Colorverse - Valles Marineris

Colorverse Valles Marineris - Ink Drop

This is Valles Marineris from Colorverse Inks. It’s part of their 5th season, The Red Planet, which contains inks themed around Mars, and its exploration. Today’s ink was originally released in a 15ml bottle, as part of a two-ink set along with a 65ml bottle of Dust Storm. It can also be purchased in a 5ml mini bottle. It’s ink number 68 in their online catalog. The ink takes its name from Valles Marineris, a canyon system on the Martian equator that is 4000 km long and 7 km deep.

Colorverse Valles Marineris - swatch card and drying

Visually, this is a beautiful, earthy blend of sandy tans, olive greens, and forest browns. It’s a very good-looking color, suitable for any situation. It has good color variation in shading, particularly on coated premium papers. Light areas fade sharply to a creamy sand, while dark areas bring out deeper, chocolate browns. The splatter shows walnut-black edging on areas of pooling, but I didn’t find much in writing.

Colorverse Valles Marineris’ mini-bottle and packaging

As a writing ink, strokes were crisp and well-defined on both coated and uncoated premium papers, with just a hint of feather on office copy paper. I didn’t find any sheen or halo, but shading was visible on all six test papers. Coated premiums had the strongest shading. Drying times were fast on all papers, as well, at 5-15 seconds for Rhodia, Kokuyo, and Fabriano, and 10-20 seconds for Mnemosyne, and Apica. Office copy was dry in under 5 seconds.

Colorverse Dust Storm light to dark range

Colorverse Valles Marineris is a great-looking, great-writing ink. It’s suitable for professional or casual use, and flexible across a wide range of papers. I really like this ink. At mini-bottle prices, there’s really no reason not to try it!

December 2020