Calligraphy Nib Review: Tips & Insights with Kei Haniya

Hi everyone, it's Kay here from Hania Calligraphy Studio on behalf of Calligraphy Masters. I'd like to talk to you today about some of the most popular point and pen calligraphy nibs out in the market. I'm going to start with the Zebra G, the Hunt 101 and Hunt 22, the Lennart Principle, the Brow 66, and finally the Gillotte 303. Let's begin by talking about one of the most popular nibs in the market, the G nib. The nib that I'm going to demo is the Zebra G nib, which I have here in my hand. The G nibs are what I would call medium flex nibs. They're not going to spread very far, they're highly durable, the point is fairly dull, so you're not going to get a super fine hairline, and the distinction between your hairlines and the shades is not going to be great. This nib is often used for beginners because of its durability, it's quite indestructible. They're hard to destroy. This nib here is the Tachikawa G. It's a little bit more pointy than the Zebra G nib, same kind of flex, it's rather stiff, and this is the Nikko G that is also very popular. Again, it's a G nib, it is a medium flex, and it's still rather stiff. Of these three, I find the Zebra G to be the most easy for me to use. They are slightly different, all three of them, even though they're G nibs, so I suggest you buy one of each just to try them out. I do have the Zebra G in my holder here. This nib isn't a G nib, this nib is a Brass nib called the Blue Steno, sometimes known as the Blue Pumpkin. I only have it here because it's another very popular medium flex nib. You can see the point is rather dull, you're not going to get a huge distinction between your hairlines and shades, and the flex is rather stiff. This is a great nib for thicker inks. I don't use it very often, but I just thought I would show it here just in case you wanted to try an extra nib. So let's demo. Again, I'm going to demo with a Zebra G nib because that is the one that I use whenever I have, you know, some tricky paper. The Zebra G is great for like handmade paper, for highly textured paper, for certain types of jobs. I'm going to use two different types of ink, different in consistency. The Moon Palace Sumi ink, which I cut 1 degree Sumi ink to water, and I used distilled water. And then I also like the Daniel Smith Woolen ink, which is thinner than the Sumi, just so you can get an idea for how these nibs work with different types of inks. The type of paper that I have is this Canson Pro Marker Layout paper. It's rather smooth and slick, and I find it quite reasonable for practicing. Again, that paper is by Canson. This pen is by Christopher Yoke at Yoke Pet Company on Instagram. So I'm going to start. I just have some of that Canson Pro Marker paper here. Underneath I have some guidelines, which you can find on my website. And I'm just going to write Zebra G, just to make it simple. I'm going to start with the Sumi ink. You can see that I don't have to load a lot of ink onto the Zebra G. I will actually shake off any excess. So let's get started here. So you're going to see that I am not going to press that hard with the Zebra G nib. And you're going to notice that it's going to give me quite a bit of resistance as I'm writing. And you're going to also see that the shades aren't quite that bold, and the hairlines aren't quite that fine. But just applying just enough pressure gives you enough distinction between the hairlines and the shades to make it look lovely. Quite a few calligraphers I know like the Zebra G nib, and like I said, I do enjoy it for certain jobs and certain types of paper. You can use it on very smooth marker practice paper like this, and you can also use it with you know, textured paper, watercolor paper, particularly cold press paper. Like I said, you can press pretty hard on it and it's not going to get destroyed. I am at this point going to demonstrate using this Zebra G nib very, by applying more pressure than necessary, that I often see people do when I see videos on Instagram. So I'm going to come in, I'm going to write Zebra G again, and I'm really going to press. You're probably going to see my knuckle get a little bit white because I don't use this much pressure when I'm using this nib. Can you use this much pressure? Sure you can, and this is one of the reasons why this nib is often used for beginner's workshops or recommended for beginners, because you can see I'm pressing very hard and the nib is closing back in place. If I press this hard on a super fine point nib that was very sharp and I didn't know what I was doing, the likelihood that I would break the nib or misalign the tines is quite high. So you can kind of see the variation that I can get in the shades just by pressing on it harder, and you'll also see that because this nib is rather large, it'll hold quite a bit of ink. This would be my preferred shade to hairline ratio when I'm using this nib. Now I'm going to, just off camera right here, I'm just going to be wiping my nib clean, and I'm going to dip my nib, this Zebra G nib, in the walnut ink, just so you can see how it works with a little bit thinner ink. Okay, so the walnut ink on here, and you can see that's a much thinner ink, you can almost see through it, it's quite translucent, and hopefully I'm going to write this right here. So I'm going to go back to my regular type of pressure. When you're using a thinner ink with a G nib and you press too hard, the thinner ink can pull out a little