Which pen is best for Calligraphy? Which calligraphy pen should I buy? What calligraphy pen should I buy? Let’s see those questions in this article.

Calligraphy pen is the most crucial and important purchase of a whole calligraphy kit. Especially  in the beginning , it is a little confusing to buy one pen for learning calligraphy. Here is the buyer’s guide to help you pick the best calligraphy pen. 

After writing with hundreds of different pens, in the last seven years. I would recommend you The Pilot Parallel Pen. No matter if you are a beginner or an expert. It is the best pen ever. You can consider buying it as a broad-edge pen. 

• If you are a beginner and not don’t to spend much you can also go with- Artline ergoline calligraphy Pen. It is the best and cheapest pen for beginners. And the quality and stroke sharpness you get is pretty impressive for the price range. Further information is given below.
• Those are the normal and nib pen for calligraphy. If you want a brush pen for learning brush pen calligraphy. You should want to go for a Pentel touch brush pen. 

Things to Keep in Mind While Buying Pen- 

• Calligraphy pen is considered the most crucial thing in calligraphy, especially in the beginning. People always tend to be more focused and attentive while purchasing the pen for calligraphy. It is considered as the most important part of the whole calligraphy kit. 
• But I will suggest it, if you are beginner and want to start calligraphy. Oftentimes it makes people so thrilled and anxious. They get so anxious and worry about purchasing. 
• Yes, calligraphy pens are a very important purchase, but not most. Most important purchase is your paper. You can check our best buyer’s guide for paper here.
• So I will recommend that you don’t get so anxious, it is not a permanent purchase. Your collection will grow eventually. And a lot of more tools will be added into it. So don’t get thrilled or anxious.
• And also you have to keep in mind that if you want to get a brush pen, get good quality paper. Because paper is not just important for writing. Especially if you are using a brush pen. Paper can damage your brush. And it can cost you a lot of money, because you had to change several pens. So especially if you are using a brush pen, get good paper. Otherwise it damages your pen and costs you more money. 

Types of Pens-

To make things clear and easy to understand, we divided pens into 3 categories. First is broad-edge calligraphy pen which we suggest most. Second category is the best normal calligraphy pen. And the last category is the best brush pen.

We divided the category for making it easy to buy the perfect pen for you. So there are three types of pen, and each gets used for a different purpose. 

1. Best Calligraphy Pen Overall-

Broad-edge calligraphy pen is used for doing broad-edge calligraphy. Strokes are pretty thick here. And pen nibs are also. Following is the example of Broad-edge calligraphy. 

Broad edge here. 

Our best recommended pen for a broad-edge pen is The Pilot Parallel Pen. It is the best pen. You can even prefer it for general and learning calligraphy. I will highly recommend this pen.

• This pen comes with a set of 4 pens, 8 ink Cartridges (4 black and 4 red), couple refillable ink Cartridges (You can fill your own ink), and a very thin practice sheet (in case nib gets stuck and we have to clean nib). This set comes with everything.
• You can buy their changeable ink Cartridges. This is the link for their inks- Ink For the Pilot Parallel Pen.
•  Also the main thing behind suggesting this pen is it’s nib size. Though it is a broad-edge pen, it comes in very convenient and universal sizes. It comes with 4 different pens. Each has different nib sizes of 1.5mm, 2.4mm, 3.8mm & 6.0mm Nibs sizes. So you get full flexibility and use all different sizes. 

Following is the example of their different nib sizes. 

As a beginner in broad-edged calligraphy. It’s a very good thing. Also it gives you experience of very nib size and how it performs. 

• Also it comes with 2 refillable cartridges. If you have bottle ink, you can refill those and with any pen. It gives you flexibility of using any ink you love. For ink I will recommend you to check out our best recommended ink page for guidance and information about best inks.
• Also this set comes with a very thin practice sheet. in case something gets stuck in your nib or your nib gets stuck. You can use that sheet for cleaning your nib. 

This is the best pen you can buy for calligraphy. Also it comes in various different sizes and covers every size. Gives you every freedom which you want. You can use any ink you want. Also it comes with everything you want for a calligraphy pen. 

You can experience different nib sizes and inks with it. This is the best pen you can buy for calligraphy. Just keep in mind it is a broad nib pen.

2. Best Cheap Alternative Calligraphy Pen-

ink case you want something cheap and thinner nib, you should go for Artline Ergoline Calligraphy Pen. Those are the best calligraphy pens for smaller nibs. And they are a little cheap also. 

• They come with 3 different nib sizes. They almost cover all sizes, small, medium and large. They are 1mm, 2mm, and 3mm sizes. Following is their nib’s reference image. 

• Considering the price range it’s decent for gothic. And in italic it’s very nice and great. Strokes were nice and very sharp. And much better from gothic.it is definitely recommended for italic. 

Those above are the examples of this pen. The strokes are very nice and sharp. It is definitely recommended. I use all of those three nibs. Following is the example of 1mm nib. And you can see the strokes are very good and sharp. 

Here is a comparison of the thin strokes from the Artline Ergoline Pen and the Pilot Parallel Pen. 

Thin strokes are always the problem in this kind of pen(Artline Ergoline Pen). As you can see in the side by side comparison, thin strokes are much sharper in the pilot parallel pen than the artline Pen. Therefore our best recommendation is the Pilot Parallel pen. 

