Comments about Inovart Eco Karve Printing Plates:

I used this to make my first multi-colored block print. It was soft enough not to hurt myself, but I felt I was able to get the 'professional' look I was after. I can imagine it would be easier to do detailed work if it were harder, but you can get details with patience.

I also used the speedball pink stuff, and think this product is comparable, though maybe slightly harder. As for the extra thickness of this product--it claims you can carve on both sides--I find that to be pretty impractical so I haven't tried. I did however make a mistake early on in one of my carvings, so I flipped it over and worked on the other side, but I could have done that with nearly any block.

My only complaint, is that I found the edge material to be cut at a slight angle. I didn't notice this when I was carving. Anyway it means when I push my blocks up to the jig I made (for aligning multiple colors) I found one corner of my design pushing away from the jig creating a gap. If I had noticed this before carving, I could have carved the other side or upside down so that this angle would slant into my jig instead of away. It made alignment difficult. This would be a non-issue of course if I weren't doing a multi-colored design.

To be clear, what I'm talking about above is if you look at the block from the side, the edge was crooked. If you look at the block from the top the corners are right angles... this would have been more of a problem if they weren't. Also, the one block that I wanted to print to the edge happened to be the worst of all the blocks I received, which was just unlucky. Again, had I known I could have chosen a straighter block. I don't think this is a problem at all with the speedball blocks, but I haven't used enough of them to be sure. I am sure that the extra thickness of the block makes the angle more noticeable, but otherwise the extra thickness is nice.

Also... I read some review on here about another project that said the block was floppy and difficult to handle once it had paint on it unless it was mounted in wood. You're not supposed to use this as a stamp... you roll paint on it and then you place the paper face down and rub the back with a clean roller or barren. The floppiness should be a non-issue.

Comments about Inovart Eco Karve Printing Plates:

I use this for block printing with both water-based and safe wash (Caligo, highly recommend over water-based!) inks. Most rubber-type plates can't accept oil based inks, but it seemed to do fine with the safe-wash (which is oil based). Havent tried it with any other oil based because I don't use any other kind.

Super easy to carve, but I probably wouldnt use it for very detailed carving. I think it would hold up, but trying to carve it would be difficult without making mistakes as it moves some while carving thin lines. Works best with super sharp tools too.

Overall I will definitely buy again and have already recomended to friends.