Brush Lettering: Capital Letters

1. Introduction: Hey guys. I'm Peggy also known as the Pigeon Letters. In this class it's going to focus on Brush lettering and the options that you can create with capital letters. I'm just going to go over a variety of them with you. Capitals are sometimes neglected in the lettering world and I thought that a class focusing specifically on upper-case letters would be beneficial especially for those of you who are trying to do a lot of lettering but don't necessarily have that reference for capitals. We don't practice them as much. In this class it is assumed that you know how to use a brush pen and that you have for the most part some fundamentals with lettering. If you don't some good classes to try out are my hand lettering: 4 easy ways to modern calligraphy. Then also the Brush lettering class: The ultimate guide that will help you get familiar with those elements before moving into capitals. But of course that's not required before you take this class. In general this is just mostly to introduce to you some variety and how you can incorporate those things to play around, experiment. As usual I look forward to seeing you in the class. 2. Pens & Paper: One of the main questions that comes up when people are getting into brush lettering is, what type of tools should they use? What type of paper? What are the best brush pens? I don't want you guys to feel limited with the selection that I'm going to show you because there are so many to choose from. I'm going to show you some of my personal favorites. But here you can see that there are so many options, I've tried a lot of things, there are a lot of things I haven't tried, but for me my favorites are narrowed down quite a bit. The things that I like the most, that I think are perfect for beginning brush letters to season letters, are the Tombow Fudenosuke and these are the same size, but there's a hard tip and a soft tip. The soft tip will give you a little more flexibility, which will create a little bolder line on your down strokes, and the hard tip just has a stiffer flexibility for more control, I feel, but the soft tip is still very easy to control. Then we have the Pentel Sign Pen, which is the Pentel Fude Touch. That one's a little bit bigger than the Tombow Fudenosuke but it's still allows you to write a little smaller. Then we have our Tombow dual brush pens and these ones are quite larger. They are good for are larger brush lettering projects and they will give you a nice thick bold line. They also have this felt-tip on the other end, which will allow you to match whatever other work you're doing in the same color. Then we have the option to do water brush lettering with the Aquash by Pentel. This one you can load in some water. You squeeze it for water control and you can determine how much water you want to come out, which is great for water coloring. Also, I'm going to show you what these look like just quickly. The Tombow Fudenosuke hard brush, will give you strokes like this. Then the soft tip. It's the same size but see how the flexibility is a little more loose so you get those broader lines just by a little bit. Then the Pentel Touch has the same effect as the Tombow Fudenosuke soft tip. If you see versions of black, the Tombow Fudenosuke has a brown black whereas the Pentel has a blue-black. Then if you grab the black of the Dual Brush Pen, that one's going to be much larger. That gives you an idea for size as far as what you can use for different projects. Kuretake bimoji come in different sizes as well. I believe this is the fine tip. I like this a lot. I just like the Tombows as a good go to, and these guys you can find on Amazon for six bucks for the two pack. This is another Tombow, it is black and gray. It's similar to the Fudenosuke. It's got that nice fine line. The flexibility is more like the soft tip, but the black is a little richer and then it's got this gray on the other end. Anything by Tombow is a huge preference of mine just because I love the variety it gives you and the control that the pens give you same with Pentel. I really like Pentel. Then we have the Prismacolor. This one is a medium tip with a lot of flexibility. Then we have the Pigma Brush. This is the same line as those microns, and it's actually surprising how thick. You wouldn't think that this would be the same thickness as this. Then we have Docraft. This comes in a kit of a bunch of different colors. But as you can see, the quality isn't quite up to the standard of the rest. There's a bunch of them, but what I'm going to stick to, because I don't want to overwhelm you, is the Tombow Fudenosuke. All of these are listed in the class resources too, just note that you cannot access them unless you're on a computer like a desktop or laptop. Tombow Fudenosuke, Pentel Touch and Tombow dual brush pen, and then I will list a couple of others that I think are good, but those are definitely my favorites and those are the ones that I would stick to for pens. Now moving into paper, this is a Rodia Blink Pad and this paper is nice and silky. It comes in a lot of different sizes. This is a five by eight. This one is a nine by 12, I believe. But you can get them with grids, select dotted, you can get graph. You can get lined or you can get blank. When you're practicing dotted lined paper is so helpful. I don't have one of those to look at, but it's so helpful because you can see the forum and that's something we're going to be going over in this class also. If you have blank paper, I've got in the class resources a dotted graph that you can slip underneath whatever paper you're using and it will show through to help you with those guides. There's also paper like the Canson Marker Paper and marker paper is good because it does have that nice smooth finish. The whole idea behind why you don't want to use printer paper or something like that with brush pens is because there are tiny little micro fibers in some papers. These brush trends are really delicate, so when you have those taking passes over those fibers, it will actually begin to shred and tear the tip, and then eventually you will notice that it'll seem like your ink is running out or you won't have this nice line that you can control, it will be a little bit more flimsy. Paper is really important for the life of your brush pens. There are other options. I always opt for the Rodia brand. Just because it comes with so much paper and they have so many different options and sizes and variety. You can get them on Amazon and that's also listed in the class resources. 