(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best calligraphy pens

Personally I and I think I speak for most on this sub would advise against buying a set. There's a running joke that when you buy something that has calligraphy written on it that it's crap.

What do you think she would like to try out? Broad edge or pointed pen? Broad edge is your 'gothic', 'blackletter' and 'uncial (think LotR). Pointed pen is much closer to what you might recognise as cursive but also includes 'Engrosser's'. There are a lot of examples of scripts in the Bestof in the sidebar.

For Broad edge you can't go wrong with a pilot parallel (for rounded scripts like Uncial I hear the 2.4mm would be better), it looks like a marker and it's as simple as one. It will serve you well for a long time and there's no mess or fuss or start-up time if you would be getting out your ink pot and then cleaning down at the end, it's just a lot easier to squeeze into a busy schedule.

For pointed pen, you will need to get an 'Oblique holder', anything that isn't speedball will do, you can get ornamental ones which look a bit fancier but they're all the same. You will also need to buy nibs, The 'G' nibs are very beginner friendly but they're also really quite stiff so I'd advise buying a couple of them and (I'm bias here) a couple of 'Leonardt principal EF', they're a lot nicer to work with and a lot more flexible, not as easy to hop in and use though.

For paper, Rhodia is a solid bet and is available everywhere, you can get ones with subtle dots on which I find help at first keeping your lines straight.

For ink, I recommend Tim Norton's walnut ink, it's easy to use and comes off just as easy.

Check out the sellers list to find out where to get all this stuff in your country, for UK, I've had no trouble with Scribblers and they're customer service is great.

I know this isn't what you were after but I think you will get a lot better value for your money than buying a set that is frankly, shit.
I'm sure getting a nice box and some ribbon would make for a fantastic present that she would love. Sorry for a gigantic wall of text, any Q's, just ask.

The subject of calligraphy should be clarified. Do you just want to improve your chinese character writing, or did you want to practice more artsy styles? I know you stated you aren't ready for grass style yet, but when writing out your poems do you want to master your characters, or take a more liberal approach. I asked because I first got into fountain pens so I could better master writing characters.

Right now, I am using a Lamy 2000 with a broad nib to practice characters. It doesn't have the italic features that was mentioned here already, but I find that the pen is enough of a "wet noodle" meaning that the ink flow is sufficient, for me to get a pseudo brush like quality to my character writing.

Before, when I was still taking formal lessons, I used a Pilot Vanishing Point. It is still my daily user, but mostly for writing english. The reason why I no longer use this pen is because I have it in an XF, or extra fine nib. Nib selection is paramount when venturing into fountain pens. With my XF nib, it was super scratchy when I was doing the up strokes, and there was very little line variation, which is important when writing characters.

Line variation, to me is what defines beautiful chinese calligraphy. The ability to control the thickness of a line, on every stroke no less, is something that I truly aspire to master. With a brush it's easy to see when the masters lift off, or when they plop down. With a pen its a bit more tedious. For this reason I have just ordered a new medium sized nib, and had it customized for an oblique italic so that I might get that idealized. Oblique means that I hold my pen at an angle, so with an oblique the nib contacts the paper at an angle as well, instead of being perpendicular to it; thus improving the flow. I believe italic was already explained by another person here. I also considered getting a flex pen; check out Noodler's Ahab or Pilot Falcon. However I don't know how beneficial they'll be to standard character writing.

Lastly, I once recommended you getting some felt tipped pens. I just found some decent ones at a local office supply store. They are from Foray and I'll be using them when doing regular practice. There was also a pen by Muji, a Japanese department store, that I used to swear by; however I can't seem to find that product online. Muji does produce a fountain pen for very cheap, sub $20 and I might be interested to try that out next time I go to their store.

Hopefully this subreddit will be of help to you as you get more familiarized with pens. Either way, 加油！

Lamy and Rotring both have good starter sets, but they are not cheap. Staedtler has cheap set that might be ideal for you to see if calligraphy is for you.

If you decide to pursue it further, there is no end to the options available to you. I do all of my calligraphy with fountain pens and get very good results.

Good luck and check out r/calligraphy for more information.

If you score a great fountain pen, post a picture here so we can congratulate you and share your joy.

Sheaffer do really nice calligraphy sets for beginners. Apologies for the UK link, but you get the idea.

Alternatively you can get Lamy fountain pens with personalised engraving on the lid in loads of different colours. And they're awesome pens. Get a cartridge converter and a nice bottle of ink to go with it in her favourite colour. The lovely people over at r/fountainpens will give you plenty of ink recommendations if you need it.

If you're based in the US then I hear that the Goulet Pen Company is awesome! They also have a YouTube channel if you want recommendations and reviews. I think they have a line in glass dip pens which look really pretty too.

