The ink world has given us a tremendous number of new inks recently, making it difficult to keep up with them all! Today I’m showing 4 of the 8 new inks in the ColorVerse Project – Constellation series. Each ink in this series is named for the brightest star (alpha) in various constellations.
ColorVerse Project inks come in a 65mL single bottle – the same size as the larger bottle in their ink sets – for $27.50. I purchased these inks from Vanness where they sell for $3.10 for a 4mL sample.
The first Constellation ink today is (alpha) Boo – the shorthand for the brightest star in the constellation Bootes. This is a pale dusty pink similar to Pilot Iroshizuku Kosumosu. I saw good shading with this ink and it was dark enough to be read on any paper.
Next up is (alpha) And, shorthand for the brightest star in the constellation Andromeda. I loved this blue-gray color that changes from blue to blue-gray as it dries, almost as if the gray is rising to the surface. In most writing, there was no shading. The color reminded me of Ferris Wheel Press Blue Cotton Candy but And is dark enough that it is legible afterward.
ColorVerse (alpha) UMa (I got the name incorrect on my swatch card) is the second brightest star in Ursa Major – the Great Bear, or Big Dipper (a portion of Ursa Major). It is one of the two stars that point towards Polaris, the North Star.
UMa is another fascinating ink where the gray seems to rise to the surface in the swatch. However, UMa starts out as almost a pale burgundy or rose color. As the ink dries, the red disappears and gray becomes the overall color. In the swatch below, there was a tiny touch of feathering at the bottom of the M, although this happened because I darkened the lines later since my dip nib ran out of ink at that moment. I never had any other feathering issues with the Project series.
The final ink today is (alpha) Ori is shorthand for Betelgeuse, a bright star in the Orion constellation. This is a bright reddish-orange ink with a touch of gold sheen. As you can see on the swatch card below, the ink did smear slightly. This occurred after the ink had dried.
Below are small swatches of all 8 Constellation inks on Tomoe River paper (top) and Cosmo Air Light paper (bottom). I love having both paper types available when testing ink – each paper brings out different qualities every time.
I have been quite impressed by all inks in the ColorVerse Project series, both the first and now the second. This series contains beautiful colors that behave well and the cost is reasonable at $0.42 per mL. UMa is one on my wish list for future purchase!
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me and I was not compensated to write this review. Please see the About page for more details.
For those of you with inquisitive minds you might be asking why is alpha UMa (aka Dubhe) not designated as beta UMa if it’s the second brightest star?… that is usually the case. However, alpha UMa is the northern most of the pointer stars in the “dipper” part of the constellation and carries the alpha designation despite being the 2nd brightest. (I’m not sure how many other times exceptions like this occur but not often) Still intrigued? Dubhe is not technically associated with the other stars in the big dipper and only looks so visually… it is actually over 100 light years beyond the other starts but is insanely bright (145x as bright as the sun) and looks as bright as the others… if you’re around in another 100.000 years you’ll notice that the big dipper will look substantially different than it does today. Another factoid for ya… enjoy. (FYI… no worries tho… this isn’t going to be on the test!) 🙂