3. A-E: Assuming that you know that on your up strokes and downstrokes, there's different pressure. If you're just starting brush slaughtering, I would recommend to explore the idea of letter forms in the how to properly use a brush pen first. But it's not impossible to learn just by jumping in. But assuming that, you know, press down firmly on my downstrokes, lift up on my upstrokes and then come back down on my downstrokes with full pressure. Then that's going to create that variation. I will press down for my entry stroke right here, lift up at a slight angle. Then I'm going to curve and come back down. Then I'm actually before I release this, even though I am showing you, but before I release it I'm actually going to loop it around and then come through and up. What that looks like clickers down, slight angle, come down and then there your cross is connected. Down up down and then cross. It can be a little bit tricky, if you will, for hand movement. What I end up doing is lifting my palm and having my I know that that's excessive there, but I have my arm shift and do that cross motion because it is backwards. This is probably easier for lefties to do. But if you use a different part of your wrist and a different part of your hand or arm to guide certain motions. You might find that some might come a little easier than others. Something like this. I would release the tension for my fingers and have my arm push that through with, just keeping a light pressure. That comes with practice. But that's one version to do an A. Another one if you want to go backwards and you start with this side, come up, go around and hard pressure down. Then up. Then we're going to dip down here to do a swirl and then throw, so same idea, it's all in one swoop. But you have a little bit of a swash right here. You want to keep enough room in-between your whatever letter because, your letters going to fill out behind. Up, loop around down. Loop and through. Little bit easier to control. It's the same idea as this first one on the or adding a small slash to the beginning. Come around and up. Then back through. Same exact idea just with a flourish. Then also if you want to build on this, rather than just going straight through, you can come down, up, down, and then come up. But then you're going to make your cross a loop inside. That's something that I would go pretty slow with just so that you can make sure to really guide it where you want it to go. See I'm moving pretty slow on that one. If I go too fast. It might turn out like this where you actually don't really see the white part in the center. Capital a is a fun one, and I would recommend trying variations of this and see where you can take that. There's lots of Swatches that you can do. I have full practice sheets available on Etsy that have 10 different ways to do capital letters. But hopefully this gives you a good idea of where to get started with your A's and B. What I always like to do for letters that have a beginning that goes straight down from top to bottom. I don't know why, but I always have this loop. It starts here, comes up and around, and that's how I create it. Notice that my downstroke is curved inward rather than being straight down or out its in. That actually helps form my letter. Then I will shoot up, that I won't go straight up. I actually shoot up and out like this. Then this wraps around for a small angle here. Then you can keep going out this way or you can come down. If you come down, it creates more of a unique shape like that. Then rather than bouncing up and out, It's just down. Another way to do this would be to keep the top part much larger. Connecting it down here and then dipping below your baseline a bit more, but keeping it smaller on the bottom. See how these two, they're very similar but they have a different characteristic to them. When you're looking at them, this one almost as more sophisticated looking than this one, even though the same style, I wouldn't call this a sophisticated luck, but in comparison, so there's little tweaks that you can make like this with all letters that I encourage you to practice with. The idea here isn't to mimic necessarily these unless you love them, is to get your hand use to playing with different varieties, different things that you might discover on your own is your personal style. For example, my B's always tend to look like this. But there are so many different options. You can come in, straight down, come up, stop here, and then have a big bubble on the bottom. That's another variation. You can do something where it's not connected but come down. Your exit stroke doesn't have to be a curve up and over. It can be down and out and have flourishes. Lots of different variety there, so what I would do with B is practice, whether you want to have an elaborate entry stroke or if you want to just come straight down. How you want your B to sit, so if you want it to be larger on the top, smaller on the bottom or vice versa, or if you want it to be even. If you want your B to come up and start higher here or if you want it to shoot out here, and then start outward. I'll show you a variety of what that might look like. This starts from the middle. See how I come up, starts from the middle, goes out. Here, I'm going to come take it all the way up. It's the same B with different areas that it begins, and I have my four corners. I can do a capital C that looks like this, which would meet all those four corners. It's a little bit skinnier, but it does meet all of them, whereas divided a C like this. Notice that it shoots up right here, and my four corners are here, so what it's doing is favoring these three. This is just a guide to help you a shape. This is just something that I find helps me when I'm determining what shape that I want to use. A lot of people will use a guide, as you know, for guidelines that are along this. But I find that these dotted grids, I have one here, helped me in determining exactly how I want to shape out my letters. If I do an A, and I want it to