It's not the best gift I have given but the best gift I am giving! I am in the Apocalypse Reddit Gifts, The person who I have lives in Portugal, I am sending them a small carry pack, a Leather bound journal, writing set, paracord and compass. They enjoy reading and said they want to document the apocalypse. For anyone interested This is the Writing Set and This is the Journal. This is the little bag that is going there too. Should be good for storing little keep sakes and pens / the journal. If you are still sending stuff just send it to a rematcher on your awesome little? site.

-- EDIT --

Went with a different bag, It's bigger and can store a LOT more in. It's called the MOLLE US Assault Pack.

If you're looking to get started, I'll give you the advice I give everyone-- go check out the wiki. It has all sorts of awesome resources, including a great book you can look through, as well as suggestions on pens, inks, papers, everything. Go check it out. The wiki (and the book therein) and this subreddit are pretty much the resources I used while getting started.

As for pens, if you're interested in broad edged scripts (Italic, Gothic, etc.), you're probably gonna want to go with some Pilot Parallels. They're fountain pens, and way more accessible than dip pens. If you're interested in pointed pen scripts (Copperplate, Spencerian)... Go check out the wiki for recommendations. I don't do pointed pen stuff xD

Oh and one last piece of advice... USE GUIDELINES. They're important. One of, if not the most important tool you can use to improve your letterforms. Seriously.

Boy am I glad you asked.

install the following mods

--requiem

--no gps //works-ish

--frostfall

--hunterborn

--immersiveFP

--realistic needs and diseases

--wet and cold

--animations

--better quest objectives

--enhanced character edit

--climates of tamriel

--hothtropper's armor pack

--Better Fast Travel

Then disable
compass -- bShowCompass=0
crosshairs -- bCrosshairEnabled=0
floating quest objectives -- bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=0

in your SkyrimPrefs.init (typically in documents/my games/skyrim)

Turn off all in game music. (in game->esc->settings->audio)

Download this image
Go to office depot or somewhere and have it printed. On a giant piece of paper.
Get a quill
Get an other weathered looking journal




Start a new game.

AS SOON AS YOU LEAVE THE CAVE, you'll be told to go to river wood/dragons reach. DONT GO!

Open your journal and disable the main story quest. Instead of turning right and traveling downstream, turn left.

Requiem makes things super friggin hard, mostly because enemies are NOT set to your level. A werewolf is a werewolf, even at level 1, so you can definitely find yourself in an un-winnable fight. Setting the difficulty to easy doesn't do anything.

So if you want a more relaxing experience, try this.

Pick three skills, say one-handed, illusion, and speech craft. (Try to pick three or four unrelated skills to make things interesting. Weapons, magic, non-combat is usually pretty fun). Open the console and type

"Player.advskill illusion 1000"

"Player.advskill speech craft 1000"

"Player.advskill one-handed 1000"


Until you've reached say level 15. Level up and pick your perks. Regardless of what you picked, get the first perk in the lock-picking and speech craft skill tree. Without them, you'll get really raw deals at shop AND you won't be able to pick locks. Like, any lock. Ever.



And here are your game play rules.

--Don't use your quest log (j), write things down IRL.

--Don't look at your in-game world or local map. Use your printed map.

--Take notes. Potion recipes, ingredient locations, enemy weaknesses.


You can get surprisingly far without being told where to go and what to do. Quest dialogue and journals are usually descriptive enough, but you have to pay actual attention. If you see a dead adventurer and find a journal or book on him, read it. 100% of it. Even if it's not a quest starter, take notes. You'd be surprised how big and connected the skyrim world is. If you play to win, you'll glance over the depth of the world. Sure, you can beat the game is like, 6 hours if you fast travel and glitch your way through fights on easy. But why would you want to?

They are several programs and apps that can help with spelling. I didn't have the luxury of using them but I am sure someone here can suggest some.

I learned how to write in cursive and how to use a calligraphy pen. It helped me write neater and kept me from writting down the page. It takes some time and practice and isn't for everyone.

You already mentioned overlays. I use these to help keep me from dropping or skipping lines when I read.

Color printer paper if you need to print something out for him to read. My color is goldenrod.

Another thing you may want to look at in the future is a text to speech app. I use dragon but it cost alot and they are some free or less expensive out there. This is because he could hear or see a word many times but not correlate it as the same word.

The last thing is a calendar and a note pad. Even though people know we have reading problems, we also have problems with memory. Having someway of keeping track when something is going to happen or due helps alot. He can use the note pad to just write down anything he needed to remember like meeting with friends or doing homework. Teach him this early and it will become 2nd nature.

