Trying My Hand At Italic Writing

[Lyander0012]

I posted this in an earlier thread, but thought to give it better exposure by creating my own. Basically, I got an italic nib a few days ago and have been trying my best to master it/ make the most of it.

 

Hope to meet everyone's expectations!

 

(The pen is a TWSBI Diamond 580 with a 1.5mm stub, and the paper I used in these shots varies).

 

Haha, since you're so insistent, here are a few samples. I'm only including the names of those that I obtained permission from (you know, since I kinda wanted to show off my work ), but please, leave them their privacy! I don't want them blaming me for their being bothered by random people!

 

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4414.jpg

 

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4401.jpg

 

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4435.jpg

 

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4436.jpg

 

... And here are a few quotes:

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4473.jpg

 

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4506.jpg

 

 

And lastly, a random rhyming verse I came up with (plus a shot of the pen in daylight, loaded with Skrip red):

 

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4467.jpg

 

 

Cheers!

 

Kevin

 

P.S.

Just read a really nice book, so I tried writing down its title, and adding a bit of character to it by dropping a glob of ink on the paper (coated sketchpad paper) and blowing on it. I got a bit of ink all over my desk from blowing too hard, but what the heck

 

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4512.jpg

 

 

And another one. Can anyone give me feedback on how much work my kanji needs? Thank you!

 

Skrip Red ink: TWSBI Diamond 580 (1.5mm stub)

Cross Blue ink: Sailor 1911L (Naginata Emperor MF)

 

Here's an extra one of me trying my hand at writing kanji. I know that it's far from decent, but I'm hoping to improve soon

 

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/Lyander0012/IMAG4514.jpg

Edited February 1, 2014 by Lyander0012

[perth]

I'm also looking to find some cheap italic pens to try out writing like this, but I've had a hard time trying to find one in Thailand without buying on the internet.

[Lyander0012]

I'm also looking to find some cheap italic pens to try out writing like this, but I've had a hard time trying to find one in Thailand without buying on the internet.

 

From what I recall, TWSBI pens are fairly easy to come by in South-east Asia. Failing that, you could always get a Lamy Joy. If you want a pen that you can actually carry around, though, you might have to buy a Lamy Safari and then get a separate italic nib unit (it's a bit roundabout, I know, but that's as good as it gets short of spending a lot of cash online).

 

 

Hope that helped!

 

Kevin

[perth]

I'm no means a nib expert, let alone know how to replace a nib. Besides, I've never seen a Lamy with anything other than a F or M nib in Thailand. My maths teacher had a Jotter with an italic nib, but he got it from the UK. Not that I'd want to write regularly with a Jotter, but that's another story.

[GClef]

Hey! I think I went to school with that Marc Emmanuel guy!

[Lyander0012]

Hey! I think I went to school with that Marc Emmanuel guy!

 

Hmm, you were in the Philippines before? Cool XD

[Lyander0012]

I'm no means a nib expert, let alone know how to replace a nib. Besides, I've never seen a Lamy with anything other than a F or M nib in Thailand. My maths teacher had a Jotter with an italic nib, but he got it from the UK. Not that I'd want to write regularly with a Jotter, but that's another story.

 

Lamy is pretty good with after-sales! Try ordering a separate italic nib. You might spend a bit more that way, but at least you'll have an italic pen and an everyday ball-point nib in one pen

 

 

Kevin

 

EDIT:

Forgot to add: In order to change out the nib unit on a Safari, you basically need to wrap some tape around the nib and then pull! It's an easy-to-change-out friction fit, so I doubt you'll have any trouble with that.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Lyander0012

[perth]

I'll try that then. Thanks for your help!

[mvarela]

That's pretty decent italic!

[Lyander0012]

Thank you! I've had the pen for a few days now, so I'm slowly getting used to it. Hopefully, I can grow in skill

 

 

Kevin

[Randal6393]

@Lyander0012: Great work! Pretty decent formal italic, would like to see how well you do with a cursive italic. And skill comes with practice and a bit of study. Have lots of fun while you do this! As for the kanji, great! You have the skill set and a lovely hand. How many kanji do you know on sight? That's the real rub -- learning enough kanji to easily read and write an Asian language. Again, practice, study, and having fun with it are the way to become proficient.

 

@perth: If you can't get a good italic nib pre-made, it's about time to practice with the small hand stones and regrinding a nib to an italic tip. Not too hard to do, plenty of resources for it on the internet. Best of luck to you.

 

Enjoy,

[Lyander0012]

Thank you for the compliments, Randal! I'm putting as much time as I have available outside of school and this thing I've got going on at the moment (a competition, you could say) into practicing my writing, so it's nice to know that the work's paying off! I think I should invest more time into mastering flex nibs as well, as I've got a few flex dip pen nibs just rusting at the moment, but that can probably wait.

 

And about the kanji: that's the problem indeed, haha. I only know maybe a few dozen on sight, and even then it takes a while to remember their meanings. I've been something of an otaku since childhood, so I've had more exposure to the characters than most others outside of Asia (well, I AM Asian, but Filipino, so my base language uses the same characters as English), so the learning's progressing decently

 

Cheers!

 

Kevin

[Amyj]

If that is "far from kanji" than mine is an alien language. You're well on your way, just try and make all the characters about the same size (some worksheets with squares divided in fours, perhaps?), and give the punctuation their own equal space. And I'm assuming you're writing all the lines in the correct order, yeah?

