mixing setup at the Portland Pen Show last weekend

Some guy had a whole station with 30 tiny vials and a digital scale. He was mixing Diamine Oxblood with a shimmer additive. Said it was for a 'blood moon' effect. Looked messy and the shimmer kept clogging his tester pen. Anyone else tried adding shimmer to dark reds? Does it ever flow right?

3 comments

3 Comments

juliaa251mo ago

I used to avoid shimmer in dark inks because my Pilot Metro clogged every time. Then I tried adding just a pinch of gold mica powder to Diamine Writer's Blood, like maybe 1/8 of a teaspoon for a whole bottle. It actually flows fine if you shake the pen a little before writing. The key is using way less shimmer than you think you need. Now it's my favorite combo for journaling.

the_jennifer1mo ago

Honestly that whole shimmer mixing thing sounds like a huge pain for no real payoff. Saw a guy ruin a perfectly good bottle of ink the same way, just ended up with gritty sludge. Dark inks look better on their own anyway, all that sparkle just looks messy.

ross.angela1mo ago

That "gritty sludge" @the_jennifer mentioned is exactly what happened to my first try. I dumped a whole sample vial of silver shimmer into a black ink. It was a total waste. I learned you have to match the shimmer size to the ink. The big chunky stuff sinks right to the bottom of wet inks. Now I only use the super fine powder from those craft store pots, and I stir it with a toothpick for like five minutes straight. It actually stays mixed in my Lamy.