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I'm new to painting miniatures and wasn't sure I wanted to spend a lot to see how much I would enjoy it, so I went to a big box art supply place and bought $5 brushes. WOW, do they suck. They already curled up and I'm only on my second miniatures.

I've been browsing this forum and seems there is a lot of controversy about brushes, but it looks like if I want something that will be excellent and last a long time, I have to make an investment in that. Kolinsky Sable Brushes it is! I also know I need to be careful and take care of them properly.

Does everyone keep their bad/old brushes for mixing purposes or anything like that? I've read it's better not to do that with the better brushes. Thoughts?

Yep, I use old brushes for all sorts of stuff, gluing bases, drybrushing, stippling - all the jobs that would ruin a decent brush really fast.

I have a local store that makes their own animal hair brushes (usually pig, but sometimes they have some cheap horsehair ones) that are fairly cheap, but yeah I know what you mean about the synthetic ones. I use to use nylon brushes and god those sucked when you had to do a vehicle or a large squad.

I usually avoid mixing and try to get every hue I need, since with the tiny amount of paint we're working with you either always mix way too much, or the paint dries out instantly (I know I should invest in a wet palette, currently trying to build one). But I keep around my older brushes depending on how bad the conditions are:

If the bristles just separates a little, I use it for basecoating for when I don't mind a little spill here or there. That or inking. the tiny spread helps it get into the corners and over details.

If the bristles separates a lot (but not to the point of unusable) I use it for drybrushing. Sometimes I even clip some of the bristles off so I get a smaller brush to do localized drybrushing (like the magazine on a bolter).

There are plenty of jobs for old / used / screwed up brushes where you don't want to wear out your good ones. E.g.:

Drybrushing terrain
Apply washes to larger areas
Stippling (wear, rust, etc... effects)

I do 95% of my brush work with old brushes and only use my pristine ones when I need to be very detailed or clean.

Good synthetic ones are good for lots of little jobs you wouldn't want to use your nice brushes on - mostly I use them on terrain and some basing. But old ruined ones, natural or synthetic, both have great uses as the others have stated, for gluing, drybrushing etc. I only recently threw out an old brush and that was because it was beyond redemption due to accidentally getting super glue in it (do not do that lol)

I'm relearning how to paint miniatures too since I've been out of the hobby for 14 years, and when I first started I was going through paint brushes left and right. Here's a few things I've learned the hard way to help my brushes last longer:

Don't put too much paint on the brush. If the paint gets close to the handle the bristles tend to flay outwards.

Wait until super glue is completely dry before painting (if not priming with spray) !

Only jab the brush away from you when trying to get hard to reach spots, and only if there's no other way to reach them. Sometimes jabbing the brush into a tight spot will cause a few bristles to catch on the model and splay.

Don't let the paint dry on the brush. Dried paint will cause the bristles to flay when close to the handle, and will decrease the flexibility and decrease the fine point when close to the tip. Some paint pigments when dried have actually destroyed the bristles when I removed them.

Don't mash the paintbrush on the bottom of the cup when dipping it in water, it splays the bristles.

Don't let the brush sit in the water container overnight. The water can swell into the handle and crack the paint and wood in cheaper brushes, plus leaving the brush on the bottom of the vessel for a long time will kink the bristles.

Splayed bristles can be removed by grasping with tweezers and plucking out or cutting with tiny scissors (nose hair trimmer), but be very careful not to cut off the good bristles! I do this with my older brushes and trim reuse them until they can't be used anymore.

Synthetic FLAT brushes can be pretty useful, and I still buy cheap synthetic brushes of all types here and there for applying things like Typhus Corrosion or basecoating terrain or terrain boards.

The only thing that's really wrong about synthetic brushes (of any sort) is that the tips curl, shortening the useful life of their primary role.

On the other hand, I think it's worth mentioning that if you don't care for your brushes and keep them tip-top clean, you're just as well off buying cheap synthetics, using them til they're gunky, and then tossing them out.

 Talys wrote:
Synthetic FLAT brushes can be pretty useful, and I still buy cheap synthetic brushes of all types here and there for applying things like Typhus Corrosion or basecoating terrain or terrain boards.

The only thing that's really wrong about synthetic brushes (of any sort) is that the tips curl, shortening the useful life of their primary role.

On the other hand, I think it's worth mentioning that if you don't care for your brushes and keep them tip-top clean, you're just as well off buying cheap synthetics, using them til they're gunky, and then tossing them out.

My biggest problem is that the brushes I have have no tip!! They curled up from the first use. Sucks, LOL.

OP, I have never had a synthetic brush curl up after only 1 or 2 minis. I bought a set of synthetics for less than $10 when I first started, and they didn't really start to curl for at least six months (ballpark 50 minis). It's possible you had some bad luck and purchased a bad set, or they were just low quality. There are higher quality synthetics out there, so I don't think it's fair to make a blanket statement that all synthetics suck. As others have said above, painting technique and brush care can help keep your brushes in good shape. All brushes eventually wear out and will need to be replaced, but you can use them for other techniques (drybrushing, etc.). Hope this helps. Keep painting, and post some pics of your work here to share. Thanks!

OP, if you want to save a bit of money, Red Sable will give you very near the same painting experience as Kolinsky. With proper care care and cleaning, they will last years as well. Kolinsky is the Gold Standard, to be sure, but Red Sable is excellent as well. I would think any place that sells Kolinskys will also have quality Red Sable brushes. Bottom line, synthetics and acrylic don't mix.

I follow the same principles as everyone above - for mixing large amounts of paint, or applying white glue to bases for sand or rocks, I'll usually use some $2 cheapo brush, but even there, I won't use synthetic if I can avoid it.