bit and you might find it a little bit more tricky to use. If you find that's an issue, just don't press quite as hard. This is a medium flex nib, it's rather stiff, and you just need to give it enough pressure to get a nice distinction between your hairlines and your shade. It doesn't need to be quite this big. So that's the Zebra G nib, and the way this works is very similar to the other two popular G nibs, such as the Nikko G and the Tachikawa G, and you're also going to get a very similar look if you use the Brass Steno, also known as the Blue Pumpkin. Now I'd like to demo the Hunt 22 and the Hunt 101 nibs, both made by Speedball. These are very common nibs found in almost all art supply stores because they're made by Speedball, and Speedball is very common to find in art supply stores. The Hunt 22 and the Hunt 101, you can see, are rather pointy nibs. They're also very flexible, the Hunt 101 being more flexible than the Hunt 22. These are two excellent starter nibs, too, in my opinion, and I prefer these to the G nibs if you're starting out because they do offer less resistance. You become a little bit more aware, let me say, you become better aware of how pressure affects the shapes of your letters. Like I said, the Hunt 22 is a little bit stiffer, the Hunt 101 is more flexible. You can see the little difference in the vent hole or the ink well of the nibs. This was an oval and this one has a kind of a fancy little cactus shape to it. I'm going to demo the 22 first and then I'll demo the 101 so you can see the difference. I have the Hunt 22 here. This one's actually been used quite a bit because I didn't want to use a brand new nib because I'm going to demonstrate something that I would not normally suggest that you do with these nibs. The holder is by Yoko Pen Company. I'm going to go over and I'm going to get some Sumi ink and right here I'm going to write Hunt 22. So you'll see that the hairlines are rather fine. You can create really pretty shades. It's quite smooth. It's pointier and more flexible than the Zebra G. Keep in mind, no matter what nib you're using, you just don't need to apply that much pressure. I kind of messed up there, but we're just going to keep that in. Hunt 22. Now again, if I wanted to add a little bit more pressure to this, I could. Just to show you the difference. I don't want to add too much, but it can give you a little bit bigger shade if you add a little bit more pressure. It can withstand that pressure. What you don't want to do, and again I'm doing this with a very old nib, is no matter what nib you're using, whether it's a G nib, you never want to push a nib to its extreme. If you apply a lot of pressure on this, and you can see I have a white knuckle here, so I'm putting a lot of pressure on this and this is going out to about three millimeters. Just because a nib will spread this wide, just because a nib's tines will spread this wide, that does not mean that it should ever be this wide or have this much of pressure applied to it. Okay? You will undoubtedly ruin the alignment of your tines. You'll undoubtedly ruin the nib as well. I'm going to grab a little bit of Walnut Ink, which is a little bit thinner, just so you can see how it reacts to a thinner ink. I do like Walnut Ink and the Hunt 22, I think make for a great ink-nib combo for practice. The Walnut Ink, the reason why I like that for practice is because as it dries, it will show you some of the issues that you might be having in your script. Because as it dries, it will show you where you are applying pressure, where you might have been off the axis of the script, and other such stuff as you practice. As you practice. Okay? I'm going to go over here and I'm going to grab the Hunt 101 now. You can see immediately, this is definitely a little bit more flexible, very, very pointy, and I don't want to apply too much pressure to this, but the same thing that could happen if you press on this really hard and you make those tines go out way further than they're supposed to, the tines will get misaligned and then you won't be able to use it anymore. So as you can see, I only want to apply enough pressure to get a distinction between what the hairline would be Okay? This holder is the Hourglass Adjustable Oblique from Paper and Ink Arts. I'm going to grab some Sumi Ink. One of the most important things about the Hunt 101 is you want to make sure that the inkwell is filled all the way up past, past the inkwell. Okay? You don't want to dip it just halfway, which is something you can do when you are using a Gnib. So let's just write very quickly. And again, you can see that the shades that I'm creating with the Hunt 101 are actually even a little bit bigger than the Hunt 22. And even though I'm not actually applying any more pressure than what I was applying with the Hunt 22, this is just a much more flexible nib and you will get a much greater shade to hairline differential than you would with a 22. And again, I'm not applying that much pressure. And that is with the Sumi Ink. Just wiping off my nib here again. Just as a side note while I'm doing this, I like Viva paper towels. If you have those in your community, they feel like cloth. Same thing with the Walnut Ink. People will have trouble sometimes with thinner inks and the Hunt 101. Just make sure that that inkwell is full. Okay? And you may have to dip frequently. I've been doing this for quite a long time. I have pretty good control, I would hope, over my nib. And see, I even ran