The Frozen Brush

Good tidings everyone and welcome back to another set of Wargamer Ramblings!  If you're like me some snow has recently come through for unprimed models that can only mean one thing...unprimed models!  Since I've not been able to get my stuff primed for the journey ahead with the low temps I'm looking at some of my brushes and thought "hey brushes can be a blog post."  So let's talk...about dat brush.

If you have no experience in it, and in my opinion if you don't paint much/often, then you would miss out on the fact that the whole painting process becomes a pretty personal thing.  When you think about it every detail becomes a series of personal preferences and decisions.  That can be another rambling topic for another day, today I want to focus on my brush decisions.

My old favorite brush line

 I've used a few brands before and for the longest time I was a pretty big advocate of GW's paint brush line.  While I cannot say if they were the 'best' I can say that they were quite excellent in my opinion.  I became accustomed to the old blue handle brushes (I think they've moved to a black handle with different color tips?) that reportedly utilized sable hair.  They lasted several years of use and abuse and honestly I think if I had know how to take better care of them they might have lasted more.  I sometimes miss them to be frank.

I use this brush from the PP line

Right now I've been using a combination of brushes from Vallejo, Privateer Press, and Army Painter.  They've been filling their purpose in being able to paint the models but there are some quirks about them that I am not a fan of.  I have to say I do like Privateer Press's ability for their brushes to keep their form and point.  I have one of their drybrushing brushes but it doesn't do the trick like my old, cut bristle, custom drybrush.  With most of the bristles being made from nylon they have a different feel to them that in some ways I am still not used to.  I might look into some Kolinsky-Sable brushes into the near future.

Have no idea what these mean just yet

 Currently I use about 5 brushes consistently, but have access to some more niche styles.  Truth be told I am still not sure how to classify them in 'official sizes' like the 5/0, 0, or 00 (I have no idea what those mean I just see them online).  So if you are more experienced than I, you will get an idea as I go through the GW equivalent.  I use a Fine Detail, Detail, Basecoat, Drybrush, and Large brushes.  Here's a good chart of what sizes I'm working with:

I find that with most models these 5 brushes pretty much do all the work.  I use the Large brush to get the larger areas painted up.  I follow up with Basecoat for highlights/large details/areas that need to be covered with large amounts but are too small for the Large brush (i.e. cloaks).  Then drybrush for you guessed it, the drybrushing.  I mostly use Detail for most of the smaller work, with Fine Detail being reserved for the really reeeeeaaaally small things. 

The old blue handle brushes

Sometimes I will use the older Tank brush especially when I am painting up larger models like a Colossal or a vehicle of some form.  I have a Stippling brush but I found that the bristles are not easy to work with and I've not gotten the results I've been hoping for.  A special mention I do want, and it might be a different post to go over everything about it, but I do have an airbrush!  I invested in a Grex T-whatever and I've been using to get some painting done quickly.  The clean up is definitely more than your standard brush but the ability to transition colors, basecoat large amounts of models quickly, and get some other unique effects have made it worth the cost and effort.

Take care of your brushes (this is the shit!)

 So there we have it, a quick overview of my own personal brush system.  As I said it's a personal thing and you might not like some of the tools I use (vice versa).  That doesn't make it wrong, because it all boils down to personal choice and preference.  So what works for you, what tools do you use in your painting and what do you prefer?  Until then happy gaming fellow wargamers!