Colorverse α Uma - 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A muted olive-khaki green with a pale yellow-green core and dramatic dark violet-purple separation wherever the ink pools. Colorverse describe α UMa as a cool-toned neutral grey, and some reviewers call it a medium grey that shades to blue in large swabs on Tomoe River. My swatches on Tomoe River don't show that. Mine come out distinctly green-khaki with purple, not grey-blue. Some reviewers also noted yellow and purple accents in written strokes, which matches what I'm seeing. In thin lines and normal writing it settles into a quieter, greyed sage-green, so the grey descriptions aren't wrong so much as incomplete. Buy this expecting a green-leaning ink with a purple edge, not a neutral office grey. 

Shading: Modest in writing — enough tonal movement to keep it interesting without being showy. The dramatic light-to-dark contrast in my swabs is chromatic separation rather than shading proper: the dyes split as the ink dries, throwing dark violet outlines and internal lines across the pooled areas. In a fine nib you'll see very little of it; in a broad or wet nib, quite a lot.

Sheen: None.

Shimmer: None. 

Flow: Dry.

The interesting bit: This is No. 013 in Colorverse's Project Constellation series, named after α Ursae Majoris — better known as Dubhe. The name comes from the Arabic dubb, "bear", shortened from a phrase meaning "the back of the Greater Bear". The odd thing about it is the "alpha": despite the designation, Dubhe is only the second-brightest star in Ursa Major — Alioth is brighter. Bayer lettered the stars of the Plough from east to west rather than by brightness, so the alpha went to position rather than luminosity. Dubhe and its neighbour Merak are the Pointer Stars, the pair you follow to find Polaris, and it isn't a single star at all but part of a quadruple system 123 light years away. A star that isn't the brightest, isn't one star, and doesn't quite match its label — which feels about right for an ink sold as grey that swatches green.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.
Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.
I'm a collector and I'm always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.