I ask out of curiosity:
I see many benches around me, even at the Museum I am President of. What I see is total disrespect for one of the most basic tools in our tool-boxes.
What do you think a paint Brush is? Is it a hairy ended tool for "slapping" on pigmented material called paint? That's the phrase I Usually hear. And on some models that is what we must do to achieve the textures and look you want.
Bye the way, What type of brush do you use for that? There as many sizes of brushes as there are models of PanzerKamphWagen 4s! Each one has a suggested or planned use. Here's an interesting thought, I bet a great many of you would be afraid to ask your ladies to share with you. Look at the different brushes they use, to coin a phrase" To Put on their Face"
I have about twenty different sizes of "EYELINER" brushes to paint fine details on the many 1/350 and other size ships I build. I have six dedicated " BLUSH" brushes for dusting and weathering my models. Why Make-Up brushes? They are made out of finer hairs of whatever critter they use for bristles. I think some of my "EYELINER" brushes are made from "MINK", they are so costly.
The key to them is softness. Now, let me cure you of a terrible affliction many of you have. It's how you clean and store those wonderful tools. Do you lay them down and then let them get pushed all around the work area sometimes getting the bristle area jammed against something? Don't say no! I have done It many times so I am sure you have too.
I got taught a very important lesson when I was restoring a house built in the 1880s. I had to hire a painter to help me out. The fellow showed up and I thought I was going to have help him out of his truck. I thought he was to old to be the guy I had hired. He spryly jumped out of the old 49 International with the very well kept tool boxes on the bed-sides.
He walked up very fast and we shook hands. I took him around and showed him what we needed. He said "Okay,I'll be here in the morning at seven" I was there when he arrived. The first thing he did was pack up all the paint I had there and said they were the wrong ones for the colors we wanted.
He brought in the ones he wanted to use. Spread a canvas sheet on the floor and proceeded to lay out brushes and paint matched to where it would go. The brushes surprised me. They looked like brand new ones. When asked, he assured me some were over twenty years old.
He then surprised me with a very good education on the care of brushes, separating the ones for different media and throwing away the Foam faux brushes laying around explaining they were for dummies and just trash!
When we talked over lunch he showed me some of his detail brushes he used on murals and such for touch-ups and re-viving them. I couldn't believe many,"Red Sable" were over twenty or thirty years old just like the bigger ones.
I learned that day NEVER to push the bristles down to the bottom of the jar of thinner when cleaning them. I learned to roll them gently bristle downward with thinner till the thinner ran of as I pressed them into a towel( Paper) and then rolded them then too. Then Put them in another jar of thinner , rolled them again and then Blotted them clean.
He also showed me something important. NEVER put more than a quarter of the bristle length in the paint,That it wouldn't get into the base of the bristle in the ferrule( The Metal Band around the bristle Base). He said once that happened, it would continue to build up from capillary action from the bristles till it ( The Brush) was rendered unuseable!
So clean them gently, Use good Quality brushes and clean well and care well for them. There's one trick he showed me also. Remember how stiff and in shape the brush was when you bought it? It was dipped in water and shaped and dried before packaging.
I personally( here goes the yucky part ) Spit on mine and shape them with my lips. I now have some pushing thirty years in use! One more note( MINE) Never just clean brushes used in acrylics in plain water. Use Dawn and wash them gently( The roll method) and Put tubular shields on them to protect the bristles and stack bristles up in a small narrow glass or cardboard tube cut for this purpose. Happy Painting!!