how to handletter

calligraphy for beginners

Karin Brushmarker Pro Review for Hand Lettering

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Have you heard of this new brush pen for hand lettering?! The Karin Brushmarker Pro is quickly becoming a hand lettering and modern calligraphy favorite!

This review is part of my Pen a Day Lettering Challenge and although this is not a sponsored review, I was sent this pack along with the Karin Metallic Markers. Watch the video or find the full review below.

These markers have recently become very popular and are often compared to the Sharpie Stained Markers. They are definitely not identical and the brush tips on the Karin Markers are bigger. Both markers hold their shape really well and in my experience, do not fray.

The size of these brush tip markers are easy to control because they are a great in-between marker, not too big or too small. Many of the colors are very juicy and they just seem to last a long time. All of these features are a lot to ask in a brush pen so there are really just a lot of good things to say about them!

They are not water resistant and are very blendable. Watch the video to see the blending technique I prefer with these markers using a similar technique you would use with watercolor.

They work perfectly with my lettering worksheets that you can use for medium to large size brush markers to practice and improve your lettering. If you’re new to hand lettering, my Lettering Challenges are a great place to start or join my FREE Lettering Mini-Course.

Artline Stix Brush Markers Review for Hand Lettering

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For this review I’m using the Artline Stix Brush Markers for Hand Lettering as part of my Pen a Day Lettering Challenge.

I am constantly asked to review these markers because they can be fairly easy to find at an affordable price. They are super fun and colorful!

They have a brush tip but you’ll notice they are different from the more common Tombow – these are shorter and feel wider to me as well. You can definitely still get some lovely brush lettering using these Artline Stix though.

If I’m being honest, these are not my favorite brush pens but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Markers do come down to personal preference quite a bit when it comes to hand lettering. Some letterers tend to like a firmer marker like these but I am someone who loves her bouncy and flexible pens!

If you’re a beginner who struggles to control bouncy brush tips when lettering, then the Artline Stix could be a great option and easier for you to practice getting those thick and thin stokes.

One thing you’ll notice when using these is you aren’t getting very thin upstroke when using these so keep that in mind if that’s something you’re looking for.

These brush pens also tend to get worn in very easily and don’t have that crisp look.

One great thing that I love about these is that they blend beautifully! They are not water resistant but would make great watercolor options because of the wonderful array of colors they come in.

I also tested these out on my Simplified Lettering Worksheets and they worked great for beginners to practice their hand lettering on. If you’re new to lettering you can join my FREE hand lettering mini course here!

Ecoline Brush Pen Review for Hand Lettering

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In this review I’ll be showing you the Ecoline Brush Pens for Hand Lettering as part of my Pen a Day Challenge where I review different markers and pens for lettering every day for a month!

These are a watercolor brush pen and I think that lots of people love them because they are very juicy! The tip is nice and flexible and gives a very thick downstroke when you press firmly.

You can see in this lettering example that they’re taking a bit of time to dry and when they do dry, they have a bit of that watercolor look to them where there is quite a color difference between a thick downstroke and a thin upstroke and I think that’s because the upstroke is quite a bit less concentrated with liquid. 

Even after all of that lettering, there are still quite a few spots that are wet and would streak pretty easily.

These Ecoline Brush Pens blend beautifully in my opinion. You really could get creative with your color combining or do one color per letter. I am not someone who does a ton of blending, so I’m sorry this isn’t super creative but I hope it gives you an idea of what this brush pen blends like.

I didn’t have a ton of space to letter horizontally with that first blending example but imagine if you wrote out a long word or across more room and your word kind of gradually went from one color and faded into another, that would be a really fun way to blend these!

So I hope you don’t mind that I’m not using these straight onto watercolor paper, but with delicate brush pens and hand lettering, that can be a bad combination because the brush pens tend to fray. If you’re coloring with them that may not be a big deal but for hand lettering, it can be hard to create thin upstrokes with frayed brush pens. But they do dry beautifully onto watercolor paper so I wanted to show you a way to use them on watercolor paper without ruining the brush tips.

In the video review, I color the marker onto a piece of acrylic and then pick it up with my water brush. Then I can letter right onto watercolor paper. This is super beautiful and as someone who doesn’t have a lot of practice blending, I was really impressed with how beautiful these colors came out. I need to try this more in the future for sure. I do assume that if you were to letter right onto the watercolor paper, that the colors would be darker like in my lettering example, but I love this muted look and you could really get a range of colors and tones with it.

