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The biggest hurdle I'm having with painting minis right now is my brushes not cooperating. For the life of me, I cannot get a good tip on any brush I use, I've tried Rosmery and Co, Raphael 8404 and Army Painter and they all lose their tip extremely quickly and tend to fork/split at the tip. I have watched tons of brush care videos and I'm doing my best to follow it, so I'm not making any obvious mistakes which makes it harder to understand what's happening? My only thought is my paint is drying fast on the brush, I really struggle with paint consistency, I thin the paints with water but it still seems too thick and not smooth like in the videos I watch, and if I try to thin it down more it tends to go more like a wash, I cannot find the happy middle ground.

If it’s not holding a point then it’s generally dry paint in the brush.
You can either use a medium to slow down the paint drying or wash the brush more often.

I tend to wash mine constantly while using it.

This tends to be a huge pain for drybrushes as they always have near dry paint on them.

Good brush soap goes a long way though.

Jackal90 wrote:
If it’s not holding a point then it’s generally dry paint in the brush.
You can either use a medium to slow down the paint drying or wash the brush more often.

I tend to wash mine constantly while using it.

This tends to be a huge pain for drybrushes as they always have near dry paint on them.

Good brush soap goes a long way though.

I use Master's Brush Soap after every session. What is the best thing to thin paint with apart from water? I want to try a product designed to make it easier.

Water is fine. Using fancy mediums will just eat your money, and likely not help you that much. You just need practice. Don't dip the brush in paint up to the ferrule, just dip the tip in (giggedy) put in on your pallette, then thin using water. Clean the brush between each application of paint to the palette.

Use a different brush for inks/washes as the capillary action is more likely to take that up into the ferrule.

Keep using the brush soap. You need to really get the ferrule into the soap though, don't just rub the bristles on the surface. I poke the ferrule into the soap and wiggle it to get a lather, then work it in using my fingers to smooth the bristles. Wipe it onto a tissue and you'll see the paint residue on it. Keep doing it until there's no more colour residue coming onto the tissue.
Coming from a signpainting background, brush care is essential as the enamels will totally destroy your expensive script liners if left unchecked. I even oil my signpainting brushes when I'm done. This is unnecessary for your miniature brushes, but I tend to leave a thin film of the brush soap on mine when I'm finished.

If you're using synthetic brushes, the simple fact is that they will wear out and get hook points, but they should last at least a couple of weeks, (depending on your painting intensity)

You can get decent synthetics though. I like pro arte, although nowadays I tend to go for windsor and newton cotman or their cheaper sables as my everyday brushes.

MrH86 wrote:
The biggest hurdle I'm having with painting minis right now is my brushes not cooperating. For the life of me, I cannot get a good tip on any brush I use, I've tried Rosmery and Co, Raphael 8404 and Army Painter and they all lose their tip extremely quickly and tend to fork/split at the tip. I have watched tons of brush care videos and I'm doing my best to follow it, so I'm not making any obvious mistakes which makes it harder to understand what's happening? My only thought is my paint is drying fast on the brush, I really struggle with paint consistency, I thin the paints with water but it still seems too thick and not smooth like in the videos I watch, and if I try to thin it down more it tends to go more like a wash, I cannot find the happy middle ground.

On the part about thinning too much, I have a similar problem sometimes, particularly because the water in my flat is inconsistantly hard which seems to affect the paint depending on the batch I'm using. My solution is to use newspaper as a secondary palette. I use newspaper anyway to protect my desk, but 2 sheets is all you need. Stack them on top of each other so you have a 2-sheet layer. Transfer your overly thin paint to the newspaper. The first sheet will absorb some of the moisture and thicken your paint just a touch, and the secondary sheet will stop the moisture or pigment reaching the surface below and drawing out even more moisture. Not an ideal solution but an easy one

Definitely wash your brushes often if you're using small ones (like 0 or 00 smaller). Like, really often. To thin paints enough that they work well with small brushes means that they're also likely to be thin enough to get into the ferrule via capillary action. Don't let the paint dry--if you take a stroke and paint isn't flowing off easily, rinse the brush and reload.

