Paint brushes for detail work - what to buy?

Quite frequently for small detail work I use the end of a toothpick- those sharp double ended ones.  I shake the paint bottle, then take the top off and place it upside down (the top, that is) on my bench. I dip the end of the toothpick in the paint left in the top. It seems the amount left is about the optimum amount- no worrying about exactly how far to dip the toothpick in the bottle.

Now, the toothpick does not hold much paint, compared to a brush. But this is a tradeoff. You have to keep dipping the pick a lot, but you do not get the problem where a brush suddenly finds a crack or something and a lot of paint flows out all at once, marring the finish.

I do have expensive Kolinsky brushes but I use ultra fine eyelash micro brushes.  You can buy 100 of them for under $3-4 on eBay.  I bought 500 for $10 on eBay. The beauty of them is you use one and throw it away. No cleaning is needed. They are also perfect for applying glue.

Ty Chrisk-k.  that's a great money saving tip.  The same Microbrushes at hobby Lobby are 10 for $2.00 USD.  Yours are waaay cheaper.

I used to use "modeling micro brushes."  When I happened to look at my wife's eyelash micro brushes, I realized that they were essentially the same as more expensive modeling ones. There's nothing special about modeling micro brushes.

Thank You for the tip on the eyelash brushes. I just bought a bunch for almost nothing and they paint perfectly. I love these kind of tips that works great AND saves modeling dough. Chrisk thanks. Terry

I paid almost $100 for 4 ultra fine Kolinsky brushes.  After discovering eyelash brushes, I sold the darn expensive brushes on eBay and actually made a profit!

Thanks guys.  Some interesting ideas here.  I've come across some Italeri brushes so I'll give those a go as I've got one of their larger size brushes at the moment that I use for applying Future and that seems to be holding up quite well.  I can get a set with various sizes for about £8 ($13ish).

I have been wondering for awhile- can you still buy pen points and the pens they fit in?  Seems to me that they would work with thinned paint.  And, I do know folks who do some detail painting with ink- black or colored ink.

Pen points do not work with thin CA glue, that was one of my failed attempts at dotting CA on PE

Don,

Google Calligraphy pens - there are a lot of them out there.  If you know of any art supply stores you cn probable find some there. HTH

You can get the cosmetic microbrushes on ebay for like $3 for 100!

I'm a big fan of modern synthetic artist's brushes.  One brand is called "Golden Taklon"; there are lots of others.

On the basis of about 55 years of modeling, I am firmly of the opinion that the fuss about sable-hair brushes is mostly myth.  They're great brushes, all right, but the synthetic ones, in the hands of a good modeler, can do exactly the same thing - and cost a fraction as much.

They can be had in every conceivable size and shape - from 10/0 to several inches wide.  Art supply stores like *** Blick, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and A.C. Moore's have a huge assortment of them - frequently in sets that save even more money. $5.00 buys an excellent synthetic brush - maybe even two.

jtilley

I'm a big fan of modern synthetic artist's brushes.  One brand is called "Golden Taklon"; there are lots of others.

On the basis of about 55 years of modeling, I am firmly of the opinion that the fuss about sable-hair brushes is mostly myth.  They're great brushes, all right, but the synthetic ones, in the hands of a good modeler, can do exactly the same thing - and cost a fraction as much.

They can be had in every conceivable size and shape - from 1-/0 to several inches wide.  Art supply stores like *** Blick, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and A.C. Moore's have a huge assortment of them - frequently in sets that save even more money. $5.00 buys an excellent synthetic brush - maybe even two.

I just want something that lasts for more than 3 or 4 brief uses without the tip bending and become useless for detailing! Sable, horse, hog, synthetic, whatever, I just want the brush to last!!!

The new (I say new, but actually they've been around for at least thirty years) synthetic brushes, if you clean them reasonably thoroughly (and don't use them for CA adhesive or epoxy), seem to last at least as long as sable ones.  I've got some synthetic brushes that I've had for years. I'm not hyper about cleaning and maintaining them, though, for the simple reason that they're so cheap.

