How To Use Micron Fineliners In Hand Lettering

I am a huge Micron Fineliner fan. I actually use them for all my writing in my bullet journal. Lately I find myself mimicking brush lettering with it and to be honest it’s so much easier than actual brush lettering. Something happens to the bullet journaler who starts following other bullet journal accounts on Instagram. We start seeing these amazing fonts and want to learn how to do them ourselves. Here’s where the problem comes in, most of those fonts take a bit of time to learn. You have to practice them a lot to get them down. Especially the super pretty bounce lettering and calligraphy fonts. If you are a busy person, you might not feel like or have the time to really devote to practicing those fonts. I don’t practice nearly as much as I should just because of time constraints. So I had to learn how to fake it. How to create brush lettered fonts without actually doing brush lettering. Well, I learned, and I’m sharing how you can do it with the Micron fineliner pens. Because we all deserve super pretty fonts in our bullet journal, right?

Brush Lettering Technique

The basic technique for brush lettering is thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes. This means adjusting the pressure you use on your pen and turning those different pressures into an instinct of some sort. Getting those pressures down can take a while, what takes an even longer period of time is also learning the shapes of the specific fonts you want to use. You have cursive, calligraphy, and bounce and some of the most popular font choices in lettering. There are also serif and sans serif fonts that come into play as well. Then there is the way you are supposed to hold and draw with a brush pen itself. You should hold it at an angle in line with the row you want to write. This can take a lot of getting used to and if you’re impatient – like I am – you probably want to have this down enough that you can pull off that pretty cover page. You’ve probably seen the short video clips of people writing with a brush pen and wondered how they manage it. It’s learning the different techniques and then practicing it over and over again. For those of us who used to waitress and now have chicken scratch for handwriting, this could take awhile. Luckily, you can get the same look by drawing out your letters. While it will take a bit longer to get the look, the finished product will be the one you’re proud of. I’ve been practicing different ways to draw my letters using this book. It’s been extremely helpful to practice with. I highly recommend getting it to use in your own practice.

Difference Between Cursive and Bounce Lettering

If you have a halfway decent understanding of cursive or bounce lettering it will be easy for you to learn the technique I’m going to show you. Cursive handwriting is something a lot of us have learned in school. If you didn’t learn it there are easy guides to understanding and learning cursive here. Bounce lettering uses a sort of mixture between traditional cursive and print that makes it easier to read. It also has a bit of a “bounce” to it that makes it really appealing. Look at three lines of ruled paper. The middle line is the main area for your letters. Cursive all takes place on that middle line and sometimes reaches up to the top line and has a consistent fluid motion where the pen rarely leaves the paper to complete a word. In bounce lettering the pen will often leave the page after each letter – and sometimes in each stroke – while leaving the word to look like it’s one fluid word. Additionally, letters will often have a dip down past that bottom line taking up all three lines.

How To Do Bounce Lettering With Micron Fineliners

To create the look of bounce lettering using the Micron Fineliners you just simply have to draw the letter then thicken up wherever there would be a down stroke. So in the “h” you would follow this guideline:

• 1st stroke = down stroke
• 2nd stroke = upstroke
• 3rd stroke = down stroke
• Tail = upstroke

Now on every stroke that is a down stroke simply thicken that line up. I simply draw a line out to the left from the main line then fill it in. There are no hard and fast rules with bounce lettering. Pick and choose which letters you want to have a bounce based on what word you are doing. In the case of “bounce” you see I picked the “b” and the “n” to have the bounce that goes below that main line. Bouncy lettering typically has more curves to it instead of straight lines. So curve that first down stroke on the letter “b.”

Different Fonts With Micron FineLiner Markers

I have experimented with loads of different fonts with the Micron fineliners and have been so pleased with how they’ve turned out that I actually don’t often use brush pens anymore. It’s easier and more controlled using the Micron’s. While I prefer tall thin fonts the different sizes allow you to do everything from squat fun lettering to the tall thin letters. You can see a few examples of how I used the Micron’s for different types of fonts below. This is part of my 2020 Setup. This was my November Cover Page. This is from my December Layout.

Why I Stick With Micron Fineliners

I’ve gotten to the point where I only draw my letters with the Micron Fineliners. This is because I’m happier with the results. While Tombow dual tip brush pens are a lot of fun to play with you actually need a lot of room to use them on a page. The Fudenosuke pens are great to work with and a lot better to practice your techniques but I still have a better outcome with my lettering when using the Micron Fineliners. Ultimately, I hope to practice with all the different brush pens and get better with my lettering using them. For now though, and especially in my bullet journal, I stick with the Micron Fineliners. Have you tried lettering with the Micron Fineliner markers yet? Let me know if it works for you in the comments below. Follow me on Pinterest for more like this and pin this to your favorite bullet journal boards. Related Posts:

• An Honest Review: Tombow Dual Tip Brush Pens
• An Honest Review: Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens
• An Honest Review: Micron Fineliner Markers
• The Best Hand Lettering Tutorials