Spacing - Gods with Snow

I've been practising. In between reading review comments of my paper from the lovely Randy and Tetchubah.

The whole idea of the "Gods with Snow" quote, to recap, is a sentence in Latin that is just about illegible because it is composed only of m,n,u and i's (it's got a few 'v's, written like 'u's for the point of the exercise and o, l, t at the end). Because these letters are only straight lines with a few joins (ie 1 each n and u, top and bottom respectively, 2 for the m at the top) the joins are the only way to distinguish between the letters and hence read the sentence.
When I first started practising this quote for a bit of basic skill practise I discovered that my spacing wasn't right and that led me onto noticing the difference between modern gothic textura quadrata script, and historical g.t.q. script spacing.

So here's my practice -= with spacing between the verticals. It's looking pretty illegible, as it should! I'm pleased. I still have a way to go - I'm hopeless at spacing right between the words (2 pen widths)
This was done with a William Mitchell nib size 0. The x-height is 2 cm (2.5 cm = 1 inch)
Purple pen to mark problems. Virulent pink that I've cut off from when I was writing in pink and making spacing marks in black. (actually Magenta, sorry Sal)
I went weird with my 'u's - the last stroke. Dunno why. Just did for the day.

It actually says
"mimi numininum nivium ninium nunium vini muninum iiniminiu vivi minimum volunt"
(not that I know it off by heart,. but I can read it from the above now i know it fairly well - scary!)

And this was done with a Brause 1 1/2. I really like the Brause. It's one of John Neal's especially ground for left handers. It's very smooth. Have to keep it clean tho - once it clogs, the line goes. (which is no problem).
You can tell I was getting tired -a few crooked lines in there. Same x-height as before. It's easier with the W.M. - I'm a lot more used to it.

Later : Another thing I'm looking at is the little isoceles triangles formed by the edges of the diamonds within the same letter, and between letters. It's really helping keep my diamonds crisp and my lozenges at the right angle.
It's very hot tonight. More coffee and practise :-)