Don't load your brush with paint beyond halfway or two thirds from the tip.

Some say don't bother with mediums, but when I'm using a really small brush, I often use retarder, or a medium that has retarder in it (Vallejo glaze medium is good for this). It keeps the paint from drying on the brush before I can get the fine details done. An example is getting white eyes or lense dots painted.

And again, rinse your brush BEFORE the paint starts to dry.

Them use brush soap to gently massage the whole brush up to the ferrule and wipe it clean, and then rinse. Repeat until you see no color on your towel.

When finished, I like to use a tiny bit of brush soap to shape the brush before putting it away, and always store them horizontal or with the tip down until they are completely dry, which helps keep gunk you inevitably miss out of the ferrule.

Using all these combined techniques I've drastically increased the useful lives of my brushes. I'm getting about a year from my main ones now, which is pretty good considering how much they're used.

They still don't last forever, though. They're just so small that it's only a matter of time before they lose their tip. This is one of the reasons more talented painters use larger brushes--they hold more paint without having to overfill the brush, so it hardly gets to the ferrule. This usually means more sub-assembly painting though, as the larger brushes don't allow getting into nooks and crannies. All depends on if you want to spend more time on pinning and sub assemblies. I tend to not bother except for certain capes and coats that angle such that you can see into them but not reach, and also for larger models where post painting assembly is easy.

Also, I've noticed that there's some tools that will suspend your brush upside down in the water--might be useful for restoring a brush with soapy water. Haven't tried it myself though.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
If you're using synthetic brushes, the simple fact is that they will wear out and get hook points, but they should last at least a couple of weeks, (depending on your painting intensity)

I can't stress this enough. Your brushes won't last forever, even with good brush care. I'd be lucky if my 8404's or 7 Series lasted more than a few months; I abuse my workhorse brushes and paint a LOT.

Good brush care, but expect that you will have to replace your brushes over time.

MrH86 wrote:
I thin the paints with water but it still seems too thick and not smooth like in the videos I watch, and if I try to thin it down more it tends to go more like a wash, I cannot find the happy middle ground.

In my experience the difference between 'sufficiently thinned' and 'going on like a wash' is more about how much paint is on your brush than how thin it is; sufficiently thinned paint (the classic but not super helpful 'skim milk' consistency) will run everywhere if you load it up on a sable brush and touch it to the model. This makes me wonder if you're keeping the paint too thick to compensate for having too much on the brush, allowing it to dry out on/in the brush.

Are you blotting off excess paint onto a paper towel, and/or just picking up a bit of paint with the tip of the brush? If you're blotting properly, the worst that can happen with excessively thin paint is needing more layers to get solid coverage.

yeah there really is no golden consistency. there are times where its pertinent to use paint straight from the pot, (although I'd always do this by way of the palette) and thinness depends on a whole bunch of factors. it just comes down to muscle memory and practice really.

and keep the hook tipped brushes, too...
I use mine to get in little areas that are hard for me to get to

hell yeah, I like a good hook tip 4/0 for painting eyes.

You guys are weird

My hooktips either get trashed immediately or I use them purely for drybrushing and applying base textures.

Nah a good hook tip is a useful tool! You ever see the guys in China who paint the inside of glass bottles using hooked brushes?

I can't say I have.

I don't throw anything away because "I paid money for this..it will be useful later, honest."

I certainly believe there will always be a use for a worn brush in basing.

Thanks for the tips. I ordered some Valejjo Brush Restorer which is different to the Master's soap, apparently it's good for getting any paint out of the ferrule. It was only a fiver so figured it was worth a go.

One thing I have been doing is mixing my paint with my brush because that's what Duncan does on Warhammer TV, I'll stop doing that and use a cheapy brush or the other end to stir, hopefully that'll help. I'm going to also use distilled water instead of tap water, I'll just whack some in a dropper bottle as I have like 10 litres of the stuff already.

