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I tried recently to paint the lines on a Necron Cairn model with a Games Workshop Layer S brush and suffered a terrible defeat, lots of paint was pushed over the side of the lines when it wasn't supposed to be.

I have an Artificer Layer XS brush that I probably should have used instead. I plan on painting another Cairn in the near future but I want to make sure I use the best fine tip brush I can, I don't want there to be any mistakes.

Does anyone know of any finer tipped brushes than the ALXS that are of really good quality? Is the ALXS good enough?

try a 4/0. I use Windsor and newton or Prolene Pro Arte

Honestly, just try your Artificer and you'll be fine. They are a tad overpriced but they're not bad brushes by any stretch. I mean I have Raphaels and W&Ns but I still do most of my work with my Artificer M. That brush is absolutely exquisite. I can't get it to split even if I try. My Artificer S is slightly worse so YMMV.

For very long, over 12", thin lines I used a brush that has very long bristles. The brush bristles are about 1 or 2" long.
Bristle length is for a long contentious line to have enough paint. However I also used a raised hand and guide jig i made. But there is quite a bit of practice involved with that brush.

For shorter lengths, I would flatten the normal detail brush on the palate and use the flatness or use fine Flat brush to paint the lines...
Still, a raised hand and guide might be useful.

Hold on, let me take a picture so you know what I am talking about.
Hope this helps.

Mothsniper, I actually bought one of those on amazon by mistake, so it's good to know that's the purpose of that brush. Makes sense, but I doubt I'll ever need something like that for 40k.

Always remember, just because the line slopped over doesn't mean failure. You can always just clean up the bad spots with the base color.

Sometimes the best way to get a really thin line is to paint it thicker than necessary, and then go back with the base color on either side and thin it down to the desired width.

 Horst wrote:
Mothsniper, I actually bought one of those on amazon by mistake, so it's good to know that's the purpose of that brush. Makes sense, but I doubt I'll ever need something like that for 40k.

Awesome!

 Vulcan wrote:
Always remember, just because the line slopped over doesn't mean failure. You can always just clean up the bad spots with the base color.

Sometimes the best way to get a really thin line is to paint it thicker than necessary, and then go back with the base color on either side and thin it down to the desired width.

Agree 100% Painting negative space in a way.

The Raphael 8404 or a Windsor and Newton Series 7 (not the minature varient, just the normal one). I cant think of anything better to be honest with you.

I like the rosemary series 33 size 0 for that.

I have a AP psycho brush, it’s a fine brush but useless for anything bigger than the mini’s eyes/ mouth, the paint just dries up as soon as you remove the brush from the pallett

An Amazon Q+A said size is approx 30/0 idk

You want a brush with a good point, not necessarily a smaller one. If it's got a good point on it, you can paint eyes with a size 2 brush. A larger brush will hold more paint, which might be useful for painting a longer line in a single stroke without the paint starting to thicken or dry.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
You want a brush with a good point, not necessarily a smaller one. If it's got a good point on it, you can paint eyes with a size 2 brush. A larger brush will hold more paint, which might be useful for painting a longer line in a single stroke without the paint starting to thicken or dry.

We agree with this one, we tend to use size 1 brushes for anything we do and we've managed to get really fine lines and details using them, if we make any mistakes, we just a small amount of our paint unthinned to tidy it up. You don't even notice the fact that you've used it unthinned (Unless you make a really big mistake...)

For really long distances rigger brushes are a good choice but then if you're doing really long distances wouldn't a strong drybrush in one direction do the job better and then tidy it up afterwards?