Best 12 Brush Pens for Hand Lettering

A single pen makes sense when you’re filling a gap in your set or testing a color before committing to a bigger pack. Sky Blue (451) is a softer, less aggressive blue that plays well with greens for landscape work. Single Tombow Dual Brush pens swing in and out of sale often, but Sky Blue isn’t one I see discounted regularly.

This is the kit I’d grab for anyone moving from coloring books into real watercolor effects. The set bundles a couple of Dual Brush Pens with a water brush and a blending palette. There’s also a beginner guide tucked in so you can practice gradients without buying a separate setup, and it’s marked as a limited time deal.

Primary 10 is the workhorse Dual Brush set for anyone doing bold hand-lettered signs, kids’ birthday cards or any project that needs saturated color. The flexible brush tip handles big swooping letters while the fine nib on the back is good for outlining. Bestseller rank #457 in its category, which tells you it moves consistently rather than just on sale.

If you’ve already got the Primary 10 and want softer tones for wedding place cards or muted journal spreads, this is the obvious companion set. The pastels blend cleanly with each other and with water, so you can fade them into washes. Six colors is a tight palette, but the shades are well chosen.

The hard tip is more forgiving than the soft if you’ve never done thin-thick strokes before. This 10-color set gives you a working palette in one go instead of buying singles. At more than half off, it’s the standout discount of the week and the pick I’d choose if I were buying one thing off this list.

The neon Fudenosuke is having a real moment, sitting at #3 in its category right now. Neons are tricky on white paper, but these read well on darker journal pages and craft cardstock. The limited time deal ends in roughly 39 hours, so don’t sit on it if you’re interested.

This 6-pack has three hard-tip and three soft-tip Fudenosuke pens, which is the simplest way to figure out which tip you prefer without buying two separate sets. Hard tips are easier for small letters and sketch notes. Soft tips give you more dramatic stroke variation but take more practice to control.

Pitt Artist Brush Pens use pigment-based archival ink, so the colors don’t shift or fade like dye-based pens can. The Landscape palette is heavy on greens and earth tones, which makes it a good fit for botanical journaling or nature sketchbooks. Bestseller rank #299 in its category.

Half pans plus a water brush, all in a travel tin. The ocean palette runs through deep blues into teals with sandy neutrals mixed in, more interesting than another rainbow set if you paint coastal scenes or seascapes. The semi-moist pans rewet fast, which matters on a sketching trip when you don’t want to wait around.

Goldfaber Aqua markers have a real brush nib on one end and a fineliner on the other, with water-soluble ink that you can blend with a wet brush after laying down color. Twelve colors is enough for a starter palette without overwhelming you on shade choice. A clear step up from student-grade markers if you’re moving past Crayola territory.

Zebra’s 12-pack is the budget alternative to Tombow Dual Brush when you want a similar dual-tip experience at a lower per-pen cost. The brush tip is a little stiffer than Tombow’s, which some beginners find easier to control. Water-based ink blends fine for journaling and bullet journal spreads.

Three metallic colors in gold, silver and rose gold, with a medium brush tip designed to mimic an actual paint brush. Acid-free ink works on both light and dark paper, which is the main reason to buy these over a Tombow set. Useful for addressing envelopes and chalkboard-style signage.