Ink Review: Birmingham Pen Company Voltaic Arc

COLOR

Voltaic Arc is a medium blue with an intense amount of red sheen. It sheens so much on most papers that it can be surprising how bright the blue color is when it finally peeks out from behind the red!

Super-sheeners are so fun to swatch! It's a challenge to call this a 'blue' ink when for most of the time I just see red in swatches.

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CHARACTER

There are times where you have to put away the 'regular' inks and just have fun with extreme sheen. This ink has a ton of sheen but it always impresses me with its decent dry time compared to some other high-sheen inks. It still takes a bit to dry and I don't fully trust it to not smear, especially on some paper types, but that's a consideration I expect with something this flashy.

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CONSISTENCY

This ink is decently wet, which adds to the amount of sheen as more ink ends up on the page. When used with finer/tighter nibs to restrict the flow, more of the bright blue tones show through. It's hard to say which I prefer more - all sheen all the time, or the occasional pop of sheen with more of the true ink color showing through. Both options are fun!

Nebula, Clairefontaine, and Tomoe River paper

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CONCLUSION

If you like sheening inks, I think you'll love Voltaic Arc. It has the usual considerations of any concentrated sheening ink, but if you can tolerate the quirks it's so fun to look at a writing sample in different angles and watch the colors shift.

Birmingham Pen Company sells an amazing variety of handmade inks.

DISCLAIMER: Pens and inks purchased by myself. Photos and opinions are my own.