Are Winsor and Newtion Series 7 brushes worth the expense?

Good brushes definately last longer, but  15-35 is a lot of money. I used to buy from Pearl Paint which is a discount art store. Try looking for them. I also buy red sable blends at AC Moore and they seem to do ok for around $5 a brush.

If you know the numbers you need then call Pearl and see what they can do.

Brushes from an art store are far better than those 3 packs of red sable or camel hair from the Hobby Shop .

I guess it depends on what you're comparing them to.

What are you using now?

If you're using "craft grade" brushes or discount store brushes (eg. the "10 (or even 6) on a card" for $2.00 type) then even a mid-range red or Kolinski sable artists brush is going to be like the difference between day and night. IF you're already using "artist grade" brushes, the differences are likely to be more subtle.

For most useful sizes for figures, I'd suggest starting with a size 2, 0 and 3/0 - you should be able to do just about everything you need with those sizes

I haven't used the W&N S7's but they are hard (and expensive) to come by here in Australia and I'd be interested to know if they're significantly better.

 

Well, I bought a single "0" sized series 7 brush a couple of days ago and it maintained its point wonderfully.  Previously I've been using a variety of art-store brand brushes, with a small set of "black gold" brushes as my top-of-the-liners.  Since everybody I've talked to about series 7 brushes (even the guy at the store said his dad thought they were awesome) has raved about them, I decided to drop...ugh...14 bucks on a test item.  The art store keeps 'em in a locked display cabinet and even the small ones come with their own tube.  That said, I'll have to reserve judgement until I've given my new brush more use.

Yes!

I've tried some of their cheaper ones and they don't last as long.  I also have other brand like Princeton, etc. and the one that last the longest is the Series 7 Miniature brush.  It doesn't seem that expensive as some of my other brushes are just about 20% less.  Got mine from www.dickblick.com

"Are Winsor and Newtion Series 7 brushes worth the expense?"

Purely subjective of course, but in my opinion, no.

They are exquisit, hand-made sable brushes, and like all pure sable brushes are intended primarly for watercolor.  In fact we would nomrally say that using them with the ever more popular acrylics will just ruin them in short order... BUT these days with the Andrea/Vallejo technique of "very thin" (watered down) paint, you are getting close to watercolor and can really benefit from the flow control afforded by sable.

At roughly 1/2, even 1/3 the price, but still a most premium product, I've settled on the Winsor & Newton "Sceptre Gold II" which is a sable/synthetic blend so it gives you the control of sable when doing the super thin acrylics, but still holds up a little better in the long run.