If you’re looking for the Windsor and Newton Watercolor Brush Marker review, you can find it on YouTube here so that you can compare the two if you’re interested in using watercolor markers for hand lettering. 

If you’re new to hand lettering and want to learn or simply improve your current skills, join my FREE mini-course here!

Crayola Broadline Markers for Hand Lettering

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This is a review of the Crayola Broadline Markers and how they work with hand lettering and modern calligraphy! I think that these are a great marker for beginners especially!.I know it’s crazy to think that a cheap marker we colored with as kids could be used for hand lettering, but it can be! In fact it can create really beautiful hand lettering.

I want to show you just how the tip looks when creating up and down strokes with this marker. Keep in mind in this clip, I’m holding my paper upright to point at my camera which is facing down at my desk, so the strokes are a bit shaky and crooked since I can’t really see what I’m doing.. but even so, do you see those thick & thin strokes?! Imagine what that could look like with practice and not trying to write with your arm in the air while looking through a camera viewfinder.

So the first thing I want to mention about these markers is that as you push hard for your downstrokes, the tip of your marker will begin to bend the other way. That’s ok and it just means that you need to rotate your pen and push it back the other way. When we letter with these pens, we’re going to be still using the end of the tip, so you won’t change your angle of how you hold your pen much if at all when you’re lettering. So when the tip begins to bend, just simply rotate your pen and start again.

A common question that I get with hand lettering is how to make the letters give off that ombre effect where the top is darker than the bottom. I think this is a combination of applying more pressure tot he top and also using a nice paper. I’m using marker paper for these reviews and you can even see a bit of that ombre effect with this marker. So while I do think that certain pens or markers show that more vibrantly, I don’t think it’s solely the product of a certain type of pen.

I’m going to show you a few different types of bending in this video because with these markers you can either blend with lots of contrast in your colors so you can blend very subtly. I am a fan of subtle blending, but I know that more contrast can sometimes be a bit easier to see so I just wanted experiment with a few options.

These markers are not waterproof, but you can see that I’m using some as watercolor by coloring onto this ceramic surface and picking the color up with my water brush. This is a fun way to combine colors and it turns out really nicely!

I wanted to show you this marker on some lettering worksheets. I hope that you can get a bit more of an example of what this marker looks like with hand lettering. This particular worksheet set is my Simplified Lettering Beginner bundle that comes with the alphabet but also has practice words, so you’re able to work on letter connections as well as letter formation. 

If you’d like to watch more pen reviews check them out here, join the Pen a Day Lettering Challenge or find some practice worksheets here if you’re wanting to learn more about hand lettering.

An In-Depth Introduction to Brush Lettering for Beginners

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Today I’m showing you all you need to know to learn brush lettering for beginners! I will go over basic drills, letter formation, how to connect those tricky letters and the tools I use to practice & create beautiful brush lettering!

Tools for Brush Lettering

There are two ways to learn brush lettering. You can learn using brush pens or you could simply use paintbrushes and watercolors. Both of these techniques are great but they produce very different results, so you should choose your tools according to which style of lettering you like best.

As far as brush pens, I love the Tombow Dual Brush Pens. They are good quality pens and give you thick and thin strokes that are key to brush lettering.

For watercolor lettering, I use a waterbrush instead of your usual paintbrush. I personally use the Pentel Aquash Waterbrush in Medium. If you go with the water brush there are many different options for watercolor paints that can be used with it for lettering. I’m just using a cheap tube of watercolor that I purchased at Walmart and it works just fine!

Techniques for Brush Lettering

I’m not going to give much information on how to hold your pen or brush, as this is different for each person. I believe you should hold it however is natural to you.

The main focus with technique is ensuring you have enough control over the pressure you’re applying, without the control you won’t be able to create those thick and thin strokes. When practicing we want to try and get our up-strokes thin and our down-strokes thick. The best way to get your practice in is through drills.

Brush Lettering Drills for Beginners

Once you’ve practiced your drills and are confident in your up and down strokes, you can move on to letter formations. Once you’ve master the usual letter formations (which are really just a series of shapes) your unique style will start to show.

Watch the video tutorial above to get a breakdown of each letter formation or practice with my printable lettering worksheets created for beginners learning to hand letter!