 

Try and copy out a short story, poem, etc., making sure you understand each word before progressing onto the next. I find the only words I can actually read are the ones I was forced to write out in Chinese School.

[ac12]

@L

Great looking writing.

It will take me a LONG time to get that far. I feel like I'm still in kindergarten, or maybe pre-school.

Got to take out my book "Calligraphy for Dumbies."

[Lyander0012]

If that is "far from kanji" than mine is an alien language. You're well on your way, just try and make all the characters about the same size (some worksheets with squares divided in fours, perhaps?), and give the punctuation their own equal space. And I'm assuming you're writing all the lines in the correct order, yeah?

 

Try and copy out a short story, poem, etc., making sure you understand each word before progressing onto the next. I find the only words I can actually read are the ones I was forced to write out in Chinese School.

Sorry for the late reply! Anyway, yeah, I take extra care for the stroke order and such, since the look of the character can change drastically with the slightest variation (speaking from experience).

 

And yeah, thanks for the compliments! I haven't had as much time to practice lately, but I'm making the most of it. Haha, the hardest part is by far *memorizing* these things XD

[Lyander0012]

@L

Great looking writing.

It will take me a LONG time to get that far. I feel like I'm still in kindergarten, or maybe pre-school.

Got to take out my book "Calligraphy for Dumbies."

Thank you! Been working on my penmanship since September 2012 give or take, when I first got into fountain pens. It's come a long way since then, but I'm not entirely sure whether it' improved or gotten worse, haha. Anyway, been focusing more on pointed pen calligraphy, and my italic hasn't been seeing very much use lately (whoops).

 

Anyway, keep up practicing, and share a few samples with us why don't you? A lot of people on the forums are more than willing to help out.

[disillusion]

Your italic handwriting looks great! I love the flourishes. Please post some more examples if you have the time, I'd love to see them.

 

As for the kanji, it is great that you are learning to write with the correct stroke order. Try to fit each character into a single square, so that a whole passage would look like tiles on top of each other. Characters with fewer strokes occupy less area of the square, and more complicated ones are relatively bigger (but would still fit into the square). Also try to be aware of how much space each radical occupy within the character. The best way to do that would be to find a piece of work you like by a master calligrapher, and follow the style as closely as possible. Regular script/Kaisho is a good place to start, as learning proper form will help you develop your own semi-cursive/cursive style. I speak as someone who is trying to remedy my very bad form in semi-cursive and cursive by re-learning regular script properly.

[Lyander0012]

Haha, I honestly haven't played around with italics in a while. Flex nibs are that much fun (both dip nibs and fountain pens, though I have to say a dip nib on an oblique holder is much nicer to use). Still, I may bust out the TWSBI again one of these days, maybe with a different ink.

 

I'm learning kanji at a slow but steady pace. I'm considering asking my Japanese friend for help, but I'm a bit reluctant since I don't want to be too great a burden.

 

Anyway, about semi-cursive style, that's something I've actually been meaning to ask about. Is it essentially writing the complete strokes, but with lines joining them together (like how western cursive is)? I'm also aware that full cursive kanji has severely reduced strokes, and I'm wondering how they can tell one character from another, especially since there are characters that look very much alike.

 

The rabbit hole is very deep indeed with both written and spoken Japanese

 

Kevin

[disillusion]

Oh I agree a dip pen with a flex nib is so much more fun than the other stuff. I am trying to learn copperplate through books, and though I still have a long way to go, I am thoroughly enjoying the process.

 

Perhaps you can ask your Japanese friend to recommend a few textbooks for school kids that focuses on kanji? I have some beginner Japanese books but they don't have much on writing kanji. I could read and write Chinese when I started learning Japanese, so that never was a problem for me. These textbooks should feature kanji characters written in grids that look like "田", and would probably have the correct stroke order too.

Something similar to this (although this is semi-cursive simplified Chinese aimed at adults). Poor phone quality photo but you get the idea.

(If you are already learning Kanji in a proper way, please feel free to ignore my suggestions.)

 

As for regular script/semi-cursive/cursive, I will tell you what I know about them in Chinese calligraphy. Japanese kanji should be similar, but I am no expert, nor do I know anyone proficient at both to tell me about the differences.

Regular script has strict requirements about how a stroke should look like, eg. verticals and horizontals should be straight lines. Between strokes the pen must leave the paper, but mentally you really should be picturing an "invisible stroke" between where stroke 1 ends and stroke 2 starts. This is an important part as it links all the strokes to form the character and gives a distinctive look to your handwriting.

In semi-cursive the strokes can be rounded off a bit to speed up writing, but not so much such that it becomes hard to read. The pen does not have to leave the paper after every stroke and you can join some of them. Which strokes and how to join them is up to you.

Cursive is an even more "care-free" way of writing the characters and you can choose to simplify certain strokes etc. It allows you to show great distinctive "personal" flair but IMO is quite hard to learn and almost impossible to master if you don't know your regular script really well. You are right that it is a bit harder to read, but I guess people just learn to read them . It helps that the reader would usually be proficient at regular script at least.

 

Good luck with your endeavors, Japanese is (IMO) one of the hardest languages to learn and mastery of Chinese/Kanji calligraphy is one of those things that take many people a lifetime to achieve.

[Algester]

kanji writing if purely kanji a good Chinese dictionary would be good if I remember correctly it also teaches you how the strokes are formed but then I realized I studied in a chinese school... <_< >_> ohh the horror of those days, and then I started to write in chinese shorthand or somewhat looks like a shorthand

Edited May 16, 2014 by Algester