Handwriting was my worst subject in school. All those shiny A's on my report card until you got to handwriting, which never got above a C. In college I invented my own script and everyone told me how beautiful it was. I get compliments on my handwritten Christmas cards. I actually have a couple of different styles, one is my quick and messy script and the other is neat and formal. Most day to day stuff is in a pseudo-italic print. If you can find some chisel tip felt pens you can have a lot of fun with her. The brand I like is Marvy Calligraphy. The local mom and pop office supply store used to have them, sadly they went out of business and the local mom and pop art store doesn't carry any calligraphy pens. I also have some broad nib fountain pens, hard to find good ones these days. I actually have a fountain pen that does not have an internal ink reservoir, you have to dip it into an ink stand. It was pretty old when I used it at my job in college, even older now. You can get good quality disposable fountain pens now. Biggest problem with them is most paper doesn't stand up well to fountain ink.

There are a couple of great resources for improving handwriting, one is online, one is a PDF of an out of print book. And there are a lot of resources online. I have mentioned them in my various posts in that sub.

Congrats on the new job!

I found something you may like by looking at your wishlist, Coffee!

For the thing I would like Pens are always a fun thing I love.

If you're just getting started with fountain pens, the Rotring ArtPen is a good starter drawing pen. There's a converter for it - it's on that same Amazon page - that I recommend picking up with it, as it'll let you use whatever ink you want.

Only thing about the ArtPen that I didn't like is it's shape; it's crazy long compared to other pens, and the tapered tip means you can't put the cap on the end while you're drawing. I cut off the long end of mine and capped it with the bottom cap off a cheap Bic pen and solved both those problems at once. It looks a little stubby (which I don't mind, because it just shoves easily into a pocket now) but with the cap on the end while working you'd never even know.

I've got a Moleskine sketchbook that I don't really like that much because the paper is too slick for my taste. But it takes ink well so I bring it out with me to do little plein air sketches like this one.

Noodlers makes my favorite fountain pen inks; Bulletproof Black is a good every day writing and sketching ink, but they have a sepia colored one that I don't have on hand right now that's really lovely for sketching with.

I think understanding edged-pen calligraphy is crucial to understanding type and lettering. I highly recommend picking up some calligraphy markers to start. They are cheap and durable. If you like doing it, then you can invest in some better pens. Get a lettering book and try the hands they show. Once you get comfortable with a couple standard styles, start improvising.

Markers:

Staedler Calligraphic Duo (two different width nibs)

Itoya Doubleheader (two different width nibs)

Marvy Calligraphy Marker (I suggest getting a 2mm and a 5mm)

Books:

The Calligrapher's Bible by David Harris


Speedball textbooks (you can pick up used ones fairly cheaply.)

Enjoy!

See if you can find some pens like this and play around with them—look up hand lettering on YouTube and you can find some good tutorials on how to form the letters :)

After your suggestions my current amazon cart for her is:

Calligraphy: A Beginner's Guide to Pointed Pen and Brush Pen Lettering

Hand Lettering for Relaxation: An Inspirational Workbook for Creating Beautiful Lettered Art

Strathmore 300 Series Drawing Pad, Medium Surface, 9"x12" Glue Bound, 50 Sheets

Rhodia No.16 A5 6 x 8 1/4 80 Sheet, Dot Pad.

Tombow 56191 Advanced Lettering Set.

Pilot Parallel Pen 2-Color Calligraphy Pen Set, with Black and Red Ink Cartridges in 2.4mm Nib size and 3.8mm Nib size with extra 12 assorted colors cartridges and 12 black cartridges. I assume the cartridges are not dependent on nib size as that would be infuriatingly stupid. Only dependent on the brands pen circumference? Correct me if I am wrong on that.

Hopefully that's pretty comprehensive but as far as speedball goes these are the texts I've found:

Speedball Textbook 24th Edition for $8.67.

Speedball Textbook: For Pen and Brush Lettering, 20th Edition for $113.35.

The Speedball Textbook, a comprehensive Guide to Pen and Brush Lettering, 23rd, Twenth-Third Edition for $51.01 new.

Did you have a specific edition in mind? A lot of the ones I'm seeing on amazon vary greatly as shown above.

Not sure you can print on it... but what about handmade papyrus?

Could be pretty cool to just take a legit calligraphy pen and trace your map by hand.

or you could draw it on a scroll, or even make your own scroll.

Hi, Thank you. I've just been looking at those. I also saw these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B011LSSCG8/ref=psdc_201073031_t3_B00S8LE09K, which seem like a good set for a starter. Do you think they might be any good?

When I was a kid, there was a kit not unlike this that had about 20 colors and a few tips. This was where I fell in love with being proud of writing. I do not know if this is the best kit, but ones like this are all over.