These worksheets have practice drills, letter formation drills for each letter and they even teach you to connect your letters – which is the next step to master!

Connecting your Letters

Connecting your letters is one of the most tricky steps to master for many people. The easiest way for me to connect is by lifting up my pen when I finish any letter within a word.

Often letters start in a way that makes it challenging to follow on from the previous one, so adding an extra “tail” to letters and lifting up before beginning the next letter makes it look more natural.

What it all comes down to is having an eye for what is going to look the most natural and balanced on the page and adjusting you’re lettering accordingly.

Disclaimer: How To Hand Letter is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. *Please note, when you purchase a product using my link, the cost is still the same to you. Thank you for supporting the companies that help keep How To Hand Letter going!

Zebra Funwari Brush Pen Review for Handlettering

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Hey friends!
Small Sized Brush Pen Review
Today I am going to be reviewing the Zebra Funwari Brush pen! This is another smaller sized brush pen and I have a few colors to show you as well! 

This is another pen that has a very tiny tip. I would say that it looks more similar to the Tombow Fude pen tip over the Pentel Touch tip, but I think that I’ll do an official comparison video between those 3 markers soon.

Watch the video review here:

I am going to be testing these pens out on this Canson Marker paper today. I originally purchased this pen a while ago, but only got it in gray. Since then, I realized that gray isn’t always the best to film because it tends to get washed out on camera, so when we decided to do the Penaday challenge I thought I’d grab a few colors to share with you!

So these are brand new pens and these particular ones hadn’t been used prior to this. As you can see through the lettering, they have a nice bold black color and because of the small size of the brush tip, you are able to get very thin upstrokes. 

In the video above I do share the color swatches of the brush pens that I own. I did buy these individually so I’m not sure if there are more than I don’t have. One thing that I wanted to say about these brush pens is that they do feel very similar to the Tombow Fude hard tipped brush pen. 

In my opinion they don’t feel as soft as the pentel touch, but they may get softer with time. I do think that if you’re trying to decide which of those 3 brush pens to purchase, part of your decision may come down to which colors you prefer so that’s why I think doing a side by side comparison will be a good idea.

In the video you will also find a blending test where I attempt to blend these brush pens using 2 different methods. I also did a water test using the red color, which definitely bled quite a lot. However, since filming that video I found out that the black pen and the colored pens are made with different types of ink (according to Jet Pens listing info), so the black pen is actually a bit more waterproof than the red one! Who knew?! I’ll be doing another water test in a future video and will post to my YouTube channel as well!

I hope this is helpful for you & let me know what you think about these brush pens! I will try to update this post with an update after I’ve used these for a bit longer, but make sure to follow me over on Instagram for real-time updates!

Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see you in my next one! 

Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen Review

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Are you a hand lettering beginner? Or maybe you’re struggling with controlling the brush tip of a larger sized brush pen? Or do you just love trying new lettering supplies? Here I’m going to share with you some of my thoughts about handlettering and modern calligraphy using the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen!

Handlettering with Tombow Fudenosuke Brush PensAs an Amazon Affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Hey Friends!

Today I’ll be reviewing the tombow fudenosuke brush pen for hand lettering! This brush pen comes as a 2 pack with both the hard and soft tip as well as a pack of colors in a hard tip style.

There doesn’t appear to be much of a difference in the body of the pen from one to the other. The body of the pens in my color pack is a shiny where the black ink ones that I have more of a matte. But otherwise I cannot tell much of a difference. 

As you can see, the tip of this pen is super tiny! This is great as a beginner because it can be easier to control than a giant brush tip that flops all over. So if you’re struggling just to get the feel of thick and thin strokes, a smaller sized pen can be a great option.

The Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen has a hard nib and a soft nib option, but the color pens only come in the hard tipped nib. Below you can see a sample of lettering using the soft tip (on top) and the hard tip (on the bottom).

Handlettering with Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens

I go back and forth between preferring the soft vs. hard tip. I think when I first began lettering I liked the soft because it felt easier to me. The hard tip can feel kind of scratchy and it also really shows any shaky lines, so I think that’s why I liked the soft tip.

But then I got the pack of color brush pens and practiced with them a bit more and I really liked them! So this is for sure a personal preference and if you’re not sure which you’d like, you can grab the 2 pack of black pens that includes a hard and a soft tip to test.

