Hobby Cheating 64 - Brush Selection, Use and Care 

Happy to help buddy as always. If there is anything you need, just reach out.

Awesome, happy to help as always. :)

Hey, it's what it is. Many of us spend a large part of our lives now putting weasel taint in our mouth to shape the brush ;)

Now that's all I can think of when i put a brush in my mouth.

Excellent, glad to hear that and I am happy to hear it's helpful. :)

Happy to help!

Excellent, happy to help as always. :)

I am with you, I wish all of these resources were there when I started in the 90s as well, it's the golden age of miniature painting to be sure. :) - I am very glad that it's all helpful.

Whew, close one - glad I wasn't an American responsible yet again for wasting good english tea. ;)

Happy to help!

Awesome, happy to help as always.

I hope so, it was one of the main reasons I wanted to do this - to make sure people got the most out of their investment :) Glad to help.

Always happy to help. :)

Glad it was helpful! :)

Good call, be careful, it often contains alcohol, so it can dry out natural hair (sable). Along that line, you can use something like hair conditioner (like you use on your head). Basically, a sable brush is real hair, so whatever works on your hair can work on the brush.

@@VinceVenturella Thanks for the suggestions i only use synthetic hair so it shouldn't be a problem, heard real hair brushes are fragile and the cleaning is just like real hair, shampoo, conditioner, the works hehe, just like u suggested.

Happy to help as always, with painting and all weasel taint related needs. :)

Thank you sir, that is very much appreciated.

Thanks for watching and I always hope it helps.

Thank you, I hope it helps you get the most from your brushes of all kinds :)

It's an important thing to remember. ;)

Thank you sir, much appreciated as always.

Thank you very much - thanks for watching and I hope the advice is helpful.

You're welcome! Always happy to help.

Yep

Thank you for watching and commenting. It's greatly appreciated.

Well, I always, 100% say that you should look at priming with an airbrush. It's relatively cheap to get a small airbrush starter set and a little fold up booth (if you have a 1 meter by 1 meter space, that is enough to airbrush) and prime that way. You get a much more even smooth prime and can sidestep this whole issue. Now, that aside, I am not familiar with that primer as we don't have it here in the states, but most primers have other elements in them beyond paint to make them more durable. If you are getting primer paint way down in the ferrule of the brush, it's going to get destroyed almost immediately as that will solidify quite quickly and be very solid. My advice would be if you are going to continue brush on primer, you should buy bulk packs of cheap artist brushes from amazon (you can get 30-40 brushes for $6 US) and use those. Then if they are destroyed, who cares?

Yes, you are also using a 00 probably for most of that work - or as I call it - eyeball and freehand HIGHLIGHT brush ;) - but we have had this discussion before - if it works for you (and it does) then who am I to say you should change? :)

Vince Venturella I moved up to 0 :) And a Cotman 2 for larger areas :)

You have just become my hero.

To some degree, it's just the cost of synthetic brushes. That being said, you can wash synthetics with isopropyl alcohol (don't let it get all the way down in the ferrule, it will melt the glue), but it will really get absolutely everything out and could extend the working life.

I always buy cheap synthetics, I've never had an expensive synthetic actually perform.

Thanks for watching, always appreciated!

You may have noticed throughout my videos that I am very obsessive about certain things - this is one of them. You can see it gets used all the time, but I certainly make sure it's spotless before it goes away ;)

In general, just swishing it around is the right move. The real key is the brush cleaning and making sure that you aren't letting paint either a) get too high up in the ferrule or b) sit in your brush for too long. That's actually the big brush destroyers.

I see a lot of concern around brushes for newer painters and completely understandably, I was in the same place when I started. Here is my best advice. The difference between those two brushes? Probably some size, maybe the type of bristles, but it really doesn't matter. Here would be my advice. Grab yourself a good size pack of cheap synthetic brushes from amazon or the like. Use these for metallics, base coating etc. Abuse them, and generally keep them clean but toss them if they go bad. Grab yourself a nice pack of make-up brushes from amazon or the like and use those for dry-brushing or similar rough work. Same as above. Get yourself a few nice brushes, winsor & newton series 7, Scarff, Da Vinici, Artis Opus, whatever. Something that is sable and nice. Use these only for detail work, careful work and treat them well and clean them regularly. Most people who paint as much as I do have some collection like that of brushes. We use bad brushes or lower quality brushes for big wet blending and base coat style work and then switch into nice brushes for softer detail work. Hope that all helps.

It sounds like it wasn't a great brush, there can be bad versions of the brush (as they are made by hand, so there can always be one or two bad ones in the bunch). If you get it replaced, you might also try giving it a good clean first.

@@VinceVenturella thank you for the insight your advice is better then most brushesahah

Depends on what you are going for and what your base paint is. Certainly you need to for most anything but a base coat as you would want to be working in thinner layers.