There's an A.C. Moore's arts and crafts store in the same shopping center as our local Barnes and Noble, Target, and grocery.  When I'm there for some other purpose I usually stick my nose into A.C. Moore's to see if it has anything interesting, and I frequently walk out with a package of brushes.  

I got a laugh out of the Forum's automatically bleeping Mr. Blick's first name in my earlier post.  It's the common 4-letter nickname for "Richard," starting with D and ending with K. Well, ok; this is a family website. But I feel sorry for all those who use that nickname routinely; I guess they have to call themselves "Richard" here.  And I suspect the **** Blick company would not appreciate hearing that its name is considered an obscenity.

Do people still name their kid the DK word? It was not uncommon back in my days to know several guys with that name. Don't believe I even know anyone with that name under the age of 60.

If you want good paint brushes then its then look to the art supply companies. Try this one, they have many types of both synthetic and sable  from budget prices to incredibly expensive. Water colour brushes are the ones that you will find have the finest points.

http://www.jacksonsart.com/

From what i've been told by artists, sable brushes (sable being actual animal fur) are best used for water colours - ie, their primary benefit is that they hold water well and will suck up water colours.

I don't think they are actually all that necessary for us modelers who use acrylics and enamels -  i almost exclusively use enamels for brush painting, so i never buy sable, just the synthetic brushes.

I was under the impression that paint thinner would dissolve some types of synthetic fibers used in brushes.  I have always bought real hair brushes because of that.  I think it was the nylon fibers that were a problem. I suppose there is all kind of fiber used in brushes that are synthetic, and they usually do not identify WHICH fiber.

Actually if you use enamels or solvents they will dry out and destroy sable or natural hair brushes. they are only for water based paints.

To keep natural hair brushes from drying out. Try washing them with shampoo and the hair conditioner and let it set a few minutes with the conditioner on, this seems to keep mine in fairly good shape

Hmm. Artists have been using natural-bristle brushes with oil paints and enamels for at least six hundred years, often with spectacular results.

In woodworking books and articles, the golden rule is: don't use natural-bristle brushes for water-based paint or varnish, because the water makes the bristles swell. Many natural-hair brushes are sold with instructions to use them only for solvent-based finishes.

For the tiny quantities of paint involved in model building I think the subject is moot. I've wrecked plenty of brushes - natural and synthetic - by letting enamel or acrylic paint dry in them. More often, I've given up on a brush because I can't get blue, or red, paint completely out of it, so I can't use it for white or yellow. I've been reading for fifty years that "sable-hair brushes will last the rest of your life if you clean them carefully." That just hasn't been my experience.

Nowadays I almost always buy synthetic brushes - largely because they're cheaper. If I have to toss one after a few months, I don't lose sleep over it.

Since we are talking about other hobbies that use brushes, there is another tidbit about fine painting found in Artist's books and articles.

That is that for fine painting, you don't get an expensive tiny brush,,,,,,,you get a good quality paint brush that can hold a fine tip, no matter what size it is.  That is the part of the brush that really counts if you want to do fine lines, or tiny details.  A tiny brush that can't hold a point isn't of any use for nearly anything, because it can't hold a point for fine work, and it doesn't have any paint reservoir to speak of for broader uses.  Low paint holding volume causes more brush strokes showing, since you have more "dry time" as you paint, caused by the pause as you dip more paint into your brush. The paint dries more while you are at the pallette instead of on the model surface.

Also, there is a real large factor involved in brush life, caused in part by how you use the brush. If you aren't decanting paint into a pallette or cup, and decanting thinner into a pallette or cup,,,,,,and "tinning" your brush before loading paint into it,,,,,,,you are abusing your paint brush and causing it to last a shorter life. Only modelers and other types of "non serious" painters dip their brushes directly into paint jars to get paint on a bare brush and stroke it back and forth onto models.  Everyone else "tins" the brush with thinner, loads the brush halfway up the wet area and retins as needed, as they work, and brushes in one direction without going over a previous brush stroke. We wonder how to get paint out from inside the Ferrule,,,,other brush users know they shouldn't be getting paint anywhere near the Ferrule in the first place.

And they paint without getting raw paint actually touching the brush bristles directly, there is always a barrier of thinner between their bristles and their paints.