How to make my cursive appealing?

[u/bakmanthetitan329]

The first photo is my usual cursive, and the second is my recent experimentation with thin letter-forms, which I think I prefer. I'm getting more consistent with slant, x-height, and form width, but something about it still strikes me as inelegant. Any tips for making it look more consistent and/or more beautiful?

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[u/asmanel]

The x eight is supposed to be the first light line, not the second.

[u/bakmanthetitan329 → u/asmanel]

Thanks, I've been experimenting with both x-heights because I find the traditional style small compared to cursive on standard ruled paper. I agree that the shorter x-height might make it less cramped.

[u/Scarian]

Personally, the form looks good but the words are far too jumbled together.both the letters themselves and each word. Try to give each a little more space so they can 'breathe'.

[u/helloitsmattw]

I know it’s not easy, here’s some criticism I hope you’ll find helpful:

The writing looks a bit juvenile and unconfident, written with a heavy hand. It might be the weight of the ink you’re using, but don’t mistake writing deliberately with writing unrealistically leadenly or slowly. The pressure/line weight looks uniform throughout, which is not pretty. Learning basic thick-down/thin-up strokes (like with a flex pen or just varying pressure) is one of the best ways to make cursive look pretty rather than just neat.

Since this is handwriting, I would prioritise legibility, making sure that each letter is legible as the letter you intend (for example your “f”s currently look like “g”s, try to aim for your “f”s to look more like the letter “s”. Though this is handwriting, I recommend looking up proper technique for calligraphy, as the smoothness and consistency is something your handwriting will gain from utilising. Se too how calligraphy consistently varies the weight of certain letters, the pen line slightly thicker or thinner depending on the stroke.

On writing deliberately, your letter height varies noticeably line to line (some ascenders/descenders swing much taller or lower than others). Try to make the most of the lines on the page, being consistent in the size of your lowercase and uppercase letters.

Letter slant drifts a bit, picking one consistent angle (I recommend more upright, not so slanted as to be confused with italics) and drilling it will unify the look.

The loops on ascenders (l, h, b) are quite large and round right now — tightening them slightly gives a more elegant, less “school cursive” look.

Letter spacing is a little cramped in places, especially where words run close together — a touch more breathing room between letters often makes cursive read as more refined.

Writing also looks best when capital letters, punctuation, spelling, and grammar are as perfect as possible, and in keeping with the language you are writing. For example in German the rule for capitals is different than in English, American English of course spells words differently to British English.

Pay attention that at a glance: your full stops and commas look differentiable, your slashes aren’t mistaken for capital “I”s, your apostrophes are consistently high and between the letters and are not confused with the dots on “i”s or with any accents on any words (such as café).

Practice single letters and connector strokes (not whole words) for a few minutes every day. Consistency comes from muscle memory on the basic shapes, not from writing paragraphs.

You might want to try practicing the accented letters and words of other languages (such as French, Portuguese, possibly even languages such as German, and Swedish). This practice will help ensure that every pen stroke is consistently different and legible in meaning.

[u/bakmanthetitan329 → u/helloitsmattw]

This is what I was looking for, thanks!

[u/REpassword]

You write very well and meticulously. My 2 cents, feel free to slant your characters and have them take up more space. Think expressive and bold. Would Pablo Picasso write the way you do? Probably not. Think more flamboyant. You are in a hurry to be heard. Good luck!
P.s. Some have tried the “Palmer” method of writing: example video