Vince Venturella Thanks good sir! Also I was telling my friend about your "Painters Motivating Painters" group for warhammer and we thought it sounds awesome. So can anybody? / how do we join? I think I saw before in another video but I can't remember.

Of course, we welcome all - link is here - plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117252074374119760063

They are usually slightly better than pure synthetics, but really, in the end, there isn't much substitution for real sable brushes.

So in general, they have better control of the paint, they fray less easily and maintain a sharper point. They also clean a little better and hold more paint in the belly. That being said, there are plenty of painters who use synthetics and achieve incredible results, so as always if something works for you, then that is the right choice.

Thanks a lot, that's really helpful.

It'sa fine question, and i'm going to give you a secret. Put a few drops of surfactant or barring that, a drop of dish soap (one, very, very small drop) in your paint water. (Very Small). Swish back and forth, draw it up the side of the cup to force out the water. Dry, repeat.

@@VinceVenturella Thx Vince! That's something I have to try. So the plan here is to put some paint on the brush, do some painting, then do a quick rinse in the cup, dry the brush a bit, and repeat, right? I don't have any surfactant yet, so it will have to be the dish soap for starters. I don't suppose you would use the water with dish soap for thinning paint then?

I have a few, I like them fine. I don't favor synthetics, but if you like synthetic brushes, I think they are an excellent choice.

It's tough, as new, I am not sure what you have. But let's go this way. You want, in general, a larger brush for doing base coat type stuff and a fine brush with a very sharp point for micro-detail (eyes and such) only. Next is probably a good mid-size for when you need goldi-locks. Invest in 1-2 really nice brushes (I like Winsor & Newton series 7 which you can get from Amazon cheap enough), but you use those for your fine work only and not for metallics. Have a nice pack of cheap synthetics (like something you can buy in bulk for $6 from Hobby Lobby) for metallics, washes, and other brush destroying tasks. A big soft dry brush would be next. Hope that all helps and gives you some ideas.

Vince Venturella Thank you!

I think you are fine either way, as long as you can swish and work the brush around like I do here, you will be fine if you break it up.

Thank you sir, much appreciated as always.

I will be on the look out. :)

I have the pale flesh on the list (you mean the very pale right, not the grey - just want to make sure)?

Vince Venturella yes exactly. You had these pale rat ogres which I think you did a purple shade on. I was thinking about doing something like that for Boneripper and having green liquid showing through the cuts and stitches like he's being kept alive by warpstone or something. What do you think?

Lighter spots in spaces like that are always tough. If you are doing hyper pale flesh, bright green warpstone isn't going to show up well. In general, you want light split by dark. Pale flesh split by bright green wouldn't show well most likely. You could either have very dark flesh and bright liquid, or you could do pale flesh, with dark purple bruising surrounding the cuts and scars and then bright again with the fluid. As a last option, you could also have the green liquid be very dark and leaking out onto the flesh.

Vince Venturella I gotcha. The pale flesh on your purple rat ogres weren't that bright though that's why i was thinking the green might work but I'd probably two tone it and have dark in the depths of the cut with lighter green on the outsides. Love what you do buddy! Can't wait to get my goofy ass question answered ! :D

Thank you sir, much appreciated!

Yes, there is definitely a massive quality difference in some of them. Honestly, my feeling would be W&N Series 7 (do not get the miniature ones, the normal brushes), Raphael 8404 or the Slow Fuse sable brushes, which have really impressed me and are costed quite fairly.

@@VinceVenturella Thank you for saving me from making a mistake. Windsor-Newton it shall be.

That can happen I've found with multiple brushes, it's just a sort of accidental thing that happens sometimes and you do have to surgically remove with an ultra sharp razor blade. That being said, Da Vinici are certainly fine, as as Monuments Bomb Wick Igniters if you want to give those a try as you can get those at a great price.

You really don't need anything smaller or to go that small even very often. Something like a 00 is just fine and that's for the smallest details. In general, you're just looking for a good tip, which you get from a high quality sable.

In general, I use various cheap sythetics I get in packs from amazon.

@@VinceVenturella thank you but I think I will stick with Dick Blicks .

Yep, the majority of my work is done with size 1 brushes.

I don't use my good brushes is the short answer. I have specific brushes for metallics. I basically use old sables that have lost their tips or tougher synthetics.

As far as I know, it's probably not super great, but it's not bad either. I don't think it's very air tight anyway and honestly, as long as you add water when you are rinsing your brushes, you are fine.

@@VinceVenturella water seems to just run off of my brush soap, unless I scrape a hole in it with a knife or other sharp object first... I do know nothing of it ends up on the brush...

So sadly this is really just the bane of synthetic brushes. There isn't much you can really do about it. As they get wet and get paint, they just tend to warp over time. Cleaning the brushes more regularly and making sure you don't get any paint too deep in the brush can help, but it's inevitable in the end,. So when getting cheaper synthetic brushes, the key is keep them cheap and plentiful.

