Recommended Lettering Supplies

Artline Stix Brush Pen

My all-time fave, the Artline Stix is one of the most inexpensive colourful large pens on the market! I love the triangular grip and how juicy it is — ombré effect for daaaaaays! Bonus point? These don’t fray easily!

Sakura Koi Coloring Pen

Another favourite is the Sakura Koi brush pen. These are slightly softer than the Artline Stix, but they more than make up for it in colour variety. Also very wallet-friendly!

Tombow Fudenosuke (Hard & Soft Tip)

My go-to small pen is always a Tombow Fude Hard tip. It’s crazy firm, which makes fine upstrokes that much easier to achieve. Definitely my pick for beginners, especially those who have shaky hands! The soft tip is also fun to play with once you’ve got a decent grip on lettering!

Zebra Fudebiyori Pen Extra Fine*

Also known as the Zebra Disposable Brush Pen, this pen can be found in Daiso! It’s my alternative when I can’t find my Tombow Hard (my messy table eats pens), enough said!

* Some brush pens like this one come in a variety of sizes. 極細 is extra fine, 細 fine, 中 medium, and  大 large.

Rhodia Paper Pads

Rhodia comes up tons when you’re on the hunt for lettering paper and for good reason! It’s really, really smooth which helps your brush pens live longer and comes nicely packaged too! Comes in blank, lined, grid and dotted.

Strathmore 300 Series Tracing Paper

If you don’t have easy access to good paper, tracing paper is a good way to preserve your brush pens! Just stick it over your worksheets and start writing! They’re also a great help when designing on pen and paper!

HP Laserjet Premium 32lb Paper

Looseleaf options are always kinder on the wallet. Like this HP paper that tons of letterers and calligraphers swear by! 

Muji Loose Leaf Paper

One of my alternatives to HP paper is Japanese chain store Muji’s loose leaf paper. In general, Japanese paper tends to be very smooth and brush- and dip-pen friendly! Comes in the usual configurations of blank, lined, and grid.

Daniel Smith Watercolors

Artist-grade paints get you so much more bang-for-your-buck. If you’ve no idea what colours to buy, I highly recommend the Essentials set from Daniel Smith — it has all the colours you need to mix the colour spectrum!

Foldable Palette

If you bought tube paints, you need a palette. I love foldable palettes like this one because it stores away so nicely — and it travels well too!

Alternatively, you can get pans, squeeze the paint into them, and put the pans into a tin to create your own palette!

Collapsible Cup

Similarly, you can use any cup, glass or empty jam jar for rinsing your brushes — there are even palettes designed with water buckets! I personally prefer collapsible cups like these.  They store away easily if I need or want to take my lettering outdoors! 

Sakura Koi Water Brush #2

If the flexibility of a real paintbrush scares the crap out of you, try a water brush first! The bristles generally all stick together more than the bristles of a regular paintbrush, making it easier to manipulate! The Sakura Koi #2 is the smallest I’ve managed to find and is my personal favourite travel brush.

Silver Black Velvet #1 Rigger Brush

For lettering with a paintbrush with real bristles, I always go for a fine rigger brush. They’re also known as script or liner brushes! While they are a lot more flexible than your usual brush pen, I find the longer bristles allows easier transitions from thick to thin than if I used a regular round brush!

Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Paper

For lettering with paint, smooth paper is still a must, but now it needs to be heavier because you’ll be using a wetter medium. I love this 300gsm paper from Strathmore for its bright white and smoothness!

Kuretake Zig Fudebiyori Metallic Brush Pen

This line of beginner-friendly brush pens also has a selection of metallics! The colours are pretty vibrant, and yes, they have all the good qualities of their non-metallic counterparts!

Coliro Finetec Mica Watercolour Paint

Coliro has a huge selection of Mica metallic and pearlescent paints — and they are constantly creating new colours! You can use them as they are or mix it in with regular watercolours to give your lettering a bit of a glittery sheen!

Moblique 2-in-1 Holder

Choosing between an oblique and straight holder when you’re starting out with pointed pen is always such a headache! But with the creation of 2-in-1 holders, you can try both out!

I love the Moblique by Luis Creations because it’s so aesthetic and affordable. It also comes with a nib compartment and you can interchange the colours to create a combination you love!

There are other holders, of course, but I think the Moblique is one of the best for beginners out there in terms of price, design and accessiblity!

Zebra G Nib

Like with brush pens, most people find it easier to start out with a stiffer nib — that’s the G nibs like the Zebra G, Nikko G and Tachikawa G.

Other beginner favourites are the Brause 361 Steno Blue Pumpkin and the Lenoardt 40 Blue Pumpkin.

I like G nibs, but also regularly use a Brause EF66, a Hunt Imperial 101 and a Blanzzy 2552.

Gooseneck Phone Holder

Trying to paint or letter with one hand and hold your phone steady with the other is no joke! Rather than try to do that (I really can’t), I use a gooseneck/ lazy arm phone holder to secure my phone when I use it to film videos for Instagram!

Light Pad

As you improve, you might want to venture in designing more complicated pieces of lettering. Light pads are really useful for that because it helps you trace and adjust your design easily! This A4 light pad is perfect because it’s small and runs off a USB, so you can just stuff it in a backpack with the cable and a portable battery, and you can work anywhere you want!

Fujifilm X-T10

Phone cameras are pretty good these days, but I have to admit I’m a sucker for using a real camera instead!

Most of my photos for the blog are shot with my Fujifilm X-T10 with a 27mm lens.

Adobe Creative Cloud

For digitising work, editing photos, creating videos, I use nothing but Adobe! Photos are edited in Lightroom (and Photoshop, if necessary). Videos are created with Premiere Pro. And all my workbooks are created with Illustrator.