I have a Windsor and Newton Series 7 #1 still in the tube but I'm terrified of using it lol, hopefully one day I'll be at a level to use it.

Hard water here also. I only use distilled--a gallon will last for years. I keep a couple of 6oz wine bottles with water loaded at all times.

I thoroughly soak my brushes before touching paint, and I never use a good brush to get paint out of the pot...use a cheapie or dead brush to do that.

Put the paint on the palette and thin it a lot. You can dab the distilled water with the good brush and let the water flow into the paint. If you mix colors, again, use the cheap brush.

Thoroughly rinse the brush (yes, waste paint) every 60 seconds or so. I rinse in a small pot of painty water, then another one of clear.

One other thing I've done with forked brushes...use an exacto and cut off one fork, and any stray hairs. It makes a smaller brush, but that's a win as the tiny ones are hard to find where I live. One of my brushes has about 10 hairs on it...but they are nice, neat ones.

ETA: If you are frustrated with getting the mix right, try using black paint on a light undercoat...just as an experiment. Black pigment particles are tiny and go on nice and thin.

Some good advice here. I do have a handful of points that no one else seems to have addressed though:

Use the right size brush. It took me forever to figure this out, but I use the biggest brush I can get away with for the size of the features I'm painting. Paint dries out slower in a bigger brush and it doesn't need reloaded as often, both contribute to brush life. And as an added bonus a bigger brush tends to result in a smoother application of paint.

Use the right type of brush. It took me even longer to figure this out, but they make different brush profiles for a reason. I used to do everything with a Round, but now I do most of my blocking and wash work with a Flat and only switch to a round for smaller detail work. I find it to be faster and I get a more even coat that way. I have a gigantic #10 flat I use for painting tanks (it's about an inch wide) and it makes that job so much faster it's not even funny.

Hi,
I've never been convinced by brush soap either to be honest,I always end up with build ups of dry paint regardless As for thinning paint> buy yourself a bottle of Humbrol acrylic thinner and some plastic pipettes (ebay y'know, the things you see scientists use for squirting things into test tubes) just drop small amounts onto paint until you get the paint to a suitable level.
For cleaning brushes go to your nearest DIY store and buy a bottle of methylated spirits,perfect for cleaning brushes. As for the brushes themselves it's hit and miss,you can have big name brushes which are expensive but can be just as awful as the cheap ones. Humbrol have good four pack brushes both for acrylic and enamels and their points tend to hold. ABC brushes tend to have good brushes as well(On ebay)

Hope this helps.
Slipstream

masters brush soap is amazing. not that expensive, and definitely worth it. plus one pot lasts you ages, (depending on usage of course)

Regarding cleaning with methylated spirits, that will work, but personally I think that theyre unnecessary. theyre very poisonous, usually smell bad, and are difficult to dispose of properly, so why use them if you don't need to? water and the soap is all you need.

As I understand it, meths can be pretty destructive to natural hair brushes as it strips all the oils out of them. I've seen it recommended to use something like Masters brush soap afterwards to help with this, but I've not tried it myself.

That's something I forgot to mention too.

Also, this could be related to the kind of tap water in your area?
I'm using bottles sold for steam irons, not distillated but many minerals (i.e. limestone) are filtered out. It's quite cheap at the supermarket. Maybe you can try using this to dilute your colors?

Water hardness shouldn't be an issue in the UK. I live in Oxfordshire and my water is at the hardest end of the scale. I have no problems with it.

The Newman wrote:
Use the right type of brush. It took me even longer to figure this out, but they make different brush profiles for a reason. I used to do everything with a Round, but now I do most of my blocking and wash work with a Flat and only switch to a round for smaller detail work. I find it to be faster and I get a more even coat that way. I have a gigantic #10 flat I use for painting tanks (it's about an inch wide) and it makes that job so much faster it's not even funny.

