Day 17’s Inkvent Ink is called Thunderbolt, continuing along a stormy theme that’s been present in a few of these inks. It’s a standard blue ink and I was curious to see if any surprises were revealed in testing.
Thunderbolt is a fairly plain, blue ink. Apart from the fact that there’s no shimmer or sheen, it doesn’t have much going on. No secondary colours to point out or things only seen when it shades. to it’s credit, it doesn’t shade quite nicely and the colour itself is, in my opinion, excellent. It’s a rich, vibrant blue that is about as blue as you can get. It bears some similarity to J. Herbin’s Eclat de Saphir, which was my go-to blue ink for a long time. In fact, I might like Thunderbolt better.
the writing experience was fairly standard with this ink. there was some feedback off the page, but nowhere near an uncomfortable amount. I had no ink flow issues and the lines I got were consistent and smooth, with no hard starts. It’s an excellent writing ink and fairly well-behaved.
The dry time of Thunderbolt is average and not troublesome for lefties. The ink itself is quite saturated, which lends it a richness in colour and makes for good, crisp lines. However, I had a decent amount of bleed-through as well, though it was no more than usual. There’s not water resistance to speak of as this ink smears on contact with water and either washes out or stays smeared. In either case, there was no chance of recovering my writing after the water test.
If you get the impression that I’m not overly enthused by this ink, you’d be right. There’s no reason to dislike Thunderbolt. I personally really like the colour, as simple as it is. And I had no real complaints about the writing experience. Frankly, I’m surprised at how much I actually like this ink. At the end of the day, it’s a good, solid ink and that’s worth a lot. I know I want to use up my sample and I might buy a bottle to use everyday if it was available. But I’m less than excited because of reason relating to the calendar itself. But that’s for another time. Overall, I have to give Thunderbolt two thumbs up.
The Pen Lover's Nook 
I was interested to read that you experienced no sheen. I (and a couple of other reviewers I’ve read) got quite a lot of coppery/gold sheen. Like you – I found it a highly saturated solid/boring blue, and having some value for that alone. Reading between your lines I also agree that, solid an ink as it is, it was a little underwhelming as a member of a Christmas advent calendar, and could have been introduced at any time of year.
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Hmmm. Very Interesting. I’ve taken another look at my testing pages and… yeah, I just don’t see it. Or, rather, now that I’m looking for it, I can maybe see a little and understand how I might get more of that effect. But that sheen didn’t really show up in testing for me. I’m curious to know what paper you use for your tests.
But to your second point, I’m somewhat relieved to know I’m not the only one feels underwhelmed by this ink. Sometimes I feel like I’m missing the point when an ink is actually really good, but I’m down on it because its part of a larger product. It’s good to not feel alone.
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For my swatches I use Strathmore 300gsm mixed media art paper (“Series 400″ from my local Opus art store), cut into 2″x3” cards. I totally understand that it it’s paper dependent, though. For example I was just gifted a sample of 2019’s Diamine Polar Glow which sheened like a good un on several papers, so I chose it for writing a Christmas letter to my sister… and got a dull dark blue instead. Oh well – the thought was there…
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