out of ink right there. And you know, depending on the nib and the ink combination and the paper that I'm using, I may not have to re-dip as frequently as somebody who's starting out. One of the issues that happens and the reason why new calligraphers or people that are new to calligraphy have issues with having to re-dip or they struggle with thinner inks like Walnut Ink or even watercolor, is because they're pressing so hard that all of the ink pools out. When you have a lighter hand and you learn to have a lighter touch and really control your tines and your pressure, you'll have less of an issue. So, some comparisons here. The Hunt 101 obviously gives you a much bigger shade to hairline differential than the Hunt 22 does, but both hairlines are quite fine and lovely. They can both be used with Sumi Ink and thicker inks like Sumi. And now I'd like to talk to you about the Lennart Principle. This is one of my all-time favorite nibs and you can see that it is actually a little bit smaller than the Hunt 101 or the Hunt 22. It's also very, very, very pointy and it's quite flexible. And I'm barely pressing on this nib because it's a brand new nib, but just so you can see I'm barely pressing on it and look how quickly the tines move, but it's a very pointy nib. This is a great workhorse nib in my opinion. I'm going to set that aside. I have this Lennart Principle here in another Yolk Pen Company holder and this actually was the very first holder I ever bought from Chris Yolk and it's one of my all-time favorites. So, I'm just going to come in here and I'm going to write, I'm going to write Lennart. Okay, I'll do a capital this time. And I apologize for getting a little drop of ink right there. You can hear that it's a little bit scratchy. I have been using this Lennart quite a bit that's already in this pen and you'll notice that too on sharper, finer nibs. They will scratch a little bit. A little bit of scratching is okay. A lot of scratching can might identify that you are pressing too hard on the upstrokes or your nib has seen the end of its days and it's ready to be replaced. So, that's the Lennart Principle. You can see it makes really, really beautiful quality of line. I really, really love this nib and it's a great beginner nib in my opinion as well because the flexibility, I'm just wiping the nib off, because the flexibility gives you a familiarity with how pressure applies to the nib. Here I've got walnut ink and we're just going to write the word Principle and I'll write it right next to it here. The Lennart Principle is a little bit more of an expensive nib, relatively speaking. I'm not exactly sure why that is. It could just be the gauge of the metal, the quality of the metal, but it is a little bit more expensive. I do suggest though, if you can afford it, if it's in your budget, that when you order nibs that are of a finer point and that are a lot more flexible, that you order three at a time. The reason why is you have one that you might break because you're not familiar with it or no matter how great the nib company is, there's always going to be a few in the batch that aren't going to be great. And then also to verify, then if something happens with that one, you have the second one as a backup and then you have the third one just in case you really, really love it while you're waiting for the resupply to come. So I'm going to add just a little bit more pressure underneath here. I'm just going to use walnut ink because that's what happens to be on my nib. So I'm going to come in and this nib is sometimes called the Lenny. I am going to apply a little bit more pressure, still being very quiet as much as I can even though this nib has been used a little bit too much and it's probably ready to be replaced. Just guiding both those tines up, creating a little bit bigger shade and I would probably never make my shades any bigger than this using the Lennart Principle and by this I mean it's about a millimeter and a half. That's the Lennart Principle. I'd like to talk to you about the BRAS 66 EF. The EF stands for Extra Fine. That's this very tiny little nib right here. I have it next to a Hunt 101 and a Zebra G just so you can see the comparison. This is just a very, very tiny nib. It's oddly sized but even though it looks very tiny, this nib can actually do a lot of work. I don't use this nib often. It is much like the G nib, the Zebra G nib that I use. Sometimes it will be the only nib that will work on tricky paper. Oddly enough or ironically enough, this nib can be a little bit tricky to get the ink to start but I am going to demo that for you now. Okay, I want to move these aside just so you can see. I personally have this 66 EF. I have kind of bent and molded the flange on this Heather Held and Chris Held custom oblique to fit a 66 EF. I did that by flattening the flange out quite a bit. Okay, you don't have to do that. If you have a pen that has a bullock flange or an adjustable flange, this one happens to be the Paper Ink Arts oblique, you will see inside that there are two different levels. That top slit will fit a big nib like the G nib or the Hunt 101. That middle slot will fit the 66 EF and smaller nibs like the Gillette 303. That center slit, that center circle slot, that is for a crow quill nib, just so you know. That is what is great about these bullock flanges is that they will fit multiple size nibs and they are great for fitting special size nibs like the 66 EF. I am going to pick up my pen. I am going to