Brushes, some advice

[Panzer Vor!!!]

I've bought two sets of brushes off this E bayer , i  can recommend them for first class service and excellent products

[Schwarz-Brot]

As a miniatures painter I do all my painting with sable brushes. I exclusively work with acrylic paints of different makes, mainly Vallejo Game Color, Vallejo Model Air and Schmincke Aero Color. Synthetic brushes I only use for rough work like priming and basing.
The sable brushes do live way longer than any synthetic ones and keep a perfect point for very long times. Though I found huge differences between makes. Daler-Rowney and Da Vinci sable brushes almost instantly died on me, so they won't see any money again. I mainly paint with Springer (who manufacture for many model and miniture companies!) because they are very cheap yet of very good quality. I also have and use a view Winsor & Newton ones which are considered the bees knees. VERY pricey, though.

 

I highly recommend to stay away from brushes supplied by Revell, Tamiya and the likes or by color companies. They are simply rebranded and sold at a way higher price (Vallejo sells rebranded Springer Brushes afaik. So does Army painter and EM4-Miniatures). Often enough the quality is quite poor (Revell... Don't know who makes these).

 

Key to a long brush life is taking care. Never (!!!) get paint up to the ferrule, never use the brush to take paint from the pot. If you get paint up to the ferrule immediately wash it out thoroughly. If you don't the pigments get soaked up into the ferrule where they dry and force the brush to split. You have no real chance of cleaning them out there. Don't push over the tip or force it into edges. Clean your brush carefully, not only when changing colours. Do it every now and then during prolonged sessions without colour change. After use clean it very thoroughly. Avoid pushing and rotating the bristles against the walls or ground of your container to "push" the pigments out. This can kink them - they break like real hair. Just swing the brush back and forth rapidly in the fluid to wash out the pigments. Let the fluid do the work. To do that, use the right cleaning fluid. Obviously tap water won't do it for enamel paint. After cleaning pull the brush through a V-folded paper towel. Let the towel soak out the liquid. If you still see pigments repeat the cleaning. Form the tip while pulling over the towel. The hair will stay in the form you give it while drying. You can use brush soap to help taking care of your brushes.

 

Don't pull out dented hairs. Cut them instead. If you pull them you brushes will start losing hairs because they are not pressed thoroughly in the ferrule.

 

Most brushes these days die on me because the bristles dry out over time and develop splits like human hair. But I get many month of regular use out of them. Take care and enjoy

Edited January 26, 2017 by Schwarz-Brot

[Beardie]

Very thorough and sage advice The main place where I find synthetics most advantageous is in doing very, very, very small details like switches and dials or eyes/pupils on figures (using a magnifying visor so I can even see the details I am painting). Here the 20/0 and 10/0 synthetics I linked to above are ideal as they don't pick up much paint and so there is much less risk of flooding the area around the details.

[Schwarz-Brot]

This I usually do with a size 0 W&N series 7 or a Springer Series 1754 size 0. I am not a fan of smaller brushes as the acrylics tend to dry up too quick to give me good results. I barely use anything smaller than 0 these days. Most other things I do with size 2. (Though the sizes differ significantly between manufacturers). When I started I went with very small brushes which made it actually harder for me to paint well.

 

Edit: I mainly paint 28mm to 32mm "Heroic Scale" Miniatures, to give a sense of size/scale.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Schwarz-Brot

[Beardie]

I take my hat off to you Schwarz-Brot. I have been modelling 1/32, 120mm and 200mm figures and I find my Size 0 and larger sables to be just too large and easy to get paint in places where I don't want it to be. I like the tiny brushes for control when blending various oil paint skin tones and getting into those deep little nooks and crannies without knocking paint onto the surroundings.

 

I guess we all have our own styles and tastes with what brushes we use. When I paint oil on canvas I never use anything smaller than a size 2 or 3 sable but on a model or figure I can get down to almost 'single hair' territory trying to get a clean edge on a 1/32 scale instrument panel bezel or paint a single screw head or get some nice depth into a figures' irises.

[Schwarz-Brot]

I agree that with oils you don't get as much trouble with small brushes as with acrylic paints. They simply don't dry out that fast. Some day I will try oil paints on miniatures. But those waiting times always let me chose acrylics.

[Beardie]

If you want to try oils but don't want the lengthy drying times then I can highly recommend Alkyds. I have only used Winsor and Newton 'griffin' Alkyds so can't speak for other brands. They behave like traditional oils, give you plenty of time to blend and tinker with them and will be dry enough to do more work within about 24 hours or so, if you decide that you have messed something up too much you can douse them in white spirit and wash it all off within the first 24 hours. Just like oils you can build up glazes to give depth and lustre using Alkyd 'Liquin' medium.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Those sound interesting. 

 

I experimented with water based oils, but found they just don't behave like real thing for weathering purposes (pin-washes etc.), which is my main use for oils.  I keep meaning to have a go at painting a figure with them, but I haven't got round to it, I'm not a big fan of figure-painting these days, my vision is just too poor. 

[Beardie]

Hey Sgt I know just what you mean, I can't see the detail in my figures without me prescription reading glasses these days but a headband magnifier allows me to zoom in and still enjoy getting the detail in.

 

I have never tried the water based oils. Never fancied the idea of the added emulsifiers to allow water mixing and the same drying times as traditional oil. Seems to me that it ain't worth the difference just to avoid using white spirit or other thinners. The alkyds give you loads of time to get the effect you want and then are dry enough by next day.

 

Basically the Alkyds are very similar to enamels although they are formulated to have the same transparency/opacity as the equivalent traditional oil paint with the same thickness and a bit shorter drying time unlike the enamels which are all formulated to be opaque, fluid and as fast drying as possible.

[Steve Noble]

I've always use Tamiya brushes for most of what I do and found them to be of excellent quality and to last a long time if looked after. If you purchase from HLJ (HobbyLink Japan) the prices are very affordable..

[Martin Ford]

On 26/01/2017 at 10:32, Beardie said:

Hi PBS, as I said previously I can highly recommend ABCBrushes on ebay. All the brushes are Pro Arte and are in perfect working order as far as the 'business end' is concerned at a fraction of what they would cost in an art shop. My last batch of 15 or 20 assorted included a Pro Arte Renaissance sable flat (a top line expensive brush) and several sable rounds. If you totted up the list prices these brushes would cost at least three times as much in an Art store.

 

Thank you for this link and advice. Have just bought some. Cheers