Sailor Fude De Mannen - Stroke Style Calligraphy Fountain Pen - Bamboo Green - Nib Angle 55 Degrees (11-0127-767)

A great pen that cannot be beat for the price! I own a lot of fountain pens—both nicer ones and cheaper ones—and this one's great. Nice solid green body with black and gold accents, including a gold colored steel nib. No problems with ink flow. Writes smoothly. No "hard starts", despite the cap seemingly not fitting airtight. Also, it came with two Sailor brand black ink cartridges so you can start writing right away, and the Sailor ink works very nicely with this pen. Also, the barrel is long enough that you can put two cartridges in the pen—one in the nib and one spare on top. Instead of cartridges you can also use an international style converter so you can use whichever fountain pen ink you like (I prefer Noodler's Ink). This isn't a pen designed to be used for journaling or writing long passages, but rather is great for playful notes, doodling, and also excellent for trying your hand at writing some neat East Asian script calligraphy like Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Thai, etc. The angle of the nib is such that it's easy to get big bold lines with ease while holding it regularly, but it can also be held like a calligraphy brush—which I'm guessing is why the pen itself is so long. Finally, while it doesn't have a clip like most fountain pens, it does have a small bump on the cap that stops it from rolling off the table. The one and only little thing I was disappointed by is that the pen in the item picture has pretty Japanese script printed in gold on the barrel of the pen, but mine is just plain green. That's okay considering how nice the pen writes, but the seller should update the picture. All the same, 5/5 stars.

Had this for a while now and have never had any issue. I recommend only using carbon black for sketching, urban sketching & if you’ll be using watercolor. Never clogged. Never dried out on me either. Since I only sketch with fountain pens and do a lot of urban sketching, it’s made a difference bc I can easily change the with of my lines. There a learning curve but it didn’t take practice and it’s been fun exploring the new ways I can create.

Great fountain pen. I use these for sketching and I've purchased a few of them. I love the 55 bent nib in order to draw various size lines to add depth in my drawings.the separate refill cartridge kinda sucks as it will twist off from the base allowing for ink everywhere. They need to improve that and make it larger to hold more ink. Also the brand needs waterproof ink refill cartridges for these pens.

Update on original review. GET THE GREEN ONE FOR SKETCHING. As far as I can see the green model is the only one with the 55 degree nib. I have used the black one with the 40 degree nib and it's just not as good, and all the other colos seem to come with the 40. Buying a few more of the greenies because, while at first I had no idea of the how or why with the odd bent nib, I now "get it" and find it's one of the greatest ink sketching and drawing pens made, even though it's quite cheap. It's simply unlike any other pen I know of. Every odd detail about this pen has a purpose. It's oddly long, it's an odd green color, it has no pocket clip, and the nib looks like it's been dropped hard and ruined. Eventually it will all make sense. Even the green color makes it stand out nicely in my pen drawer. I've probably owned 100 or more fountain pens of all sorts, many quite expensive, as well as brush pens, tech pens, felt tips, etc. Seriously, this is in my top 3. The angled fude nib is the star of the show. Depending on the vertical angle you use it at, you can create various widths of line. This is really great for both sketchy strokes that have quite a bit of natural width variation, but it's also just fine for consistent width lines. PLUS if you really want fine hatching lines, rotate it over so the bent tip angles more straight down on the page. VERY fine lines and as I say the long handle makes it great for hatching. When use broadly, this creates wide strokes that spreads a THIN even layer of ink, so it dries quickly. Unlike with a flex nib, or many brush pens, where the ink will be super wet when creating broad strokes, and take ages to dry, and possibly pool up and swell the paper. The oddly long barrel is actually good for free sketchy lines and hatching, as you can back way off with it in your hand like a paint brush. The cap posts and extends it even more, and because it's all so light that does not ruin the balance. It's actually meant I guess for holding more vertically similar to Asian brush calligraphy, though that's not how I use it. I find it's not very good for handwriting, I just use it for art. Since buying this I also tried a Duke metal fude and a couple others, but this one is a step above those others. The 55 degree nib is really the best fude, always flows, no hard starts. The ink that comes in the Sailor cartridges is actually quite good, at least the black ones, and doesn't dry out quickly, so give it a good try on some practice sketches before you dismiss them. Also you can actually fit a spare cartridge in the long handle so you'll never run dry, only fountain pen I've ever seen that can do that. I prefer Noodlers Bulletproof Black ink generally. But I would certainly recommend just buying more Sailor cartridges if that's your preference. I used to be kind of turned off by the idea of ink cartridge pens, but I've come around. Turns out it's simple to clean out and refill cartridges with any ink you like with a small cheapo syringe. No converter needed. (Converters also hold only about half as much ink, so I'd actually prefer refilled cartridges.) The pen is very light, and that's both good and not so. I like a pen with some weight, though for sketching it does work very well. I'm a bit surprised Sailor doesn't come out with a heavier more premium version of this - take my money. Though of course if you leave this inexpensive pen somewhere it won't break your heart, just buy a couple more.

I picked this up after watching a couple of youtube videos with artists using it. Upon arrival I pulled the end cap off and sealed it with some special plastic super glue to seal it. I filled the body of the pen with sketching ink and it's been awesome since. It has good ink flow both with a cartridge or eye droppered. It puts down a super thin line and a nice fat deeply black line. It's long and great for sketching, I can slide my hand back and get a long range of brushlike lines. Great sketching pen.

The nib takes a few minutes of writing to get used to but quickly becomes quite intuitive. Paired with the right ink it’s the next best thing to an actual brush and it’s hard to beat the price point.

I like this pen, it really helps that it can change the size of the lines depending on the angle, since im beginning to enter this world of fountain pens this pen lets me draw different sizes of lines without spending on a lot of pens

As described this own is a little tricky to use but it is fun. It forces me to loosen up with sketches.