You can see at the beginning of the alphabet using the hard tip that it started out a bit dry. Once I got writing a bit more, it got a little stronger, but I wouldn’t call this a juicy brush pen at all. I do think that this is a stylistic thing at times. There are lots of people who letter with a more casual style and write much more quickly than I did and I think that streaky look can really match the style of certain lettering.

The thing about this firm tipped pen is that you can really get super thin upstrokes. It is super crisp and clean looking, especially with steady upstrokes.

Handlettering with Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens

And here’s a comparison of the hard vs. soft tip. It’s honestly super hard to tell much of a difference but if you look closely, you can see that there may be a bit of a size difference in length.

After swatching some of the colored pens, I wanted to go ahead and test this with water. I wrote out with the red onto the page and then took a pretty wet paintbrush and painted over it with water. I haven’t actually done this before so to be honest I was actually surprised to see this hold up with so much water added to it. I did use a marker paper with this, but still I really don’t see much bleeding at all, if any.

Handlettering with Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens

Because of the way that these pens do look a bit less juicy than other pens, I wanted to just test out a bunch of lettering using one pen and see how it holds up. With this blue pen, I wrote “hello” a bunch of times to see how it goes! While there was a bit of fading in some of them, it still wasn’t streaky or awful. In my opinion, it’s for sure expected for brush pens or markers to look a bit more dull after a ton of writing so I was pretty impressed with how well these still wrote by the end.

Handlettering with Tombow Fudenosuke Brush PensSo that is day 2 of the Pen A Day Challenge and I’ll be back tomorrow with a review of another small sized brush pen. If you missed my Pentel Touch review, make sure to check that one out here!

This page organizes all of my tombow lettering tutorials.

Love Tombow?! I have a resource page for you that is a quick spot to find my Tombow handlettering tutorials and videos organized all in one place! Click here to head to the Tombow Resource Page or go here to grab my 1000+ Words Worksheets for small sized brush pens (shown above).

May Handlettering Challenge – A Pen A Day

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Hey Friends!

I wanted to share the May Handlettering Challenge with you!

What Is The Challenge?

It’s a good one. 🙂

Several months ago I had a ridiculous idea to do a pen review every day of the month. I am constantly getting asked to do a full review of certain pens and I thought committing to one a day would give me just the head start that I needed (and maybe get through half of my pens in my pen collection?!).

I was talking to a lettering friend about this idea and we got to brainstorming…

What if we made it into a monthly challenge?!

That seemed like the perfect solution for you, my pen-loving friends! It wouldn’t just be ME creating a bazillion pen review videos. It would be ALL OF US sharing our crazy pen stash!

So fun, right?!

The idea is that every day we assign one brush pen/marker and share lettering using that pen each day!

On my part, you’re going to get a little mini-review of these pens. I have already posted the first one on my YouTube channel and you will see lots of lettering using these pens over on Instagram.

On your part, just share your lettering using any of the pens you want (or all of them!) on the assigned days. There will be a giveaway going on over on Instagram as well! Details will be coming shortly, but you can get a hint from the prompt photo below. 

How To Join?!

It’s simple!

First, screenshot or save the photo below!

Then, simply join in whenever you can! If you have every pen, create something every day using the pen prompt. If not, that’s ok! Share the ones that you already have. And if you only have a couple of favorite pens, that’s ok! Choose your favorite pen and share a bit of why you love it in your caption.

Share the photo to Instagram and use the hashtag #penadaychallenge. You can also tag Sarah & myself in your actual photo  If your account is private, we sadly won’t be able to see your work because of the Instagram restrictions so if you are wanting others to see your work, you may consider creating a second account for your hand lettering and artistic creations!

I am so excited to see what you come up with! Make sure to let us know what you love/don’t love about the products you use each day (or any opinions that you may want to share!). My hope is that by the end of the month, the hashtag #penadaychallenge will become an amazing resource for us to go to if we’re curious about a certain product or want to see it used in hand lettering!

Kind of like our own special brush lettering pens amazon-style review section, right?!

So fun! I hope you’ll join me and can’t wait to see your work!

If you’re wanting to see my reviews, then make sure to follow over on Instagram and subscribe on YouTube so that you don’t miss any!

Happy Lettering!

