Beginners Pen Kit

I have curated a Beginners Pen Kit for My Hand Lettering 101 Workshops. I explain a lot about the pens/markers in class, but I wanted to document it again for you to reference once you're home!

Hope you find this helpful!
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The Beginners Pen Kits are great so that you can try a variety of different pens at a lower cost, and then once you've found your favorites, THEN you invest your moola getting the ones you like.



There are 6 pens in the Beginners Pen Kit. I chose to do all black pens so that you can better compare the differences, but in this post, I'll also show you the recommendations if you're looking for color.

The first four pens in the Beginners Pen Kit are Monoline pens. Monoline means single line, these pens typically have small widths and no give. They are great for doing Faux-Hand Lettering like we do in class. 

Two of the monoline pens are felt or marker based and two are ink based.

Let's start with the marker based pens:

​Micron 05 
Microns are great pens. They come in a variety of widths or thicknesses. In the Beginners Pen Pack, I gave you the 05, which is middle of the road thickness. 

PROS - Micron comes in a variety of thicknesses (001, 01, 05, 08, 1, and more) This is super nice for adding details and fine lines, and they hold up well for your Hand Lettering.

CONS - They only have 8 colors and if you get colors, you one get one choice of width (05).

Staedtler 03
Staedtlers only come in one width, which is a bit thinner than what you get with the micron. I like these because they don't tend to bleed through paper.
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PROS - They come in a lot of colors. You can get packs of 20, or packs of 72 should you choose.

CONS - They only come in one width. 🤷🏼‍♀️

​The next two monoline pens are gel or ink based. This is less marker like and more pen like.

Ink Joy .7
These are considered medium width ink pens. The ink flow on these babies are magic. Smooth like butter.  These are hands down my favorite everyday pens AND my favorite Hand Lettering pens.
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PROS - They come in a variety of colors, you can get packs of 12 or packs of 20 and they are SUPER reasonably priced.

CONS - I have no idea. I love these pens a lot.

Sakura Gel Pens
These are also considered medium width, but I find that they are a bit thinner than the Ink Joy.  These are great for adding details to your lettering. 

PROS - They come in Gold and Silver, as well as milky colors, glittery colors, and neons. Sooo fun for  that extra detail.

CONS - The basic white isn't as opaque as I wish it would be. If you are looking for a good white, I would recommend the Uni Ball Signo White pen.

The last two pens/markers are considered small brush pens. These are what I call "Training Wheel" Pens for when you are ready to move from Faux-Hand Lettering to Brush Lettering. These are great because the "brush" portion of the marker is small and controlled. Great for learning and practicing. Even if you never want to move into brush lettering, these are great for coloring in your Faux-Hand Lettering letters.

Tombow Fudensuke Hard & Soft
The pen that comes in the blue package is Hard and the pen that comes in the green package is Soft.  If you can't remember which one is which, just test them on a page and see which one has more give.
More give = Soft, Less give = Hard.
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PROS - These are the best SMALL brush pens on the market. They are really good for learning brush lettering.

CONS - They come in black, and very limited colors.  If you are looking for the perfect duplicate for these that have color, I recommend that Pentel Art Sign BRUSH Pens.