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.

Amazing versitility, great at making notes more legible with just one pen and line thickness. I'll have fun learning how to control the line easily, very happy with this purchase.

Nice pen, longer body than typical and not a normal calligraphy nib. The nib takes some getting used to. It's VERY broad when flat, and quite thin when inverted. There is no in-between because ink doesn't flow when the nib even slightly on its side. It lays down a less-broad line when drawn along the axis of the nib (vertical lines). I got 55° because so many urban sketchers recommended it. There's also a 40° for people who hold the pen less perpendicular to the paper.

I hesitated getting this bent tip pen but i didnt want a 2nd fountain pen the same as my first (i wanted a second fountain pen for navy ink). Its good to have a different tip. It is actually fun to use and not hard to get a hang of it. I mainly use it to practice penmanship. The bent tip is good to write bold and serif style. The sideway is almost like extra fine that provides very fine line. I have yet to combine the bold and fine buy it should be fun to learn.

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.

Update on original review. Buying a couple more of these because, honestly, I now "get it" and find it's one of the greatest ink sketching and drawing pens made, even though it's quite cheap, and 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. Well, maybe not the green. I've probably owned 50 or more fountain pen of all sorts, many quite expensive, as well as brush pens, tech pens, felt tips, etc. Seriously, this is in my top 3. Turns out it's stupid simple to clean out and refill these ink 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 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. It's actually meant for holding vertically as in Chinese and Japanese brush calligraphy. Since buying this I also tried a Duke metal fude and a couple others, but this one is a leap above those others. The nib is really the best fude, always flows, no hard starts. The fude nib creates a broad line that spreads a thin even layer of ink, so it dries quickly. Unlike with a flex nib where the ink will be super wet when creating broad strokes, and take ages to dry. 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 toss 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! Though I prefer Noodlers Bulletproof Black ink most of the time. The pen is very light, and that's both good and not so. I like a pen with some weight, though for sketching this 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'll be also trying the black this time with the different nib angle, but it will be hard pressed to beat the green one. Original review: Bought for sketching, art. Came with no converter, too bad as I would like to use waterproof Noodlers ink. Really enjoy using it. For hairline strokes I was able to roll it over and use the wrong side of the nib, so the tip was about perpendicular. So you have a great range from super thin lines to medium to very broad. That's really pretty cool. I find the barrel to be weirdly long, though I'm reading that there's a reason for that like having a longer brush handle on a paint brush. Being able to hit some very dark broad shading is really great. I also like flex-tip dip pens. But I have yet to find the perfect flex-tip fountain pen, they always seem to railroad. This is different but in some ways maybe even better. But I suppose for different purposes. Anyway this is my first fude pen, honestly I never heard of these pens before about 2 weeks ago. I think I will buy another with a converter in a more conventional fountain pen barrel shape.

Very nice drawing pen! I am now looking for cartridge ink that will be waterproof.

I think this is probably a great pen for the right person, just want to say why I didn't find it great. First, it's really long. And in my small hand, it's unwieldy. Very difficult to balance. And,, because of the kind of pen it is - it needs to be very manageable since it's variability depends on its orientation to the paper. That means, for me, that I can't change the angle on the paper easily. Very jerky and jumpy. It does have a very cool ability to go from very fine to very thick though. So, literally, in the right hands, it's likely to be a lot of fun. I'm going to give mine to my husband who's an artist and may find it enjoyable. I'll go with a flex nib the next time I'm looking for something with that ability. Meanwhile, I'm happy with my Plumix, which gives a bit of that.