be on a slant, they can come straight down, and then through. Notice that I am connecting these two, and then coming down. I am creating more of a guide based off of the shape of the letter, not so much the areas of the cap height or the baseline. Then my B, so I'm still on those two lines here or two dots here, and then I'm going up like we talked about here. Then my C, I'm just going to shift this over, but you can get the ideas right here. See, so see how those are. I'm using those dots in general as a guide so I know where I want things to lay, and I'm slanting my letters slightly, but this just comes with practice, but I'm going to keep showing you some different variations and can also come in with an injury stroke. I don't like to do these because I think it looks too much like an E. Some people will do little dips and such. I like to do these little flourishes on the beginning, sometimes these are hard to transfer pressure, so a suggestion that I have for these lines is to create your C, and then come back to the top, and put your flourish in, your slash, like that. A similar idea to this one though, you can come in curved, create a loop, and then come around, that's more of an obvious C rather than E, especially if you create a word with it. What you would do is come down, lift up, come down, so there's your swirl, come back around like this. This can be high, it can be lower, and you still can tell it's a C higher obviously looks a little bit more like an obvious C but it can also do. Little curve on the inside or just have the beginning start lower. These are different options you can do is C, and then moving into D. This is another one that I like to start that same way that I did with the B. I don't know what it is about that loop, but my D is curve inward and then push out like this. It starts at the bottom, that lie upstroke toward the top right corner, down, and then loop up and out like that over arch. You can also do it, instead of it coming up and over, it can come down and out. Exit strokes are a good thing to play with too, and same with the injury stroke, it doesn't have to come over and in. It can actually come down and up, and then change the exit stroke, so like up, down. See you can see the differences, so these are the same, but these are different. These are the same, these are different. You don't even have to have it loop out, you can do something where it just comes in, or you don't have to have an entry stroke at all. If you want everything to be in one line, if you start from the outside, come in, loop around, up, loop down, and back up. Another way to do this, come straight down, which is like your typical capital D, just whichever way is easiest. There's also, you can do something similar to this, but coming down, back up and quick down. This is something that takes a little practice, but the more you do it, it gets easier and easier. It just muscle memory for the most part, but there's a lot of different D options too. One of my favorites is to come in from this side so you can come in like this. What that looks like is you're dragging it down and over, and then loop down, and then come all the way curve up, and then another loop through that and down from there, your D. Rather than coming down and having a dip, you can come up, and just an easy loop like this. You can do something like this, this is the same thing as the sun. Come up and have a loop in the middle, it's the same thing with this one. These are things to play around with, and then I want to show you what a D would look like on my scale here. If I'm using these four corners, I'm going to come up, down, and then see I am using these two corners as a guide. I'm going at that slight diagonal, it's straight down, but it has a curved because that's the shape I've created with the letter, but you can see that my beginning and ending points stay around the same area as those dots here and then comes and loops around, completes. But letter form, I'll show you when we're all done exactly how these would line up by drawing shapes around them. I have a go two for E, and it looks like this. It's similar to the capital E, I just create A swash in the beginning, so it's got this extra, excuse me, it's got this entry stroke like that and then comes down dips a little below the baseline and continuous. It's a really easy E. I can come in where there's not that arched exit stroke you can do something like where you have a slash in the outside, you can just have a very crisp form. You can come in, down, up and out, for your typical capital E, but just a little densified. I would recommend playing with those. One that can be fun is if you are to do an entry stroke that is just curved along the same guide, like so. Then come up and around, you can loop it, curl in, make the bottom smaller, curl out. Have a curl out and then back in. I would practice doing different things like this rather than having that the same direction of an injury stroke, you can curve it like I do where it comes up, and then over, and then under, and then around, up and out. We'll head over to the next video to get started into F, G, H, I, J, K, and so on. 4. F-L: F can be a tricky letter, but it doesn't have to be. The regular capital F, you come down, and then you do your two dashes to connect. You can do the same idea, maybe at a slant. But notice it's just softer and then it curves up and then instead of doing your straight across, which you totally can, you can come down and then just do a lite version, and that can be your capital F. You can take this beginning part, come through, and then loop it so that it comes and follows down like so. You can take your down stroke, down and then up and around connect it to the top like this and then come through. You can do the same thing with the middle. So down-stroke into your middle and then have a fancy cross. See all the different variations of something very similar, which is just based off the normal capital F. If you wanted to do something like this and make it even a little more fancy, you can come down, have a loop around, and then create a swash. That's going to be a down and through like that. It's going to be round, and then a loop here and through. Then you can also change the way that your f comes across for