Ink Swatch - Van Dieman’s - Natura Dualis - Nightfall

Nightfall from Van Dieman’s Professional Natura Dualis line is a dual tone ink that shows up primarily as light slate blue and pink, but can vary in shade, tint, and tone as the colors mix and separate. It has some shading, and no sheen. The different component colors come out easily on every paper type I’ve tried.

Scans

The swatches have large areas of pink in the center and more blue around the edges. The writing appears to be more light slate blue overall, however you can see the center of the letters looks more pink, especially in the wider lines.

Swatch Card Scans. Click to enlarge.

The writing is dark enough to be legible, though a couple areas on Iroful where it shades it gets a bit faint. Legibility tends to be a problem with chromashading like this in general, and this fares very well considering what it does.

Photos

There is no sheen, though a couple areas where the ink is particularly thick look maybe a little shiny. Looking closer at the swatches, the pink is a lot more prominent in this light compared to the scans.

Swatch Card Photos. Click to enlarge.

The writing shows even more pink in the photos as well, especially on MD. In this light the writing looks more lavendar with the pink showing.

Microscope

Interestingly, under the microscope it looks primarily pink with the blue staying along the edges, especially on Iroful.

Ink under Magnification. Click to enlarge.

Chromatography

Chromatography strip scan

The chromatography starts with a band of faint magenta and then has practically nothing until another band of faint cyan at the leading edge.

Chromatography strip photo under UV light

Under UV there is some magenta glow right at the start and again at the leading edge, though it didn’t have any noticeable effect on the swatches.

Verdict

Chromashading inks are usually fun, and this one is surprisingly legible and well-behaved. This ink is everything I’d hoped Electric Blue Spider Lily would be and then some. Though I prefer the colors in Electric Blue Spider Lily, it’s well worth the tradeoff actually being able to use the ink.

So far I have only used Nightfall with Sailor Hocoro dip pens and a Parker Vector with an italic nib, but it had no trouble at all writing with any of them.