Hi friends! Recently, I made a new set of Brush Lettering practice worksheets, Slow and Flow, and thought it would be apt to share with you my current favorite brush pens. I honestly haven't shopped for brush pens in a while, so when I went over to Michaels to find some, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are so many new options! So I had to test them out and try, and now I have two new pens that I love. 

I've always been a big fan of the Tombow Fudenosuke Hard Tip pens in black, I've used it many times for various projects. But now, they even come in colors and a pastel version! I haven't tried them yet, because I fell in love with the color collection that Pentel had which I recently picked up. I also had the black Pentel Brush Touch pens, but I'm so in love with their set of 24, because it had colors outside the of the primary colors. 

Then, during my Creative Calligraphy Course live practice session, one of my students told me about Le Pen having their own brush pens, called the Le Pen Flex. I'm like what!! I.must.have. I've loved my Le Pens for a while now, I've used them for checking homework and writing in general, it's what I use to sign my books, yada yada. So I knew I had to go get my own set of them, and especially because they came in such beautiful colors! 

Pentel Brush Sign Pen Review

The Pentel Brush Sign Pen is lovely to write with. The colors are saturated but still has a slight subdued look. The tip is flexible and allows me to create nice thin upstrokes and thick downstrokes. There seems to be more ink dispensed with this brush pen, maybe because the tip is slightly longer than the other pens. There's ever so slight feathering

Le Pen Flex Review

The Le Pen Flex brush pens are about 30% narrower, so some people may prefer the thickness of the Pentel / Tombow brush pens. I like it though, because it really does resemble a normal Le Pen. As you can see from this picture, the Le Pen colors tend to have a more saturated look to them - but of course it varies from color to color. The brush tip is slightly smaller, so it dispenses less "ink", which makes my paper (I'm using my A5 Slanted Guide Notepad here) really happy. 

Tombow Fudenosuke Soft Tip

I personally am a big fan of the hard tip of the Tombow Fude pens, but to remain consistent with the flexibility level of the other two, I picked the soft tip. With the largest brush among the three, it has the thickest downstrokes and upstrokes. I also found that the transitions between the thin / thick or thick / thin to be a bit more tricky with this pen. But the ink it uses definitely dries a lot faster, that's why it doesn't feather on the paper at all. 

Comparison with Practice Drills 

Downstrokes were really easy with all the pens. Pentel's ink is a bit more watery, so you may see a slight feather. The Le Pen having the smallest tip, created the thinnest downstrokes, and the Tombow created the thickest ones without feathering. 

With upstrokes, Le Pen also created the thinnest ones. I found it difficult to keep the upstrokes consisted on the Tombow actually - this is the case even for the hard tip. 

Once we got to transitions, you can really start to see the strength of Le Pen Flex, allowing for a smoother transition from thin to thick line, and from thick back to thin. 

Grading the pens 

Pentel Brush Touch Sign Pen

• Tip and Flexibility 4/5 
• Ink Flow 3.5/5 
  
• Color Saturation 4/5
• Control and Precision 4/5 
• Ergonomics and Comfort 5/5  
• Score: 20.5 

Le Pen Flex

• Tip and Flexibility 4.5/5 
• Ink Flow 4.5/5 
• Color Saturation 5/5 
• Control and Precision 5/5 
• Ergonomics and Comfort 3.5/5 
• Score: 22.5 

Tombow Fudenosuke Soft Tip

• Tip and Flexibility 4/5 
• Ink Flow 4/5 
• Color Saturation 5/5 
• Control and Precision 3/5 
• Ergonomics and Comfort 4/5 
• Score: 20 

The Final Verdict

The Le Pen Flex wins! Honestly it was pretty tough to decide, as when I'm writing I do like what I see - so it really depends on how you, as the writer likes to use the pens. While the Le Pen Flex was narrower so it's less comfortable to write with, it came with the best output in my opinion.

I hope you enjoyed this comparison post and let me know which pen you end up getting! 

xoxo, Karla

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