personality. You can do this same thing on the bottom and top change the location and length. If I was to bring it really high up and have it be about the same length as the top, it gives a different vibe than if it were to be something really short and down below. Some of them might just look strange. Notice how this one, instead of coming up and then down, I went down and then up. So play with those, and you can even do something like how we did on a couple other letters where you come down, do a loop, and then go through the same thing up here. So just see different ways that you can play with those. Based off the same shape, they create different effects. You can come down, loop up around, come around again, and go down, and then do a cross. Moving into G, I really like lowercase looking G's, and the difference I'm going to show you, so lowercase versus uppercase. My lowercase G has a much longer descending loop, like so. My uppercase G has a much shorter and usually stops like this and then my lowercase and that's the way that I choose to do my styling. It really doesn't look different. You can do a lowercase or an uppercase any way you choose to, but that's something that for me differentiates and it's just my personal style, but there are also other ones that I try all the time, and I encourage you to do the same. A variation of doing something like this would be a soft injury stroke, the same direction as this curve and then come down and then back through. You can do that with more of that long to exit or it's just that arch over and stop. You can do this with that loop in the middle. Notice this is up and over, this is down and up. You can do soft swashes, bring it up and through, and the cool thing about this one is it's like depending on the way that you look at it, it can look like a lowercase, but it could also look like an uppercase because of this cross through. That's where you start blending styles and it looks pretty neat. So that one again, it's down over around, follow through and stop, and then straight down, up, around and then lift that just higher than this bottom part and then follow through. You can also do something that is like the lowercase. But bring your cross just at the bottom or your loop, excuse me, just at the bottom. You can do that with a fancier beginning. See how like different variations of just switching the entry stroke or the slash in the beginning, just the beginning of the way that you start, or even the ending can change up the overall appearance. G can also be really pretty if it's done in its traditional cursive form. In that case, we would come, dip up, and then from here we're going to go a slight angle down and then back up and around, press hard and then lift up in curve. This can also be where the loop is in the first part of it, and then up, down and stop. So it's a dip, come up, loop across, stop, down, and then lift up, up. Then you can also bring that in, have a loop. You can bring it in a loop and out, or even down and out. And I'm making these up as I go, you guys. This is what I'm talking about with practice. You just want to experiment and see what you come up with and say, I've never done one like this before. I can say, oh, I really like this. I want to incorporate this elsewhere and then I practice this over and over. Then I can see, how can I turn this into something. Then that looks like this really fancy situation, but really it's just a buildup of what I just practiced. Moving into H. Here's that line that starts here again and I always tend to do this loop. But just like the a, how you come down and then loop back through, I do the same thing with H's. I just like the way it looks. I think it's fun. So it's up, around and down and then down, loop and then use your wrist or your arm to push through. You can also go straight down, loop through like this, and then just bring the other down-stroke through. Notice that they have a different personality all together. If you're going to write a word with this one, it's going to look a lot different than if you were to do this one. That can be determined on the height. It can be determined on where your loops are, things like that. If I was to do this one with the same height here and here, it looks a lot different. If I was to change the height and make this the lower part. It changes it up also. So play with those. You can also do things where you bring something very simple and just add a slash at the end. Same thing with what we did with the f. You can bring this down, loop up, and cross, and then come in with the other part of your H. You can vary the levels of height where the cap height would be. See that changes that a lot. I'm totally out of my guidelines that I'm just going to give you guys an example. Without running into the top here. You can do something even sharper like this. So different options again, and I want to catch this up with where this is going to lie on my dotted lines. Remember that E will come up, and then my F and my G. Which one did I say I liked? This guy. See how this is forming an alphabet that is all very consistent with each other. The nice thing though, is that I can use any variation of the styles that I practice to do this. It's just a matter of making sure that all the things that I practiced will then fit in a letter form that makes sense consistently. I'm moving into I, I tend to do this where I have an entry stroke. I come up and around and then I just stop. Like so. That's my symbol I, that's my go to, you can always bring a slosh through. You can have less of an entry stroke. Much more. Have a curve in the beginning or a loop in the beginning. Have a loop at the end, on both sides. Come down, loop through, then have a cross on the top or you can come from the opposite end, curve around, down, loop through. You can do something like that with more slashes. Again, as you can see, I'm just playing off of my original shapes. These are all based off of the traditional I. These are all based off of loops. These are all based off of this first I that I did, which is similar to the normal cross of I. If you wanted to do it like that, you can also go up and out as an exit stroke. These are options that are just evolving. Going into J, start just below the top line, straight down, up and