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Brush Sizes


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What Goldeneagle said. ::D:

 

The DaVinci Maestro is wonderful, especially if you use a feathering layering style, and unsurpassed in my opinion for detail work. They're a little longer and narrower in shape, kinda like halfway between a normal round and a liner, and usually about fifty cents to a dollar more on www.dickblick.com than a Series 7. I painted an entire zombie dragon and rider with just that one #1 brush...

 

Of course, for most if not all of my daily work (insert Shameless Reaper Plug <tm> here) it's still the Reaper Kolinsky 5/0, which are a little more forgiving of abuse than the Maestros (and boy, do I abuse 'em...). ::):

 

--Anne

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I use several dozens of different types of brushes for different types of miniatures, bases, and dioramas. My paintbrush collection is somewhat vast, gets easy to lose track of which ones I use for "this" and which ones I use for "that" but I must admit that the following paintbrushes have served me well time and time again:

 

Winsor & Newton series 7 #1, #0, #00, #000

Armory nylon 0, 4/0, 5/0, 10/0, 20/0

Reaper drybrush 1, drybrush 2, 5/0, 10/0

Vallejo synthetic 0, 1, 2/0, 3/0, 4/0

Grumbacher Series 626 #00

Princeton 6250R Round #0, #1

Escoda Kolinsky 3/0, 4/0, 5/0

 

The rest of my paintbrushes are off brands, cheap, and vary in sizes. All of my brushes have serverd me in some way or another, but the above mentioned are the ones I use the most. If I had to recommend any of them, I offer the following:

 

Beginner - Any cheap brand, Armory may be good for this.

Intermediate - Reaper/Vallejo

Advanced - Winsor & Newton

Master - not there yet.

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Beginner - Any cheap brand, Armory may be good for this.

Intermediate - Reaper/Vallejo

Advanced - Winsor & Newton

Master - not there yet.

 

It's not a matter of how good you are, but how much you're willing and able to sink into the addiction. I'm trying to figure out how to justify some kolinsky's to my wife and I'm an ok painter. (but I'm getting better!)

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It's not a matter of how good you are, but how much you're willing and able to sink into the addiction.

 

I can agree with that, however I think beginners will find that sinking $15 for a single paintbrush may be a little much. This is why I recommend cheaper brushes until they get the hang of what it is they are doing. On the flip side of that, I've known people who have that "knack" for painting and pick up on things right away. Three years ago, I introduced a young man to this hobby and in four days he was painting as well as I was... now he is much better than I am. "They" say that the best painter will still get great results from a crappy brush but a poor painter will still produce poor quality with the best brushes.

 

So yeah, I agree. I guess it's all relative to how much you are willing/able to drop on brushes, regardless of your skill level.

 

::):

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Although I have a variety of brush sizes, I found 0, 1 & 2s are what I use the most, all W&N 7s or Vallejo kolinskys. I would recommend that you learn to paint with the largest brush you can, if it has a good tip you can paint almost anything with a 1. Invest in good brushes now, then you won't have to unlearn any bad habits you picked up by using a cheap brush.

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sometimes I get the feeling I'm the only one who uses them, but I pretty much only use 2 brushes, GW detail brush and GW small drybrush...for someone who spends this much time painting, I really should probably have an idea about what all the 00000's mean :blush:

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I have a GW fine detail brush (I mostly use it for applying glue to bases!), it's roughly quivalent to a 3/0 (or 000 - means the same thing).

 

I very much dislike GW brushes. At least, the ones I have can't retain a tip to save my paint job. Of course, they were all old when I started using them - they are my husbands old brushes - so they're more than 3 years old.. :) Their worst offense is that they lose bristles left and right all over my models!

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I've got 5 brushes that I do most of my work with. These guys have held shape for over a year through 20+ 28mm and 200+ 15mm figures. Being a tool collector, I've got backups ready to go when these guys buy the farm...

 

Reaper Kolinsky Sable 0

Reaper Kolinsky Sable 5/0

Winsor & Newton Kolinsky Sable 0

Winsor & Newton Kolinsky Sable 00

Winsor & Newton Kolinsky Sable 000

 

I use these less often:

Reaper Kolinsky Sable 2

Winsor & Newton Kolinsky Sable 2

Winsor & Newton Kolinsky Sable 3

Hobby Lobby Painter's Touch 10/0

Hobby Lobby Painter's Touch 5/0

Hobby Lobby Painter's Touch 3/0

Hobby Lobby Painter's Touch 2/0

Hobby Lobby Painter's Touch 0

Hobby Lobby Painter's Touch 2

Hobby Lobby Painter's Touch 4

 

The Reaper & Winsor 0 brushes are comparable in size (keeping in mind that most manufacturer's do not conform to a single standard for their sizes). The Reaper 5/0 is thicker than the Winsor 000 at the ferrule, but has a smaller tip. The Hobby Lobby Painters Touch stuff is a little bit smaller and gives a bit more than Reaper or W&N... but the reason I've got 'em is because they are sold close to home & they were the first decent Sables I could find in a local store (bought 'em prior to Reaper selling sables).

 

Sooo... that's probably too much information considering it's pretty much a repeat of what everyone else has said....

 

Anne & John will eventually turn me to the darkside of also using DaVinci's... but I've really got no reason to get new brushes until a few of 'em have a blow out....

 

Rgds,

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I use three brushes really. I have so many more than that that just sit around wanting to be used that it makes me sad to not use them.

 

I have a 1/8 in flat brush that I have no idea on the size 'cuz it was cheap but I use it for almost all of my basecoating, the brissles get in all the nooks on the 1st pass.

I have two reaper non-sable brushes that I use, the 3/0 for almost everything and the 20/0 for everything else.

 

I've had nice brushes before, (for painting painting not mini painting) and I loved them. But my favorite got eaten by a anxious (left home alone) dog along with my cloth napkins. I have told myself that when I have a big yard of my own I can buy nice brushes again.

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W&N series 7 #0 the most, 3/0 for a lot of detail work or sometimes a 2/0, and if I'm basecoating larger areas by hand I'll use a Master's Touch, the Michael's one, #4 flat. That one lays down a lot of paint quick.

 

And of course for really big areas like a dragon or mostly one color things like CAVs it's the good ole Iwata Revolution airbrush. That one can be about an inch-and-a-half brush if you need it to.

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