A Guide To Brush Pens For Beginners

Colorful pens have taken over the internet: everywhere there are photos of carefully decorated calendars with calligraphic inscriptions, elaborate notes with small drawings, and various to-do or shopping lists. No wonder they are so popular: you can get beautiful results with them quickly and easily!

You will learn how to use such brush pens in this post. You will also find helpful writing practice worksheets there. And this time we have prepared an overview of brush pens for beginners, thanks to which you can easily learn how to draw and write beautiful letters.

What brush pen to start with?

Brush pens have three types of tips:

• felt, which can be both hard and compact, as well as long and elastic,
• made of plastic – usually short and not very flexible,
• brush made of natural or synthetic bristles, i.e. soft and elastic.

In the beginning, it will be much easier to use a felt or plastic tip, so we have prepared a selection of pens of this type.

We will start the review of brush pens with those with a short ending that allows you to write smaller letters.

Brush pens for smaller letters

1. ZEBRA WF

The list is opened by a series of Zebra WF brush pens with a flexible, quite hard felt tip. They are perfect for people who are just starting their adventure with brush lettering and calligraphy.

In the beginning, we especially recommend the Zebra WF1 Fine pens with a thin tip and WFSS4 Super Fine pens with a very thin tip, thanks to which we can easily learn to hold the pens.

2. TOMBOW FUDENOSUKE HARD & SOFT

The list included the iconic Tombow brush pens from the Fudenosuke series. Known and loved by artists and enthusiasts around the world, the pens are easy to use, which makes them ideal for beginners. Tombow Fudenosuke pens have a short plastic tip, which comes in two variants: hard and soft. 

The hard tip of the Tombow Fudenosuke Hard brush pen allows for less contrast between lines than the Soft tip . Tombow Fudenosuke Hard pens come in 16 different colors, as well as in the Hard & Soft duo , in a set of 10 colors and a neon set .

3. PENTEL TOUCH , PENTEL BRUSH SIGN PEN

Other pens that are particularly popular are the Pentel Touch Brush Pen and Brush Sign Pen .

The flexible polyester brush tip allows you to easily control the thickness and shape of the lines, and the wide color palette allows for freedom of expression. Brush pens are perfect for bullet journals and notes – you can easily and quickly make decorative headlines or small drawings.

Pentel Touch is available in 12 colors, in sets and per piece . And for those looking for ready-made color palettes, there are sets of 4 Pentel Brush Sign Pens: Blue Almonds , Fruit Pops and Green Berries .

4. KURETAKE BIMOJI FUDE PEN

The Kuretake Bimoji Fude Pen brush pens are distinguished by a comfortable rubber grip, thanks to which the hand does not slide on the casing while writing.

Brush pen tips are durable and flexible, and the pigmented ink becomes waterproof when dry. Kuretake Bimoji Fude Pen are perfect for both drawing and calligraphy.

Available in 5 types with various degrees of brush softness, the longer the bristles, the more possibilities, but also the higher the level of difficulty.

Brush pens for larger letters

1. ZEBRA MILDLINER BRUSH

Another Zebra pens that are great for beginners are the Zebra Mildliner Brush. They are available in sets in three color versions: Fluo , Cool & Refined and Warm or by piece .

The Zebra Mildliner brush pens are double-sided: the brush tip can be used for calligraphy and brush lettering, and the other, thin, round tip for writing and underlining. This makes them great tools for notebooks, calendars and planners.

The brush tip is longer than the Tombow Fudenosuke or Zebra WF pens, but is very flexible and comfortable, which will help you write slightly larger letters or decorative headings. Despite the delicate and subtle colors, the pens are well pigmented and they easily achieve the effect of shading the lines.

2. TOMBOW ABT DUAL BRUSH

Probably everyone has heard about Tombow ABT Dual Brush pens! This is a series of double-sided brush pens with a thin tip for drawing precise lines and a rather long and flexible brush tip for surface application of ink.

You can write capital letters with them, and a wide range of colors (over 100 shades) will allow you to find the perfect color for your needs.

Tombow brush pens are water-based, so they allow shading, blurring colors and obtaining a watercolor effect (see: Blending Kit and ABT Dual Brush Pen – Blender). They mix well with each other, so the effects of working with these pens can be really delightful. ABT brush pens are available solo or in many different color combinations .

3. ECOLINE BRUSH PEN

Talens watercolor brush pens are filled with Ecoline paint – popular and appreciated among cartoonists and calligraphers. They will be perfect for large formats, where you need to write larger letters easily and quickly.

A fairly large and soft tip of the brush pen allows you to achieve both thin and very thick lines, which is great for brush lettering and drawing.

Due to the specificity of watercolor paint, the lines drawn with the Ecoline brush pen may not be perfectly even and sharp or uniform in color after drying, which only adds charm to artistic works. You can mix them both with each other and with a different color of liquid paint – this will allow even smoother tonal transitions.

4. KURETAKE ZIG FUDEBIYORI

Kuretake ZIG Fudebiyori brush pens have a flexible felt tip, ideal for both calligraphy and drawing. The water-based, dye-based, xylene-free ink allows for thinning and mixing of colors with water. Thanks to this, we obtain a wealth of watercolor painting effects.

The pens come in a wide range of colors as well as metallic shades that will look good on dark papers.

Now you know how to write with a brush pen and you know a lot of options for writing both smaller and larger letters! Which pen are you going to try first?