out. That can be either exit stroke here. You can also do a loop in the middle. Your loop can be through like this, and this will be the same for a lot of the letters that we've been doing, is just a different variety. That loop looks like down, down, but instead of looping back, you actually come outside of it and then through. Spin a swash that's a little more elaborate in the beginning. Notice that this one I tilted, I came in and then back out a little bit and then across. Always make your loop happen at the connection. You don't have to have a connection at all, come down and then have a cross through. I want to show you this in two different ways. Actually a couple or a few. Notice that the way that it crosses changes. This versus this versus this, they have a different style that will come across. These are all building off of itself. Same idea with that pair would just have a loop coming through, loop up and back around and down. Down through, back up, and then down. We can loop right here again. Do as many times as you want, try not to go overboard it'll be a little bit much. But it is fun to play around with those. I'd like to put them where you wouldn't really expect them to be. Like right when you think it's done, it's like but there's a little slash. Then moving into K, I have my typical entry stroke. I usually do something pretty quick. Down stroke, down and up. You can go down, open out, around. You can do something like this that looks too much like an R, but just see how we're just experimenting off of that. A fun one actually might be to come up and around. Whether it's a little bit more bubbly on the top, constraint in, and then out and curve. See how the angle of this one creates such a fun funky look versus something like this where it just has a different type of appearance. When I add these into my alphabet with my dots for guides, my I, I have as a slant from this one to this one and then it just loops and comes down. A J and then my K. Classic capital L down loop, down loop and through. This looks really pretty in hand lettering and it doesn't have to be more fancier than this. Something that I like to do is, I go based off of the regular capital L, but I just do a loop through the top and then come out like this. It's just this idea and even something like that would be pretty, you don't even have to have a loop. You can come through and then just do a small one up and out, small one at the bottom. You can do something like this that bring it more elaborate. Again, if you're doing something like this, you're just going to do a soft loop down, come around, down and out. If you're doing it like this, you're actually going to go up and down, loop, small loop at the bottom and out. If you are going off an irregular L, slight curve inward, back up and out, you can also go a slight curve inward. See how it changes the shape, which changes the entire vibe of what you're doing. You can also do something sharper. Let's just straight down, soft and out. You can do a loop to that like this. I'll get my L added. Then in the next video, then we'll move into M, N, O P, Q, R, probably around there. 5. M-S: This one can get really involved. There's a lot you can do with M. I always recommend bouncing my curves on the M. I might start low, come back up high and then out. You could do the opposite or you start high and then see how I have done a much lower one. As the second, you can bring that up a little bit higher. This will change the appearance significantly. I could play with that and see what you like the best. You can even do it to the bottom part of it rather than the top or both. If you do it to the bottom, it could be something like this. Down, up, down, up and then down. Change your exit stroke. I would mostly have changed the variety of the top height. Also notice too that my bottom part is squishing more. So I'm bringing this in, coming in tight and then coming in tight again, where I could have that all be even. It gives it a different appearance. If I were to squish the top, that also gives it a different appearance. Be aware of those shapes and parallel lines if you're intentionally pushing something together at the bottom. I do it slightly and the part ends up looking like this. Instead of it reaching down from that up and down position, it's like almost in the middle of these two dots. Moving into N, you can do the same thing by bringing that end more or bringing this in more meeting. If you keep it straight up and down, its much different than if you were to bring it in. See how that adds different character. You can also do ends like this, that's coming down, up, down and up. That's sharper here. You can come down, up, down and stop and then bring this up. I'll probably just add this guy here. O can be tricky, but it could also be really easy. What I like to do is start my O much further down than I actually want it to be. Because if I have it down, I can come back around much higher and loop through. If you do that up high, it's fine, but it doesn't have the same effect. For me it's not quite as whimsical. If you start even lower, you have a little more about personality. These are things to practice. I get really shaky on my up strokes that go to the left. Something that helps with that is to either go fast, just along that area, or instead of using your fingers gripped really tight on your wrist, release that and use more of your arm to guide through that area. That just takes practice with making sure that it is going where you want it to go. This O can be used a lot with a lowercase, but if it has a big enough forecast for the outside or the top or something to make it that full circle, it can look a lot more finished. Which makes it come across as a capital much easier. You can also start higher and then bring this lower, that definitely adds to that capital. The amount of space that you leave in between, completely changes it as well. The overall appearance. You don't even have to do this swash through either, you can do something like this. Play with those Os and see the distance here to be. You can see how I've done that and I would probably choose something along this line here. You can practice your top choice over and over. It's like when you take penmanship and then you have to circle your