There are many types of pens, among which the purple hair, wolf hair, sheep hair and jianhao are the most important.

The Purple Hair Pen is made from the hair on the back of the hare's neck. It is named after its black and purple color. The strength of rabbit hairs in the north and south is also different, and some are made from a combination of northern and southern hairs. Rabbit hair is tough, so it is called a strong hair pen. Northern hair is the most popular. Its hair is long and sharp, suitable for writing strong, straight and square characters, so it is valued by calligraphers. Bai Juyi's Yuefu Ci for Purple Hao Brush: "The tip of the Purple Hao Brush is as sharp as a cone and sharp as a knife." The characteristics of the Purple Hao Brush are described very completely. However, because only the hair on the back of the hare's neck was available, it was expensive and the feathers were not long, so it was impossible to write large characters on the plaque.

Langhao pen is literally made of wolf hair. In previous generations, wolf hair was indeed used to make pens; however, what is called wolf hair today is the "hao" of the weasel "wolf", not the hair of the wolf. The record of seeing the wolf hair is very late. Some people also refer to the "rat whisker brush" as the wolf hair brush. Therefore, the use of the wolf hair can be pushed back to before Wang Xizhi's Jin Dynasty, but it is not certain. Only the tip of the weasel's tail can be used to make a pen. It is tough in nature, second only to rabbit hair but better than sheep hair. It is also a strong pen. The shortcomings are similar to Zihao, and they are not too big.

Sheep hair is made from the whiskers or tail hairs of green sheep or yellow sheep. It can be seen that it started before the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and by the Qin Dynasty, the new pen improved by Meng Tian had become a pen-making material. The most important thing in calligraphy is brush strength. The hair is soft and has no edge, and the calligraphy is also "soft and boneless", so calligraphers in the past dynasties rarely used it. The use of sheep's hair brushes only became popular after the Southern Song Dynasty, and it was only after the early Qing Dynasty that it was widely adopted. Because the Qing Dynasty emphasized mellowness and subtlety, not showing off one's talents and promoting oneself, only the soft and plump wool could meet the requirements of the time and was widely used. The softness of sheep's hair also varies. If it is properly combined with paper and ink, it can also express a plump and soft style. It is cheap and easy to obtain. The hair is long and can write large characters over half a foot.

Jianhao pens are made by combining two or more types of hair, and are named according to their mixing ratio, such as three purple and seven sheep, five purple and five sheep, etc. Meng Tian's improved brush used "deer hair as the pillar and wool as the quilt", which is a double-hair brush. For both hair and hair, one should be strong and one soft should be matched. The strong hair should be the main one and located inside, which is called "pillar"; the soft hair should be placed outside and serve as the auxiliary one, which is called "quilt". The hair on the pillar is long and the hair on the quilt is short. This is the so-called "pillar and quilt" pen. If the quilt also has multiple layers, there are rabbit hair as pillars, plus a shorter wool quilt, and then draped with hair that is as long as the pillar, and there are three layers, so the root is particularly thick, the tip is thinner, and more ink is stored. , easy to write. Characteristics vary depending on the mixing ratio. They may be hard or soft, or have moderate hardness and softness. They are also cheap and labor-saving, which are all advantages.