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I have been in the hobby for ~13 years, took a couple big breaks and have recently been reenergized into the hobby. I have always been a modeler first, player second, fan third and painter fourth. You can see examples of my most recent models here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/351991.page . This time around I am more focused on growing as painter. I have fallen in love with the Army Builder primers and to me finding a good primer was the first step. I have always loved GWs paints so that is covered. So the next step is understanding the paint brush, so please educate me. (Note - I painted on canvas for years, but that knowledge never quite translated to miniatures) Thanks in advance for the help!

It's hard for me to give the best advice...since I've used pretty crappy brushes (with a few exceptions) forever.

Natural hair brushes (sable) keep their point forever. Those are what I use for fine detail work and final highlights. Synthetic brushes will tend to flatten out, which is good for doing blending/shading...but they need to be replaced fairly often, depending on how you much you paint and how cheap they were in the first place.

Based on my experience and limited knowledge...

If you paint with really thin paints... you will want Kolinsky Sable brushes. The best of these are the Windsor & Newton Series 7, or the Raphael 8408. Even the size 1 brush, of either brand, will have such an excellent tip that you will not generally need anything smaller for fine details.

The Kolinsky sable brushes are water-color brushes which is why they work so well with very thinned acrylic.

If you paint with thicker paint ...well then synthetic will probably work fine, they are often a little firmer as well.

The new 'black handle' GW brushes are a good compromise if you don't want to spend too much money but want a decent sable brush.

Thanks for the advice guys, I will see if my local hobby lobby has one of those brushes. So I def need to go with sable.

Also check out ASWexpress.com ...get on their mailing list. Every month they do a 15-20% off sale.

Here's a couple videos that have helped me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eACqcAQdw2U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k3yXRwgBeM

I use strictly Rosemary&Co kolinsky sable brushes. The run about 1/2 the cost of Windsor & Newton brushes and are just as good.

Taklon brushes then to flatten out of their point and often the tip will curl over. I don't recommend them only because they don't last long. Wal Mart used to sell decent taklons for like $3 for a set of 2, but now they carry crap.

If you are looking for higher end brushes look into Kolinsky Sable. i have a Few Winsor & Newton Series 7M sizes 00, 0, and 1. but to be honest the size 1 is pretty much my go to brush, the tip is sharp enough to do really intricate detail work. i did hear that the regular W&N series 7 brushes are better than the series 7M which are made specifically for miniature painting and have much shorter bristles. However a lot of people have said that most Kolinsky Sable brushes work prety much the same, and some can be found for much cheaper than W&N. I have been looking into new brushes lately, and the Blick Studio Sable Brushes, and Winsor & Newton Artists' Watercolor Brushes look promising, and are a tad bit cheaper than W&N S7.
also http://www.dickblick.com is a great place to look for brushes. they have an awesome selection and they are on sale pretty much all of the time.

My favourite brush is GW Detail brush. I take care of it and it has painted me:
A Land Raider
Attack bike
x2 Devestator squads
Combat squad
Vulkan He'stan
x10 Ork boys and x2 ork nobz
x5 Eldar Guardians
Tau Crisis Battlesuit and x2 drones
And it is still in great condition to paint many more armies
As well as my friends occasionally using it

Buy a couple of brushes from different brands and try them out. W&N, Raphael, Rosemary, everyone has a favorite brand. I prefer Raphael (mostly because it's easy to get) but have three W&N that suits very intricate details.

Kolinsky Sable brushes are the best thing next to sliced bread. But they're expensive and will not last forever no matter how much you take care of them. With that said, you almost never have a sable brush curl up on you after a couple of paintjobs (Yes I'm looking at you brand-new-blue-GW-brush!). They snap back like no other brushes and have excellent flexibility.

My current go-to brush is an old blue GW standard that by some magic means has a very fine tip and great body. Perfect for almost everything and I don't need to baby it since it's so cheap.

Thanks for the advice everyone! My local hobby store only had one brand that you guys named and that was Windsor & Newton. They did not have 7 series or water paint and sable. So I bought a different brand that was white sable and water paint friendly, it was $6.99. Is that expensive?

Is it expensive? Maybe. It really depends on the quality of the brush. See how it behaves and how long it lasts, then you'll be a better judge than any of us. I've seen suitable miniature scale brushes go for anything from $2-20, but that runs the gamut of quality, from shoddy white nylon up to handcrafted Kolinsky sable (with a niche market markup).

I'd advise you to shop around a bit and try out a few different brands - the basics of brush selection have already been covered. The Artist's Supply Warehouse (www.awsexpress.com) mentioned earlier has some ridiculous deals on useful items every so often, so it's worth signing up for the newsletter. Wherever you shop, though, beware the "specialty item" myth and the price inflation that likely comes with it, along with the "smaller is always better" mentality.

I use the series 7 myself, which is a recent change for me. I used to buy GW or hobby brushes at the local hobby shop, but they tended to wear out quickly and not hold a point, the Windsor and Newton brushes habe not had that problem. If you get them http://www.cheapjoes.com/art-supplies/4782_winsor-newton-series-kolinsky-brushes.asp / here they don't cost much more than buying GW brushes or the taklon hobby brushes

$6.99 is about average. I really like the Reaper Kolinsky brushes size 0. I'm going to get some W&N 7 series ones soon, I'm sure they will be just as good if not better.

crossbonesx11 wrote:Thanks for the advice guys, I will see if my local hobby lobby has one of those brushes. So I def need to go with sable.

You might have better luck at a specialized art store as opposed to large hobby chains. Thats where I buy mine and they are typically less expensive

guyperson5 wrote:My favourite brush is GW Detail brush. I take care of it and it has painted me:
A Land Raider . . .

WOW! that must have taken AGES!

Right now I've got three brushes:
Citadel Standard
Citadel Fine Detail
Citadel Medium Drybrush

They're good middle-of-the-road brushes and they're not so nice that you worry about messing them up. However, I do take very good care of them and I'm about 70% of the way through painting the entire Black Reach set and they're still as good as new.

The Standard and the Fine Detail I really like, but I'm not too happy with the drybrush.

sailense wrote:
but I'm not too happy with the drybrush.

Let me recommend the army painter Hobby:drybrush. It's a flat body, and it's my go to brush for allsorts. I've got 2. One badly flared that stipples like a really awesome stipply thing, and the second that I feather with. At the moment I'm using it to flatten off my shoulder pads with a final drybrush. It weathers well, and I plan to feather my nids bone plates with it.

Awesome brush.

There is LBursley's tutorial about paint brushes in the tutorials section. It's pretty good.


Here found it:

http://www.youtube.com/awesomepaintjob#p/u/8/eACqcAQdw2U