This.

Acrylic paints' water solubility (allowing the paints to seep beyond the ferrule) & semi permanent properties (needing mechanical scrubbing) makes it impossible to fully mitigate the damage done to the brush.

Also, you have to recognize that brushes are goods with service life - it's not buy once keep forever item. No matter how well you maintain your brush, acrylic paints will inevitably damage the brush.

If you must use expensive brush to paint acrylics; if you dip your brush into the pot to transfer clumps of paint - it may be wasteful but always wash the brush after the transfer, before thinning it on the palette. Better yet, use a different brush to transfer the paints onto the palette.

By using appropriate brushes for appropriate occasions, you are effectively increasing the longevity of the brushes by distributing the workload on them.

Or just buy cheap synthetics expecting to replace them as tips warp.

Brush type also makes a difference. Natural hair tend to wear out faster than synthetic but for finer work I prefer natural hair. For large surfaces I use synthetic and you can buy a synthetic brush at Hobby Lobby for $3-4 US.

The unfortunate nature of acrylic paints will over time destroy brushes no matter how much you pay for said brush but a more expensive brush will last longer than a cheap brush so long as you take care of it.

As to thinning mediums I guess it depends on what you want to do. Thinning paints for general application only requires water (wet palettes are a godsend).

For glazes and finer detail work I always use a water/retarder/glaze medium mix. Compared to what the actual Warhammer models cost an 8oz bottle of flow-aid retarder that costs $12 that will last several months, maybe even a full year is a drop in the bucket of expenses that is this hobby.

Not sure what is already mentioned, but my suggestions would be;
firstly, use a large brush. 2-3-4 for base coats, size 2 for most of your other work. Smaller for the smallest details.
2. Try not to get paint over the bristles, in under the metal. This is one of the reasons you use a larger brush to keep this from happening.
3. Rinse the brush in water often, every third or fourth time you dip the brush for more paint.
4. Thin your paints and use a wet palette. Both of these will make your paints dry slower on your brush.
5. Dry your brushes with the tip down, this is to prevent the paint from drying in the metal part which I think is the main reason this happens. If you don’t have a “paint dryer” ( it sure what it’s called) lay the brush flat to dry rather than setting it bristles up.
6. Always lick the bristles to a tip before putting it away, or make a point with your fingers.

New member, first post. Some thoughts:

I use Humbrol no4 and no8 brushes for basecoating. Raphael 8404 no1 for detail.

Rinse your brush for every couple of minutes of detail work. Dab excess moisture on paper towel and re-form tip by rolling on back of hand.

Master's brush soap is overrated. I use make-up brush cleaner/conditioner at each colour change and end of session. Similar ingredients to hair conditioner. Keeps the points perfect, and as soft as silk when you next return to them. Cleans better than masters as well.

Use 50:50 matte medium and water (in a dropper bottle) for thinning.

Master's has worked the best for me and I've got the same cake of soap I bought 6 years ago and there is still 25% of it left so it's not a very expensive investment.

I wash my brush with Masters soap and then for my W&N 7's I swirl them in Pantene hair conditioner to help keep the hairs soft for next use. Bought all 3 of my W&N brushes the same time I bought my Masters soap and all 3 are still in excellent shape.

As expensive as Warhammer is, $20 or so to keep your brushes clean and in good shape is not that big of a deal.

jivardi wrote:
Master's has worked the best for me and I've got the same cake of soap I bought 6 years ago and there is still 25% of it left so it's not a very expensive investment.

I wash my brush with Masters soap and then for my W&N 7's I swirl them in Pantene hair conditioner to help keep the hairs soft for next use. Bought all 3 of my W&N brushes the same time I bought my Masters soap and all 3 are still in excellent shape.

As expensive as Warhammer is, $20 or so to keep your brushes clean and in good shape is not that big of a deal.

Of course. I bought the Masters soap, but since discovering the makeup stuff, I haven't touched it.