Colorverse - Martian
This is a very interesting ink. It has a weirdness that I really like! Colorverse Martian is from season 5, The Red Planet. It’s ink 71 in their extensive catalog. It was first released in a 65ml bottle packaged together with a 15ml bottle of Life on Mars (a grey-green teal). The pairing is very attractive. It’s also available in a 5ml mini bottle making it easy to try.
Martian is essentially a burnt blood red, but there's so much more to it! It shades fairly nicely, and light areas take on a funky iodine yellow that is really unique and hard to resist. Other areas show a warm, deep sunset orange, as well. In most nibs, written strokes primarily show the rich, burnt red base color. This ink matches its name well!
In writing, Martian flows nicely, neither wet, nor dry. On most friendly papers, I found very few instances of feathering with the medium nib of my test pen. I did notice a bit of show-through on thinner papers. In normal writing examples, drying was average or slightly longer. However, as you can see in the splatter and micros, heavily saturated areas almost refused to dry. (These images were taken after a full 24 hours of drying time!) As the chromatography suggests, there’s almost no water-resistance. With the right nib and paper pairing, this ink writes nicely, but stay with what works.
I really like the colors I find in Colorverse Martian. It’s weird and unique in a very good way! The packaged set is a really nice combination, but the 5ml mini bottle is an easy way to see if Martian is for you. Enjoy!