favorite one, the teacher circle their favorite one and then you practice that over and over. It's the same idea. From there, you can be this is my execution. Either way, the point is to get down the style that you like the most. Moving into P. If you come up then around and back down, this is like B where I started my exit rather than starting higher I started lower and then come up and out, or I can come down and out. I can come straight down, loop and out. Then come around like this and it will just be guiding from the right-to-left, real thin line, loop down, come around and down, and then up, loop around and finish that however you'd like to. Different varieties. You can also do something where the bottom has a flourish come around like this, so down, up, around, and through. Then this is like this, very light, it's not touching on either side. Thin line and then come around. You can connect it. Changes the look, changes the appearance, and the feel of it. Instead of something that comes up and out, it can actually through and out, or comes back even further. Your entry stroke can be whatever you like, so you can even do something like this. Then Q, looks really pretty if you do the same idea as we did with the O, and then just have your line through it. You can also do something more like this. But this is one of my favorite ways to do a Q. You start here, come around, light, and then stop. Then it's almost like a bump like this. Then you can do that like this as well, where it comes through. But I think it looks pretty and it's just easy. Another way to do it, up and then down, up and then down. It's not even really up if you think about it, it's more like that first O, through, only it stops right here and then down. You can also create this area where it stops lower, which will give it a different effect. So that's down here. See how that changes the mood of the overall letter. You can do something opposite, where you start with the opposite side, loop around, loop around again, stop, and then sharp line through, stop, sharp line through. Like that. You can make that two that everyone likes to do for their Q. Something like that. Different variations again. Moving into R. R is a really fun one because I think there's a lot of places that you can take it. You can even do just your basic R but curve inward, come up, and around. I notice that I'm starting to leave that main area just above the bottom. If you were to think about it other than the curve that's in the letter, it's like your dots here and your dots here, and then loop around and down. You can do that with a fancy injury stroke. You can do it or it loops inward and down. That's an easy way to do it. Then obviously from here, you can change the direction and the size, so it can be here, it can be here. That just changes the overall personality. Those are just really easy transitions to make. I really like these ones because they're so bubbly and fine. We can see that it's just very easy. Do your entry stroke and that's it. But do notice though, is that all the shapes of the top part of my R is all the same, it's just a different size and that's part of that letter form. You can go straight down, up, around, and up like this. Totally different style. Come down, loop around like this, and out. Around and in. You can make it so that your R raises above your entry stroke, loop around. Different examples to try. Those are a lot of fun. Then if you move into S. This is really fun, I see people doing these very differently. One of the things that I keep in mind is the size of the top versus the bottom. Totally different mood that, that creates. You can bring that in like this. like this. But you want to be careful because that can look like a J, it could also look like a T. Be careful with things like this, but do practice them because that's where you find that out. You can have much longer of an entry stroke and then not bring the bottom part through. You can bring the whole thing through. You can just do a normal S like we do with the C and then come down for that flourish. You can do it all in one, if it's easy for you. You can do it like a lowercase, but make it a capital and come up and around, through, down, and through. What that would look like is lightly up, down, around, and then just stop, or come up, down, crossover, come back in, loop, and then through. You can do something like this with the normal S. Like so. In the beginning, depending on the direction that you begin. You can have it inside or outside of the shape of that pocket. Different varieties to play with. Then we will go into T, V, W, X, Y, and Z in the next video. 6. U-Z: So for T, you can go off of the main shape of a T and just bring the top through and around and down, like so. You could do the same thing with a small exit stroke. You can do this idea without connecting it and go straight through. One of the things that I like to do with my T is whether it's lowercase or capital, if I'm going to do the cross through, I like to do it really high. You can also do something where you come straight down and just have that slight curve. You can do this, that have the cross through be much higher, like so. Then there's always the fancier ones where, lets say you want to do something like this, have it come from the other side. Starting it would look like that or when it gets fancier, you can do a loop. What that's going to look like is go up, through, do a loop, but come back around the loop and then down. You can change the space in here and things like that. Just play with that and the more practice that you have, the more you can change that into something that is your own. See how I'm just experimenting. Then we can add these to my dotted line alphabet. My O and then my P, my Q, R, my S, and then my T, and moving in to U, because this is such a simple letter, I'm going to make sure that it really keeps my letter form. I'm going to come down, have that diagonal, and come down again. Notice that it's straight down. I do have a slight angle, but it's straight down and then from this corner to this corner, straight down and then it mimics the same parallel line. You can also do something where you add a swash in the beginning, come up, you put one at the end. Come through like we have with others, but