Brushes for painting figures with oils

[DeepSea]

Hi all,

 

Hopefully this is the right forum for this (if not please feel free to punt it to wherever it should be!).

 

I was thinking of trying to paint some figures (mostly 1/35 or 1/32) with oils. Just to try out how it goes. What brushes are good for use with oils? I painted some wargaming stuff with acrylics a whirl back and used watercolour brushes for them. I guess I need different brushes for oils? 

 

Thanks in advance from a slightly/rather clueless person about all this.

 

David

[Crayons]

If you were painting on canvas, I'd suggest following the Bob Ross theory of things and use a 50mm natural bristle house brush, but, that wont work on a miniature, well, it will, but the results might be less than pleasing.

 

Sable or nylon brushes will work just fine, whether they be for water colours, acrylics or oils. Having tried many different brush types over the years, I personally have never seen a difference in the finish between sable or nylon types. But that might just be as a result my rubbish painting skills. Brush size is probably more important than fibre type. That really fine 20/0 might seen like a great idea until you realise that it holds almost zero volume of paint and you are constantly going back and forth to the paint pot/palette to reload the brush. My size choices are size 0, 1 and 2 with a few 4/0 long tip brushes (used exclusively for painting the eyes on large scale figures). This selection, sees me good across a range of scales from 1/35 all the way up to 1/6th. Although at 1/6th, the hairy sticks are just used for the finer details.

 

That's my two cents worth. 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Crayons

[DeepSea]

Thanks @Crayons - most helpful!

 

I'll see if I can resurrect some older brushes or if not at least I can get similar to what I had before. 

 

Cheers