Pentel Touch Brush Pen Review

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The pentel touch brush pen is a great brush pen for beginner hand lettering and modern calligraphy! In fact, they are a favorite among many hand lettering artists, but beginner and more advanced. In this review I’m sharing a few thoughts about them including a video demonstration.

 

Hey Friends! Today I’m reviewing the first pen in our Pen A Day Challenge, the Pentel Touch. This pen is a smaller sized brush pen compared to many. You can see that the tip is very small and flexible. It comes in lots of bright colors as you can see in the swatch in the video!

Handlettering Reviews Pentel Touch brush Pen

I did quickly want to point out one thing about these pens. They look very similar to another pen with a very similar name and I know they can be easily confused. The one that I’m using to review in this video has a flexible tip to create thick and thin strokes and the other one is a firm tip that just creates one stroke thickness. You can see in the closeup that the brush tipped pen has a shimmery body, where the other one is just a solid color. So if you’re confused about which to buy, make sure you get the one that says something about having a “brush tip”.

Pentel Touch vs. Pentel Sign pen

If you want to know more about this, here is a video where I show you more about the differences between these two pens!

So now that we know which pen to buy, let’s get into the brush pen review. This is one of the first brush pens that I purchased when I first began brush lettering and I still think that it’s a great place to start for brush lettering! 

There are a few reasons why I love this pen. First of all, I think that the smaller tip can be a bit easier to control when you’re beginning hand lettering. It’s very flexible and it bounces right back into it’s regular shape, even for someone who likes to push hard on their pens like I do. 

Handlettering tips with pentel touch brush pens

The colors are really pretty and vibrant! But one of the things that I love the most about these brush pens is the fact that they have lasted me so long. I do typically try to use smooth paper with my pens, which is one way to help them hold up longer. But I don’t think I’ve ever had one of these brush pens fray! I actually have purchased 2 packs of these and one of them is around 2 years old if I remember correctly.

I wasn’t sure which pack was which so in the video I decided to just test them both against each other and honestly I had a hard time telling what was the new pen and what was the old. I’m not even sure if I was correct, but there were a few of them that just felt like they had a bit more crisp of an upstroke. But aside from that, I think they look great. 

You can see in the water test part of the videothat these are not waterproof and will smear if they get wet. I showed this by dragging a paintbrush with some water over the top and the red did transfer over quite strongly.

But the good thing is that they do blend! In the video, I demonstrate the brush lettering technique where you transfer the color straight from one pen tip to the other by touching them together. I like to put the darker color on top and transfer it to the lighter color. Another trick is to make sure that you are holding your pens upright so that gravity can help the ink to flow. You could also try the technique of coloring the darker color onto a ceramic dish or piece of plastic and then pick the color up with the other brush pen that you will then use to letter with.  Once you’re done, you can just write off the color as much as you can. 

Overall, I think these are a great brush pen for beginners and advanced letterers alike! I will link them below if you’d like to check them out and make sure to subscribe to my channel if you’re not already and want to see more hand lettering videos! I’ll see you again soon for my next pen review! 

3 Brush Pens You May Not Have Heard Of

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Today I’m sharing a few brush pens that aren’t as commonly used by lettering artists. I’ll be demonstrating some modern calligraphy (aka hand lettering) using each of these unique brush pens.

Click to watch the video tutorial or simply read below👇

Marvy Unchida Le Pen Flex

The Lepen Flex is a new brush pen product from this brand and is similar to the ColorIn markers you often see me using. They come in lovely colors and the brush tip is very small and soft. This pen is similar looking and named to another product that they have so make sure what you’re purchasing is the “Flex” if this is the one you want.

Sharpie Brush Pens

Sharpie has a few products that can be used for brush lettering but many of them aren’t designed for hand lettering. The Sharpie Brush Pens, however, come in a big pack of colors and the tip feels somewhat unique to me. It’s very thin and bouncy which I am a huge fan of!

Fibralo Brush Pens

I recently shared the Fibralo Brush Pens in a recent pen haul but I wanted to point it out here after I recently saw someone using it. This brush pen tip is really bouncy and great for creating that bouncy style of lettering. It feels like that really great in-between size brush pen tip – not too large or too small. This pen is good for writing small or doing large lettering as well.

If you’re interested in improving your hand lettering as a beginner, check out my FREE 7 day hand lettering mini course here: http://howtohandletter.com/minicourse