So if you are a beginner and not want to spend much money, you can definitely go for an artline ergoline pen. It is the second best pen for calligraphy. It’s strokes are pretty sharp, colours are vibrant, and it’s overall a great pen. 

But if you already use a pilot parallel pen it is not worth buying an artline ergoline pen. Pilot parallel pen is the best pen you can buy for calligraphy and for second place it’s artline ergoline pen.

3. Best Brush Pen In Calligraphy-

Pentel Touch Pen is the best pen if you want to do brush calligraphy. If you do not want to do nib or broad- edge calligraphy. And I want to do brush calligraphy. Your best option is Pentel Touch Pen.

Brush calligraphy example image

• The brush size of the Pentel Touch Brush pen is not huge, so it feels easy to control. If you are a beginner it is easy to control and get used to using a brush pen. Therefore for beginners it is the best pen you can buy.
• The specialty of the pen is its brush. It is a small size brush, so it’s easy to control. And it is perfectly bouncy, so you get good writing. 
• It is very easy to clean.
• It comes in packs of 12 and 6. You can choose from different colours and packs of 6 or 12.
• They are water based ink. 
• The brush is good, bouncy and flexible. It is the best pen for brush calligraphy.

So those are our best recommendation according to your needs. If you want the best pen for calligraphy go with the Pilot Parallel Pen. If you want something cheaper or don’t want to spend a lot of money you can go with an artline Ergoline Pen. 

And if you want a pen for brush calligraphy, go with the Pentel Touch Pen. It is the best brush pen for brush Calligraphy. 

What to Look For in Calligraphy Pen-

There are few things you should want to look at before buying calligraphy pens. It is not such a complicated thing to understand.

I simplified everything that you should want to look in pen for calligraphy. And if you don’t want to make things complicated. You should follow our above recommendations. 

Which is a Pilot parallel pen for calligraphy. It is the best pen you can buy. If you want another alternative for it, you should go for the Artline Ergoline calligraphy pen. But keep in mind it is a cheaper alternative. The Pilot Parallel Pen is the best competitively. And if you want to do brush pen calligraphy. You should want to buy a Pentel touch Brush pen.  It is the best pen for brush calligraphy.

Now lets see the thing which you should want to look in calligraphy pen- 

• First and main thing is strokes. The strokes should be sharp and clean. The strokes should not want to tear in between. And a perfect stroke should appear.
• You should be clear about your writing style. Pen may be different in different styles. There are mainly three types: brush pens, nib pens, and broad edged nib pens. And they defer from the style you want to write in. so consider your style, and then select a pen according to it.
• Build quality. This is the least part you should consider. Because when you buy a good band’s pen it is taken care of. and normally every pen has a good build quality, because genealogy pen builds for long term uses. Sometimes pens are a little expensive but due to it, the pen has good built quality. And everything is taken care of already.  
• Colour vibrance. Also it is a good thing you should look for. But it mostly depends on ink. So you can swipe ink at any time. But it is a good thing when a pen comes with good quality ink.
• Also while buying a brush pen you should look for good paper also. Paper is the most important thing in your set. Because if you use bad quality paper, it just does not affect your writing but it can damage your brush pen. And in the long term it costs you way more pens and money. You can check our best paper guide for more information about it.

Those things you should want to look for in a pen. 

Can Sketch Pens be Used for Calligraphy?

You should not want to use Sketch pens for calligraphy. Using sketch pens for normal or gothic calligraphy fonts is a really bad idea. You can use a sketch pen for brush calligraphy, but again the tip of the sketch pen is not flexible enough. Therefore it is also a bad idea to do so.

If you plan to write in classic and gothic-style lettering, probably you should not use sketch pens for it. Sketch pens usually have point nibs or brush nibs and were designed for free strokes. 

You can use the points for thin, loose modern fonts used in architectural lettering. Brush nibs can be used for splashy handwriting. My advice is to stick to the wedge pointed nibs for traditional calligraphy.

Sketch pen tips are not flexible and aren’t meant for this purpose . If you want to do modern calligraphy you can use brush pens, they have flexible tips which will help you to create both thin and thick strokes easily. And if you want to write copperplate script you can go for flexible nibs available for copperplate calligraphy. Also you can go for edge nib/ parallel nib pens for Gothic calligraphy fonts.

But as you know every problem has an alternative solution, so if you want to use sketch pens for calligraphy there are DIYs (lifehack) for that, you can make a slant cut at an angle of 45 degree at the tip of the sketch pen, make sure you cut the tip in such a way that you get a sharp edge. 

Now the DIY pen is ready to use. Also there are many youtube videos available for this DIY you can check that also.

Conclusion- Best Pen for Calligraphy

Best pen for calligraphy is the Pilot Parallel Pen. It is the best pen you can get for the price range. You should want to go for it. 

Our second alternative for calligraphy pen is the Artline Ergoline Pen. It is the cheapest yet best pen you can get in that price range. 

it’s strokes are sharp and clean. Italic calligraphy is the best choice with this pen. But for gothic language it does not seem the best option. And let me clear this to you it’s strokes are not better than a pilot parallel pen. Pilot parallel pen is the best you can prefer. So don’t get confused.

And at last, if you want to get into brush calligraphy you should want to prefer the Pentel Touch Pen. It is the best pen you can prefer for brush calligraphy. You can check out their price by clicking on them. 

So here on this page we recommend the best ever pens you can buy for calligraphy. Without thinking any second thought.