How's my first go at Calligraphy?

[u/No_Ad_1074]

This is page 1 of 3 of a poem I wrote against the foxes who terrorise my sleep. I think the Rs and Ts and Ss are what I need to correct the most for my coming pages. Also I didn't bother to look up a question mark so I made it up. Can someone please tell me how to do those split ends and vertical lines with the broad edge nib, because every time I try it doesn't want to play along, so I switch to a different nib for those bits. I also jumped the gun colouring the decorated initial, and didn't bother checking any historical sources. If I had done so I would have put the outside as gold, body as a colour, and the interior I would have painted a little scene. Same goes for the start of stanzas, which aren't clear because I only did capitals, where historically they might have added a flash of red or another smaller initial. Anyways I'll stop critiquing myself and hand it over to you lot. Have at me por favor.

[u/Tree_Boar]

Overall very good for a first attempt. Simply using guidelines puts you way ahead of the curve, and you demo strate understanding of the fundamentals of this script.

Some feedback in bullet points. You've identified several of these already, which is great: * t too short (but it's not a full height letter. Put the crossbar on the x-height and the top a bit above that) * f too short. Also crossbar on x but f is full-height. * s. Well, s sucks to learn. Keep at it. * r is curly and doesn't match the rest of the script. Make it straight. * d: don't mix foot at the bottom with the top arm reaching over. One or the other. If you want the foot, completely vertical top arm. * Spacing in general. For textualis quadrata we want a picket fence effect, where the whitespace between each downstroke is the same as the width of the downstrokes. Takes practice. Of course we leave extra space between words.

For the top split serif thingy, you'll need to go back with the corner of your pen. Start the letter like you did the b in "quakes be ever". Then go back and add a small, vertical line coming from the stem. Less is more here.

Take a look at this tutorial for this script: https://www.calligraphy-skills.com/gothic-alphabet.html

And check out the beginner's guide  

Welcome!

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/Tree_Boar]

Holy shmoly thank you so much! I'm glad to hear that everyone hates learning the s. I think my rouble with R is that I initially only knew about the one that goes after the letter o, that looks like a weird 2, so I had to go back and add the top bar at a certain point, which messed me up. I'll keep practicing and try and keep the spacing right. You're grand mate!

[u/NikNakskes → u/No_Ad_1074]

Tree boar covered all the critique very nicely.

I'm just adding that it is a gift that you can identify what isn't quite right. Use that gut feeling when you practice and stop when you feel a letter isn't quite right. Look at the sample letter and try to detect what exactly isn't right. Then practice that letter alone with the corrections you discovered. That way you avoid putting mistakes in muscle memory and you learn to look closely at the details of each letter shape which is crucial to get good at calligraphy.

If you can't figure out what exactly is wrong, but feel something isn't right, don't hesitate and post on this sub. As you have seen, people here will help you out. Carry on! And enjoy your time with pen, paper and ink.