I know there are often stylistic ways to draw Kanji but I just want the basic way.

汐
I ran into the primitive on the left for the first time today on frame 110.

Should I draw it like that? It looks slightly different in the frame than it does here on the forum see here.

Same with this one:

外

In this case, in the book and here, you see clearly the line through the 'ト' as I like to call it is going through. However, in the 'stroke order' diagram in heisig has it not going through, so it kind of looks like タト.

zachandhobbes Wrote:I know there are often stylistic ways to draw Kanji but I just want the basic way.

汐
I ran into the primitive on the left for the first time today on frame 110.

The font used in Heisig appears to me to have exaggerated strokes, complete with little, I'd almost call them "mistakes" where strokes begin and end a bit off from where they should be, so that you can clearly distinguish between strokes.

You don't really want to copy this in your writing, unless you wish to to be employed as a Chinese take-out menu typesetter. The Heisig stroke order diagrams look somewhat more reasonable (but still not as good as most Japanese schoolbooks), as typically do stroke order fonts.

[Katsuo]

The book is printed using a Mincho font. That type of font is common in newspapers and books, but differs a bit from handwriting styles.

Probably the best type of font to use as a handwriting model is a kyokasho (textbook) type. Looking at the Yamasa web site, (e.g. 外) they show three versions of each character left-to-right as follows:
Mincho -- Kyokasho -- pen/pencil

The middle one is the best to copy, although it's written with a brush and the strokes are thicker than you'll get with a pen or pencil. The font on the right is more like natural handwriting (much neater than most, mind!), and as you get experienced and write faster your writing may look more like this (I wouldn't suggest directly copying it, just let your writing develop naturally).

The font you see on websites can usually be changed in your browser preferences. If someone is using the "Reviewing the Kanji" website to learn/review I'd suggest the following:
1. Choose a browser you don't normally use (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, etc) and use that for learning/ reviewing on this site.
2. Set the preferences in that browser so that a kyokasho font is used for the main kanji.

If you don't have a kyokasho font on your computer, there are free ones available to download, e.g. here (it's the "epkyouka" one).

To see the handwriting style, check here:
http://www.yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/kanjid...3?OpenForm
They don't have every kanji. Also, Heisig will show you some of the handwriting forms if you look closely. I don't think he explains that handwriting and block printing are different though. On Yamasa, it is more of handwriting style where they don't pick up the brush after each stroke.

Also, you can see handwriting styles at Jim Breen's WWWJDIC. Use the kanji search tool (or use "examine kanji in selected compound"). Then click SOD and wait for it to finish. SODA is a block printing style; you don't want that.