overall, my base shape remains the same. I can change the height where I come in, like so, but still I'm on these parallel lines. Do something simple. I can come in the same way I do with a lot of my other letters. Where it's that loop in and then straight up. Something that also helps with these straight lines up, it can be an easy place for people to shake. What I have found that helps me a lot is to do a flicking motion where it's a lot faster. It may make it so that your pen doesn't want to put down as much ink and that's where I just go over it and come back down and do the same thing. It can be a little slower, but if you notice speed up right there, it helps a lot with that shakiness. Moving into V. V is one that you can curve out and come down and then have an arch out. You can come in and then arch back in. Like so. You can have that entry stroke. You can start over here, come around, down, and back up. You can curve around in the beginning, come up. You don't even have to have the sharp edge. You can come in with something softer. We can loop around like this. It can come in like this, that's sharper. Up and out. Play around with those varieties and then similar to M or W, should change in height with our under strokes. If I come in with my entry stroke down, I can come in higher, bring that up, and then bring this lower. Then I actually stop pretty low. This is my go to shape for W. You can also come in, come up, have it just slightly below, and then come up higher again. You can choose to have a sharper shape like we did with the V. Down and up, down and up. You can do this varied like this as well and just depending on where this is placed versus this, if it connects at the same exact point, it creates a different effect. You can come around, loop out. You can start in and come down. You can have that be a loop in the beginning. Some of those to our alphabet see how they line up with everything. The U I told you about how that this line is along the dot diagonal here and then this one will match. If this was to follow through to see how it would hit that up there. Then V, W and then moving into X, you can circle around, come down, and then just a light lift off. Then for the cross, I usually start a lot lower and just a real thin line up through. If I do that a little smaller, it puts a lot more emphasis on my up stroke. You can also just go straight down and loop up or lift off into a nice soft exit stroke. You can come through. Still have that line. You can do something like this on both sides where it loops around, loops around and then my cross through is more about the same height as the rest. On one side is the loop and then it stops and then on this side there is a loop and then it stops. Your loop can come in. Play with variations on the X and then Y. We do the same thing like where the G we incorporated what would be a lowercase g. So like if you did a lowercase y, for me, my descending stem-loop would be longer. The base of my letter would be much bigger on my capital than my lowercase, and then my descending stem-loop would be smaller. You can also, rather than coming in and out, it can come up and around. You can do something fancier, but by now you've seen these entry and exit strokes and not to where you can really play with what those can look like. You can also come in and do something sharper and then up, out, and a round. So with that is slower is in, up, and a round, down and a sharp stop and then you come up, arch over, and then finish however you'd like. Then the loop on the bottom, you can do this type of loop. You can come through it and back through it. Like we have with others. You can keep it low. You can bring it through this part. These choices will determine how that final one's going to look. Then lastly, moving into Z, this one I do kind of similar to lowercase. I usually have a big area on the top and then something smaller with a basic loop coming up and a round for the bottom part. You can also do a curve, a loop and then another one through. You can bring that around. It's like the backwards to the E where it comes up and then down, curves around and through. You can make the top part of your Z smaller and the bottom part larger. If you keep it above the baseline, then it can be a really good capital as well and then you can always do something like the traditional Z, non cursive, where it's like a soft beginning and then rather than a straight line, it's curved and then back down. You can always, is that a little cross through it. Do something with loops and then you'll notice how if I bring this higher, it has a different appearance if it was lower. So you can play with angle. We have X, and then Y, and Z. Now I want to show you how this would line up and you guys don't have to use different sheets to practice. I am just showing you this because I want to show you as a complete alphabet, but you can actually use the dotted line to do all of the practice and I actually recommend doing that. It's my favorite way to let it do form letters. From my point of this class is just to show you varieties. 7. Forming Consistency: When you're basing your letters off of a dot graph, there are different ways that you can do it depending on the shape that you want to create. When we were walking through it as we were doing our capital letters, for the most part, I was staying in this oblong area here. I can also stay within more of a square, but because that's a little smaller and I want to do something larger for you to see, I actually just pretend that these ones aren't here and go off of these four corners. I think that that's what I'll do when I'm showing you this way to form letters so you can see exactly which ones I'm favoring. Which is what I've done with lowercase letters. If you've taken any of my other skill share classes, you've probably seen some references to the four corners. When I'm doing an A, I'm just going to do one letter edge. This is just based off of one style of capital I'm going to favor for my A, these four, I'm going to go off with a square and I'm going to do these three corners. This one stays blank and that's going to form my shape. You'll notice that I don't go directly across, but it's just the overall form. I'm going to come down, up, toward that corner and