De Atramentis Tchaikovsky is a charcoal with a cool
undertone, it's neither blue nor purple so I supposed their description of
"silvery grey" is fairly accurate) . The color not only reminds me of
the silvery mane
of the young-and-dashing Dmitri Hvorostovsky, it also captures the grave-majesty and moodiness of his
music pretty well, at least better than the magenta thing by
Noodler's...
It looks like it's having crazy shading ability but the thing is that,
every ink shades and flows smoothly with the juicy broad nib (on Pilot Custom Heritage
91) on Clairefontaine paper. On normal paper and fine nib, it's more of a
(dare I say, uninteresting?) water-downed black. Anyway, the ink is well-behaved and has 50% water resistance during a smear test, the top of the color dissolves but the line was still visible.
Overall: If you like a black ink with some shading, this would get the job done as long as you have the right type of pen and paper. I am still not sure what I think about it. Too boring? A little off-season for the current weather? Anyway, it looks like the color would go really well with the new matte black Lamy Al-Star...
P.S. The writing sample is Tatiana's Letter in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (English translation /opera adaptation by Tchaikovsky). My favorite interpretation is actually by the young Galina Vishnevskaya (who sounds more like a passionate young girl than an "opera diva" there) but there isn't a video footage of that.