get some Sumi ink over here and hopefully this won't start so that I can show it to you. One of the problems that a lot of people will complain about with the Bra 66 EF, and you will notice that I have dipped past the inkwell, is they struggle with the ink and getting it to start. I have a little bit of something on the tip of that nib. I apologize. I am just going to keep it real here for you. Come up. This nib, don't let the size of it belie. It actually can take quite a bit of pressure and it recreates, so if you see there, I tried to create a hairline. I got it to go on. Hang on one second. It will do it again. It will create quite big, bold shades in comparison to the hairlines with actually very little pressure. You can see I had trouble. The ink isn't starting from the nib and it's not because I don't have ink in there. You can see my inkwell is full. What you have to do sometimes is you have to take the tip of the Bra 66 EF and you have to kind of just press it a little bit. You create a little divot and that drops a little bit of ink there. Then you can go in and that little divot and the ink that you laid down will help that ink restart again. That's just one of the natures, one of the little quirks about this nib. Once you get familiar with understanding how to fix it and get it to start again, it really doesn't become that big of a deal. So again, I'm having some trouble. So again, I'm just kind of tapping down some ink, being careful not to make the divot too big because you don't want to ruin your paper or punch a hole through it, but just a little bit like that just to get the ink started. And those are definitely not the most attractive sixes, but the other thing that you can do is you can just take some fresh water and you can just dip the tip in there and you can see that very little ink came off. This is another thing you can do to troubleshoot and I left water on the plate. I apologize for that. And that can also help you get the ink to start again. But you can see it creates really nice quality of line and shade. I'm going to rinse off the nib real quick, just cleaning it off over here. And like I said, this isn't a nib that I use frequently. It is a nib that when I am dealing with a very tricky paper or tricky ink, I will sometimes use this nib to test out because sometimes it'll be the one that works. So I'm just going to add a little bit of walnut ink here and I'll write the word extra fine, which in my opinion is actually kind of a misnomer. Again, a little bit of an ink laying that down, coming up because the nib itself, I don't find to be that pointy, but maybe because it's tiny in size, that's why they call it that. But it does create quite nice differentiation between shades and hairlines and it's quite, quite a workhorse, even though it's very, very small. That is the Brass 66EF and if you can learn how to troubleshoot through some of its quirkiness, it actually is a great nib to use. Last but certainly not least, I'm going to talk to you about the Gillette 303. The Gillette 303 is a blue in color. It is extremely pointy. It is very, very flexible and it is smaller in size. It's not as small as the Brass 66EF, but it's definitely not as big as the Hunt 22 or Hunt 101. It is the only nib of its size, which is kind of odd. I have it here in my yolk pen. I am going to get some Sumi ink and we're just going to write Gillette 303. The Gillette 303, you have to be very careful because it is so pointy because it is so sharp that as you go up into the upstrokes or the hairline, you have to keep in mind that you're literally just guiding the nib up and then applying pressure for the shade or the downstrokes. There's a real big difference between guiding a nib and pushing a nib. When you push a nib, you're pushing it and you're applying pressure to it. That creates catching of the nib on paper, even smooth paper like this marker paper, and the catching will often create ink splatters and more likely than not you may suffer from the tines becoming out of line because it caught. So when you're using a particularly flexible and pointy nib such as the Gillette 303, you just have to remember you're guiding the nib up. So long as the ink is in contact with the paper, not necessarily the tines, the ink will lay down onto the paper and give you beautiful hairlines. The Gillette 303 is an excellent nib. I use it quite frequently for my practice. It might not be the best nib to use when you're doing lots of envelopes or a huge custom piece simply because it is so fine. It doesn't last that long, especially if you're not familiar with how to handle a nib of this flexibility. I got some walnut ink here and we'll just write Gillette again. And I do have an older Gillette in here, so I will on this L come down and apply a little bit more pressure so you can see how wide I can take that. But again, I would not normally write with the Gillette 303 by creating shades that wide. You will wear the nib down and you're probably also applying so much pressure with your hand and your fingers, your hand will tire out. Walnut ink, Sumi ink, applying a bit more pressure from the L to the T with the Gillette 303. Remember, no matter which nib you choose to use is an entirely personal choice. The nibs I reviewed today should give you a nice taste for the types of flexibility and sharpness that's available. Experiment and find the nib that works best for you and your script. On behalf of the entire Calligraphy Masters team, thanks again.