I started with this and slowly moved up. The only thing with these kids are/were was if you tried to change colors, the ink would dry out or spill. So once you punctured the cartridge, I had to use it up before changing colors.

Zig Calligraphy Markers seem to be just what you’re looking for. Zig produces a lot of great markers with a great variety of colours!

I've seen kits sold on amazon like -

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Calligraphy-Starter-Beginners-Instruction/dp/B00A9I0AHG

That provide really cheap practice pens/inks along with really well written guides and practices. I used to do them, but never put in enough time to learn. It's an awesome hobby.

This is what I got. It’s a bit of a pain so I can’t wait to get a pilot. Ink is whatever the cartridges are. Also, thank you for your smooth and super satisfying compliment

https://www.amazon.com/Manuscript-Martingale-MG-84766-Sock-Yarn-Shawls/dp/B002Z135YK

I've seen these to some extent. they are more of a dip type pen, being a wide, hard rubber type material or hard brissles and the handle fills (almost like the small brush pens? check out pokraslampas on IG, he has some of his pics (some NSFW FYI) where he shows the type of brush/pen he uses.


as for feed, I have everything but the 6mm, and everything i've read, seen, watched. that thing drinks like a fish. Most recommend to convert to an eyedropper to hold more.

I know this doesn't exactly answer, but i think if you scale up that big there are things out there.

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Calligraphy-Nibs/

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5435814_types-calligraphy-pens.html

might also check over at /r/Calligraffiti

edit: these are what i was looking for

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Run-084-Calligraffiti-Marker-Calligraphy/dp/B00I7UZDM0

[google images] (https://www.google.com/search?q=calligraffiti+pens&biw=1228&bih=655&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwi9qLnj8fLNAhUBUCYKHUH7DPQQsAQIGw#imgrc=9P9VU7SNe55vvM%3A)

Hi all!

This is being cross-posted from /r/PenmanshipPorn upon suggestion.

In case you're curious...

The pens are, from top to bottom:

1. Manuscript Master Italic Pen 1.1 mm running Noodler's Apache Sunset
   
   
2. Jinhao X750 - with a Knox 1.1 mm Italic stub running J. Herbin's Gris Nuage
   
   
3. TWSBI Eco 1.1 mm Italic stub running a mixture of Noodler's Apache Sunset and Cayenne
   
   
4. Pilot Metropolitan with a 1.1 mm Italic stub nib from a Pilot Plumix running Noodler's Antietam ink.
   
   
5. Manuscript Beginners Pen with an Extra Fine nib and running generic black ink.
   
   The paper is a Clairefontaine French Ruled pad

Quill pens still exist, and they're still used by many people. Checking on Amazon, I see 5504 results for the query "Quill Pen"-and one has 175 reviews. Are they less common than regular pens? Of course. Would it be unusual to see one in someone's home? Absolutely. But it wouldn't be in the realm of the unreal (sorry, couldn't resist).

Typewriters existed in the 1960's, and many people used them. Typing was often seen as women's work though, and it was considered a specialized skill, many people (mostly women) being hired solely to transcribe manuscript into type. I know many people who were alive at the time who'd confirm this. A seventy year old non college educated janitor using one would have been seen as unusual in the 1960's (though not as unusual as a janitor writing a 15,145 page fantasy manuscript).

Would it have been as strange as seeing someone with a quill pen today? I don't know, that would be a matter of individual opinion. The answer would change depending on who you asked. But as both would be uncommon, it's not an unfair analogy. A bit exaggerated? Perhaps-but most analogies are.

Bacon Pancakes
This wonderful Pilot Parallel pen
http://www.amazon.com/Pilot-Parallel-Calligraphy-Cartridges-90052/dp/B002RJPPMK/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=18OB4JF1DHUZL&coliid=INPTKW5D72W2Q

This is the one I have: http://www.amazon.de/Pilot-Pen-FP3-38-F%C3%BCllhalter-Parallel-Pen/dp/B003L1YWSG/ref=sr_1_1?s=officeproduct&ie=UTF8&qid=1396343329&sr=1-1&keywords=F%C3%BCllhalter+Parallel-Pen

Bought it after finding out an artist that I really dig uses it (Joe Wierenga), so I felt inspired. Guess I need to practice more with it.

I think /u/Asian8640 is right, maybe from this set.

Manuscript Deluxe Calligraphy Set https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Z135YK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_GPdszb5Y5129V

More specefically

Pilot Parallel 3.8 mm

Link. Link. Just the nib.

Here is the link.
http://imgur.com/gallery/zeNIUEN
I was given a Nicole PRO 4024 Calligraphy kit for beginners. Here is a link to the product. Sorry, I am new to reddit an unaware how to make small links instead of the url.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A9I0AHG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00