then come around and down. But notice that other than my slight slant, which I'm doing intentionally, It's staying from the top right to the top bottom. Then I have my exit stroke, which is parallel to this diagonal line here. Then I'm going to bring this across. Then my b, just so I can show you, I'm not going to do them hugging each other. I'm actually going to skip this area and go these four corners here. Because of the way that I shape it, it's actually going to be a little more narrow. Assuming that these are actually here, but you'll see the overall idea of what I mean. If there's these four corners, I am going to keep on that slant that I did here. I'm going to come up, around and down. Then the area that you'll see what the B that will be favoring three corners, will actually be inside each of the counters that I create. I'm going to come up and then down and out. To highlight what I am talking about, you'll notice that there are these four corners right here. That B shape creates a triangle here. That A shape is here, and then C is going to be pretty easy. I'm going to go off of these four corners. I'm going to come up, loop around, and through. You'll see that it's there and I didn't really pay much attention to that corner. My D is just like my B. I'm going to use these four. I'm going to come up around and down and up and out. There's that shape. It's like a corner here. My E coming in, and then up and out. This is the main area that I'm focusing on for my shape. As you can see, these four corners, even though it reaches, it's still on that angle of that parallel line. This parallel line matches with this one to create consistency. You can see that as you go along, you can build these letters and see how that works. Then if you have one that doesn't necessarily match up perfectly, you can always go in and adjust it and practice those. Notice that the most of my letters aren't in that perfect square. I did my a that way, but I probably would have liked it better like this. But you see what I'm talking about. I'm just using this as a reference for four corners. Doesn't have to be a square, and then my F. This one doesn't have a form in the center anywhere. I'm just going to keep it along that same parallel line like that and then that line isn't there, my G. Then you can see that that parallel line is here. If I was to map that out and it would fill up in that general shape. This is my line. My edge, it's going to have that technically hugs a top and bottom. It does that on all four corners. You can obviously like we talked about very the height here. Then my eye that's going to be more on that slant down, come up around down. Just maintains that slant. Then my J same thing. You can see that probably would've liked to have that even more slanted. But this line maintains that slant. This line maintains that, general idea, [inaudible] K. Up and around down, it is on the slant bits like those top corners. Then the K has its own diagonal lines that are automatically in there. I'm just going to come straight down and up. Then this line keeps that parallel with the rest, the slant and then L. Same thing. But notice that corner is left out. Then my M, up and down, slant and then coming in even more, and that style choice. But it keeps it parallel here. My N, here's my shape. O is like the prime example of keeping that shape. Because you have these, I'm going to show you these ones. I am going around through [inaudible] shape stays right here. That parallel line, you can see that it stays in that triangle. This corner is the missing piece, which is good because you're keeping that form. Then P, coming up around and down, and then up there. Here's my shape, which is in that triangle. Q is just like the O, you have that nice round shape that maintains and misses that bottom corner. Then R, the main shape of my R is in the top part right here.Then S, this slant is what I'm looking for. The way that I have styled that one. For a T, you can see that this is my slant to maintain shape. If this was also inside of those four corners, it would be missing that bottom right, which you can see is along the parallel line theme. Depending on how letters are built, either miss the sign, or you can miss the top-left. Because your line is parallel this way, you typically never mess the bottom left and top right. Then U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. You have this shape here. This line that's diagonal, missing this area, diagonal. Here's your shape, and then your diagonal. This is something that you can refer to anytime that you want to practice building an alphabet. Your diagonal obviously doesn't have to go this way. It can go straight up and down and you can do less of a slant. But for the most part, these dots, these grids can help a lot. If you want to create some that are more of a oblong shape rather than a square. You can also of course, extend the whole square. You can even work within these smaller ones where you're really focusing on that oval shape, which is similar to what we did as we were building. Hopefully that's helpful. 8. Project Time!: That's all that I have for you guys in this class. What I'd love to see you practice on is incorporation of different names, perhaps some places things that are proper nouns that you can apply a lot of capitals to. One of my favorite activities, and it always has been before I was even doing lettering, it's silly but I used to go down from A to Z and then pick my favorite names, like baby names or whatever. Or just the first ones that would pop in my head. It's almost like a doodling activity but with writing or lettering. For A, you could do Amanda and then you could do like five names that are A's and then B, Brittney, Brandon, things like that. That's a fun activity, otherwise I'd love to see what you come up with. If you want to practice your family's names, places that you're familiar with, places that are special to you. There's not a major project for this class other than practice. I really would love to see that and then try using the same word with a variety of different types of capitals and see which one you like best, and then I'd love to hear your thoughts as well. Be sure to jot some notes. Can't wait to see what you guys submit and will see you next time.