I am not a trained calligrapher by any stretch of the imagination but I sing the praises of the Pilot Parallel Calligraphy fountain pens on the regular. In fact, I even did a Pilot Parallel Calligraphy Fountain Pens 101 video awhile back and it's - if I may toot my own horn - a great starter guide to the pens and how to use them.
Obviously these are fantastic pens for practicing calligraphy, lettering, and alphabets in general. I like to play around with styles because before you know it, you’ve morphed several into one new style and it looks really cool. Well, usually they look terrible and wrong but sometimes it works out. That’s why messing around is fun. I typically eyedropper mine (again, instructions in that video I linked) but you can also use a Pilot cartridge/converter. Ink flow tends to be quite generous when eyedroppered and consistent with the cartridge/converter set up. I prefer the eyedropper set up because I love the super juicy, gushing type of ink flow to really make inks pop. If this applies to you, I'd say they are the best for shimmery and sheeny inks. They are just so easy to clean and maintain, they are nice and juicy, and they're affordable.
The shape of the plates does result in having somewhat sharp corners but a light hand is all you need for these pens. If you find the corners catching on the page, you might want to lighten your pressure, ease up on the grip of the pen, but also perhaps try practicing writing with the pen in general to get more comfortable with its angles. One of the things I did over and over was learn how to rotate the nib in all directions without lifting it off the page - this helped me learn to keep a light hand when rounding the corners.
There is no shortage of resources and guides out there if you do some quick Googling. Toronto Pen Company has released a free Gothic Batarde workbook for the first group of miniscule letters. Check it out here and get started on some Batarde practice! If you follow TPC on social media, you can stay tuned for new releases and other fun goodies. FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM TWITTER
The above three inks: Diamine Manggis for Pen Gallery
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