@@VinceVenturella I guess it makes sense. In the end,you get what you paid for. Thank you for your time and your work kind sir

@@antoinevoiement5835 hi mate! Sorry I'm late to the party. If giving you trouble from my experience these were the big things. One is paint gets in the furrow (metal part) even a little, on some brushes, can just get the tip undone. Next is cleaning, be fairly thorough, not rough but back and fourth with cleaning until the water is clear when you rinse. Then form a tip with your fingers once you dab dry and sit the brush on its side and let it rest. Third that Vince doesn't mention and it's a thin is metallic paints can fuck your brush lol. So there are flecks of solid in Metallics and these will affect your brushes shape from my experience. Wash these well. What I do is I have a couple of brushes that do the work for metallics because I can clean then more and keep an eye on them. So metallics in my experience suck when you add water so add medium and make sure it's thinner. This is less work on the brush. Other thing is if you are using the brush alot then unfortunately they just wear. Get brushes with lots of bristles to begin with, they hold point well. I got a brand, decent brand, however they weren't robust and sucked for base coating and even washing. So get robust bristles, not necessarily the most expensive. Remember, pick your brushes for your job in mind. If you do a ton of base painting washing and dry brushing you need size 1-2 and look to make sure they look like alot of bristles cause some are actually fine/less bristles. Hope that helps and ofc when you paint follow these tips you are probably not doing one very well as we ALL do 😉🙂

Generally either a synthetic brush OR you want to utilize the nice brush, but make sure you are NOT overloading the brush with paint, just a small amount in the tip and belly of the brush, don't soak it.

Okay, that makes sense thank you

Yep, it can come from two factors. First, if you have a single hair of the brush poking out slightly farther, it's likely to collect enough paint and be thin enough, it will dry almost instantly, which will then attrack more paint, which will dry, and so on. So you want to take a VERY sharp exacto and very carefully cut that away. Option two is just that it's very dry where you are painting and the tip of your brush is drying inordinately fast, in that case, a little retarder in your brush before you go into your paint can help.

@@VinceVenturella Thank you!

Glad I could help!

It's okay, now you know better for the future ;)

I know, I'm so fucking sorry to all the brushes I have right now. Even the ones I thought I was being "Good" to that I bought last weekend. I've messed them up a bit. Woops.

Yep mine's a goner alright.

To start, a size 1. From there, Sure, 2 and 00 are your next steps. :)

Painting is a true passion for me, so I can spend 30-40 hours painting Friday and Saturday happily with little if any breaks. I am lucky that I have a single-minded focus on things.

It's a very productive gift, i'm incredibly fickle when it comes to anything. i get distracted way too easily.

Distraction has never been my issue, as my wife trying to get my attention will tell you ;)

I don't like them, they are generally overpriced for lower quality. Either cheap bulk synthetics or artist brushes are the way to go. As to tiny, I am not sure what you mean.

@@VinceVenturella ah ok. Thanks for the reply! Really appreciate it man! By "tiny" I mean is it worth buying a brush that has tiny bristles? Or can a thick brush with a lot of bristles and a pointy tip do the job. For really small detail work like eyes for example.

@@thelonepainter4760 It's worth it to have a good size 0 or 00, but it's for very precise work and RARELY touched, it wouldn't be my first purchase, a good sable size 1 is where you start.

@@VinceVenturella ok thanks again!!😊

In general, I do this after each project (so I paint one project - 1 miniature, or box, or "thing" at a time. When that project is done, I then go through this cleaning. Hope that helps and no issue, always happy to assist.

@@VinceVenturella Ok. I imagine that you make a project in one day, so you do it each day I imagine. Thank you. Honestly, your one of the best help about painting mini on the web. Many thanks.

Glad I could help :)

They are more or less the only brush I have used for a while (for fine work, I buy plenty of cheap $5 packs of brushes for rough and less detailed work). :)

That's a shame it cost that much (which is crazy) - you could look into other brands and see if you can find something you like. Scharff, Raphael and Da Vinici are all quite nice and varying prices. You could also just hunt around for a sable brush of any brand that is cheap and give it a try, but yes, that is one of the nice advantages of having the Series 7 in my local store, I can always verify the quality of it before I buy it.

That's actually a really good point. I added that as a video on it's own for the future.

Exactly. ;)

Correct, and I probably underestimated for safety accounting for those weeks I am on the road. When at home, I try to do 60-70 hours each week. ;)

I see you never sleep or you have one of those time turners from hog warts that allows you to do twice as much work as normal.

Well, hopefully we can turn that habit around ;)

It's better not to know. :)

I mean, it's what they're made of. ;)

Yeah...that's a challenge.

Yep, shocking huh.