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The flow and layout is nice but overall the lettering could use some work.

• Work on your spacing and letter width. It is all over the place currently. Compare the width of the p to the o. Look how the p and the h overlap. The r is so tight it is almost not readable. Spacing and letter width are easy enough to make consistent and go a long way.
  
  
• In script letters downward strokes are wide while upward ones are thin. You have this right for the most part except in some of the swashes.
  
  
• Another general rule for script, dont let two wide sections cross. You do this on the uppercase T. Look here Basic example of how to avoid this.
  
  
• For the faux calligraphy only thing I noticed was the f is at a slant while the rest of the letters are straight up. Kind of throws it off.
  
  Good luck!
  
  ps: just a note. this book is where I learned most of these tips. It is amazing in the way it can give you simple tips to make your lettering exponentially better. I would recommend trying to buy it.

A lot of calligraphy is about pen angle, which means keeping the nib at a consistent angle to the baseline regardless of the direction you are moving the pen. Learning to control your pen angle can help improve your letters. Learning a few different calligraphic hands can help you improve your style. It is a good idea to draw individual letters in a style first, then work towards words.

I highly recommend The Calligrapher's Bible by David Harris. It's a great little book with all the info the beginner needs, and 100 different calligraphy styles illustrated.

I'm still learning myself so some of these books I'm recommending depend on your skillset and interest I guess. For typedesign and understanding fundamentals: Designing type is a good read, same with Stroke. Free stuff like briem superhandy. As a primer I'd read this before I buy a type design book. For lettering I don't really have books of preference. I generally go googling for info on whatever I may have a doubt in or if I just need inspiration. Like if I were looking at script, I'd look at works by Tony di spigna, tommy thompson, david quay and the like. When I once had a doubt about negative space within letters, I googled and stumbled upon this which helped. so for lettering it's a bit all over the place where I mostly just got info from googling. However if you want a book in lettering for a beginner-intermediate then logo,font & lettering gets you upto speed on a lot of things though he can be a lil old in his methods. Also books by Mortimer Leach and Doyald Young. For calligraphy I think I mostly learnt it from speedball manuals and then just googled but more importantly I did a lot of writing which is why I picked up on it. I think to understand type properly you need to do some calligraphy, once you get a grasp on calligraphy, typedesign makes sense so you go buy type design books, eventually lettering becomes super easy.

For sketching, I use a Staedtler Mars 780 and to get it to the sharpness I like, I use a Staedtler Rotary

For inking, I mainly use Pigma Microns, but also like using other brands such as Kurutake Zig or Staedtler pigment liners, all of which I'm sure you can find at your local art store

Hope that helps!

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 :)

Maybe something like this? Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground

Sounds like a cool project - good luck!

Thank you! I basically copied this post

And yeah, I love a good brush pen. I used the Pilot Pocket Brush Pen.

First of all you NEED this book, it has it all like seriously all,the tools the strokes the history - the chapter on brush lettering alone is worth the purchase.
(in case the link doesn't work the book is called Modern Calligraphy and Hand Lettering by Lisa Engelbercht)

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Calligraphy-Hand-Lettering-Mark-Making/dp/1592536441

Then you need to watch this series of videos by Eliza Holliday, she shows the dynamics of the process and keeps it fairly simple and easy to understand - though there are others i found this one to be the most useful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIxiW_aMiF8

And then you need a fuckton of practice because the Pentel Pocket brush can be a little bitch sometimes but gets the job done - also you might want to get a couple of other brushpens along the way just to make sure you can control all types and be efficent with any tool.


Hope this helps

The right tools help a lot. I used a MACK "The Virus" brush & 1 shot paint. The trick to getting a thin, consistent line is easy with a little practice. If you take care of your brushes, thin the paint right, and have a steady hand you're all set.

She could work on her filligree. It looks like she didnt even use the right type of pen for this, instead she traced the letter forms and filled them in (in which case the main lettering for 'TOM" isnt horrible)

But since she has interest in lettering I'd suggest you give her a cute-ass gift for which she's going to be eternally grateful to you: a parallel pen. I started off with these and recently I just did monogram logos for my friends wedding. It takes less than a day to learn the letters and maybe a weekend to get the writing flow down but if you like lettering you'll be addicted. Check out the link below!

http://www.amazon.com/Pilot-Parallel-2-Color-Calligraphy-Assorted/dp/B014RPD3C0/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1452818813&sr=8-7&keywords=pilot+parallel+pens+calligraphy

EDIT > to show what type of work you can do with this pen check out below
https://www.google.com/search?q=parallel+pen+calligraphy&espv=2&biw=1150&bih=876&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjuoaS1zKrKAhVCKGMKHcLPACUQ_AUIBygC

Not OP, but I can point out a couple things until he returns. Looks like he used a Tombow brush pen like this. It's a good, inexpensive pen to start out with.

As far as resources, scope out YT and Vimeo for tutorials, there are more than a few to choose from. Also if you're on Instagram follow lettering artists. They often post short process videos. And lastly, just practice. Buy 5 brush pens and letter until they're all out of ink.

Get a pen like this one.

And learn real calligraphy. Here's a stroke guide - there are more online.

http://cmcgavren.home.sprynet.com/azAZChancery.html

Not trying to be rude, I think it's awesome that you want to learn. I learned in high school, and it's a somewhat valuable skill if you enjoy typography/lettering.

I like Lettering & Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces and In Progress: See Inside a Lettering Artist's Sketchbook and Process, from Pencil to Vector. But really the biggest help for me was just daily practice, with someone who can give you quality feedback on your work

The book is Creative Lettering and Beyond, created with three other lettering artists. It comes out in November and shows the process of this piece and others from start to finish. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Lettering-Beyond-Inspiring-techniques/dp/1600583970/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408587802&sr=8-1&keywords=creative+lettering+and+beyond

I have some calligraphy books that are written in german and pretty obscure so that I can't even find them on amazon but the main ones I'd recommend are called hand to type and flip the script (for graff).

If you're into hand lettering, look up the queen, Jessica Hische. Watch all of the YouTube videos where she does interviews, and read her book "In Progress" cover to cover.

https://www.amazon.com/Progress-Lettering-Artists-Sketchbook-Process/dp/145213622X

Designing Type should be on your bookshelf for research, metrics, etc. I used it for my first font and its a godsend.