Anderillium Tolype Moth Warm
Ink Review #7
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Overview
The color/properties:
Tolype Moth Warm is a soft pastel that offers a lot of subtle shading between a light, earthy, greyish-brown, and a slightly deeper, dusty brown. I can’t help but notice that there are subtle purple undertones as well, and you might even notice some green edges around the shaded areas of writing, especially with wider nibs. The ink shades with a crisp cut and dark edges around pooled areas when writing in both cursive and print. There’s not necessarily a ton of variation in the shading in terms of darkness in color, but it’s still easily visible, while being very complex and nuanced.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance on paper:
Tolype Moth Warm performed well. I didn’t encounter any bleeding or feathering on most of the test papers, with just a single spot of bleed-through on the Kokuyo paper. There’s some slight feathering on the Midori MD I used with the 1.9 music nib for my writing samples, but all the normal tests were fine. With that said, there’s some visible feathering on the edges of the ink droplets and splats, indicating that this can certainly push a paper to its limits with wider and wetter nibs (such as the 1.9 stub). It should, however, be fine with most fountain pen-friendly papers and most nibs.
The dry times are average, with a typical linear increase in dry times as the nib sizes go up, and the larger nib sizes drying mostly within 20 seconds, and the fine nibs drying within 5-10.
When exposed to water, the ink quickly clouds over, and while there might be some (barely) traces of the writing left behind, there’s no definition left, and it’s nearly impossible to see through the pink haze.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Tolype Moth Warm has a medium flow that was consistent throughout all the test nibs. The ink feels nicely lubricated, offering a somewhat silky writing experience, while still retaining enough tactility to ensure good control while writing. It’s not overly slick, but it’s nice. There were no hard starts, skips, or stops during my tests.
Cleaning was easy. There was a minor lingering of color after the initial flush and soak, but fully cleaned out after the second flushing with no visible traces of color or residue in the pen or nib units.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (white) with a medium nib.
Written on Midori MD paper (cream) with a 1.9 music nib.
Written on Midori MD paper (cream) with a medium nib.
Performance in a pen: 10/10
Performance on paper: 8.5/10
Color saturation: 4.5/10
Sheening: 0/10
Shading: 7.5/10
Dry time: 6.5/10
Water resistance: 0/10
Ease of cleaning: 8/10
Shimmer: None
My personal thoughts...
I love how Anderillium captures the color and patterns of a moth's wings with the shading here. The whole thing is beautifully nuanced; the slight purple undertones, the slight green edges, I loved how this looked coming out of the big 1.9 music nib when doing my writing samples, but it’s also nice and subtle in finer nibs. I love the pastel look too (and that’s not something I see often in browns). Tolype Moth Warm was the first ink to catch my eye at the Anderillium table at the DC Pen show, and I’ve been making frequent use of it ever since — I love it for the fall season! If you’re looking for a brown ink that genuinely stands out for its distinctive character, this one comes highly recommended by me.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with a Franklin-Christoph model 19 (medium nib)
More images/info:
Other inks in the Lepidopteran Series:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A Midori MD A5 Notebook
A 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook