I had a half-day shift yesterday and dropped in my local GW to get a few pots of washes and paint. Finished my errands early so I figured I might as well take another look at my local HobbiCraft store. 15 minutes of browsing the brushes aisle and I was ready to leave when this employee walked behind me so I asked him if they stocked any Series 7s. Two shelves worth of brushes, maybe 6 "boxes" deep of different brushes, and I was pointed to a column of brushes, 3 "boxes" deep that containted the brushes I was looking for.
While other brush ranges have so much space, the Series 7s actually occupied about 1% of all that. I would've missed them if I hadn't asked. So, I picked a 000, 0, and a 1 and had a look at my first "proper" brushes. Then I looked at the price. :shock:
Boy, were they expensive!
At this point, I had ordered a 3/0, 0, and a 1 of Raphael brushes from Jackson's Art Supplies so I was low on cash, but with the Raphaels coming, I wanted some Series 7s to compare with. I ditched the 1 and went home with a 0 and a 000. I had asked the store employee if I could return the brushes if I didn't like the point and he said as long as the brushes were not used with paint, I could, so I tried the brushes with my clean water first.
And I automatically saw why these brushes were superior. The bristles form into a point naturally (I have to coax my GW basecoat brush sometimes), have a firm "feel" to them (doesn't "flex" or bend so much), and are very good at holding paint. Often times, as I wipe it lightly across the paper towel I use to suck off excess paint, I am surprised at how much runs off from the brush and I am even more surprised at how much area the remaining paint in the brush can still cover! The more I painted (I worked on the eyes, the skulls and aquila, and the soft armor areas of a space marine), the more I also noticed how "predictable" the brushes were. A small flick of the fingers always produced the same results, the brush's firmness gave me confidence to gently touch and paint the edges of the aquila; the overall experience just provided leaps and bounds of increase in my painting confidence.
At first, I tried the 000 brush to paint the green onto the eyes.... for some reason the 000 did not hold as much paint, or the paint would not flow too well. I am not sure if this is a brush characteristic or due to my paint --- I don't dilute this green paint more than what a moist brush can hold since wet paint "flows" too much and I want more control of the eyes... however, pure paint sometimes doesn't want to flow off from the brush! So I resorted to using the 0 brush and it was even better than my GW brush in terms of control and flex. My space marine eyes are not perfect, but now I know that is due to my technique (brush stroke and how I hold the mini) rather than a fault of the equipment.
The funny thing now is that I'm using the 000 brush for Boltgun Metal application. I have to rinse off the paint from the brush every minute or so as the dried paint makes the brush stiff but after a nice clean, a bit of water (what the brush can hold), and a nice swirl in my Boltgun Metal paint blob, I can paint the fine bolter details with confidence again. The paint does not stick too much nor does it flow too well which is perfect; this makes me wonder what I did wrong with the eyes application I did earlier.
Anyway, my Raphael brushes came in this morning. And have so far been unused. I'll give them a try later when I paint my Assault Marines, but to be honest, they're looking like "extra" brushes for now.
I think I spent ~£17 for these two brushes. The Jackson's Art Supplies catalog says I can get them for ~£10. To all who says these brushes are expensive, I say bullshit. They are worth every penny and then some more. If I've had these brushes before, I would've saved myself a lot of grief. I will gladly pick up some more of these brushes, maybe have 2 or 3 of the size 0 brushes and maybe have each brush dedicated to a specific color/color range in my paint scheme, though I have yet to feel the need for that. So far, my size 0 has gone and applied reds, oranges, grays, blacks, and greens with satisfying precision and no evidence of "contamination" from previous colors. So maybe I'll just have a few more brushes lying around "just in case" or maybe for metallic paint duty.
I love these brushes. I can't wait to try the Raphaels and compare but at this point, I totally do not feel the need and I am more than ecstatic with my W&N Series 7s.
However, being new to this hobby, I'll close this post with a query: What other brushes do you use and what do you use them for?
Like I said, the 0 brush seems versatile enough for all but the finest application requriements which the 000 can cover, and my GW basecoat brush has now been delegated to paint-mixing and basecoat/wash applications so I am wondering what other brushes I might need for other applications.
Now all I have to make up my mind with is the proper "paint recipe" for my Blood Angels! :clap:
While other brush ranges have so much space, the Series 7s actually occupied about 1% of all that. I would've missed them if I hadn't asked. So, I picked a 000, 0, and a 1 and had a look at my first "proper" brushes. Then I looked at the price. :shock:
Boy, were they expensive!
At this point, I had ordered a 3/0, 0, and a 1 of Raphael brushes from Jackson's Art Supplies so I was low on cash, but with the Raphaels coming, I wanted some Series 7s to compare with. I ditched the 1 and went home with a 0 and a 000. I had asked the store employee if I could return the brushes if I didn't like the point and he said as long as the brushes were not used with paint, I could, so I tried the brushes with my clean water first.
And I automatically saw why these brushes were superior. The bristles form into a point naturally (I have to coax my GW basecoat brush sometimes), have a firm "feel" to them (doesn't "flex" or bend so much), and are very good at holding paint. Often times, as I wipe it lightly across the paper towel I use to suck off excess paint, I am surprised at how much runs off from the brush and I am even more surprised at how much area the remaining paint in the brush can still cover! The more I painted (I worked on the eyes, the skulls and aquila, and the soft armor areas of a space marine), the more I also noticed how "predictable" the brushes were. A small flick of the fingers always produced the same results, the brush's firmness gave me confidence to gently touch and paint the edges of the aquila; the overall experience just provided leaps and bounds of increase in my painting confidence.
At first, I tried the 000 brush to paint the green onto the eyes.... for some reason the 000 did not hold as much paint, or the paint would not flow too well. I am not sure if this is a brush characteristic or due to my paint --- I don't dilute this green paint more than what a moist brush can hold since wet paint "flows" too much and I want more control of the eyes... however, pure paint sometimes doesn't want to flow off from the brush! So I resorted to using the 0 brush and it was even better than my GW brush in terms of control and flex. My space marine eyes are not perfect, but now I know that is due to my technique (brush stroke and how I hold the mini) rather than a fault of the equipment.
The funny thing now is that I'm using the 000 brush for Boltgun Metal application. I have to rinse off the paint from the brush every minute or so as the dried paint makes the brush stiff but after a nice clean, a bit of water (what the brush can hold), and a nice swirl in my Boltgun Metal paint blob, I can paint the fine bolter details with confidence again. The paint does not stick too much nor does it flow too well which is perfect; this makes me wonder what I did wrong with the eyes application I did earlier.
Anyway, my Raphael brushes came in this morning. And have so far been unused. I'll give them a try later when I paint my Assault Marines, but to be honest, they're looking like "extra" brushes for now.
I think I spent ~£17 for these two brushes. The Jackson's Art Supplies catalog says I can get them for ~£10. To all who says these brushes are expensive, I say bullshit. They are worth every penny and then some more. If I've had these brushes before, I would've saved myself a lot of grief. I will gladly pick up some more of these brushes, maybe have 2 or 3 of the size 0 brushes and maybe have each brush dedicated to a specific color/color range in my paint scheme, though I have yet to feel the need for that. So far, my size 0 has gone and applied reds, oranges, grays, blacks, and greens with satisfying precision and no evidence of "contamination" from previous colors. So maybe I'll just have a few more brushes lying around "just in case" or maybe for metallic paint duty.
I love these brushes. I can't wait to try the Raphaels and compare but at this point, I totally do not feel the need and I am more than ecstatic with my W&N Series 7s.
However, being new to this hobby, I'll close this post with a query: What other brushes do you use and what do you use them for?
Like I said, the 0 brush seems versatile enough for all but the finest application requriements which the 000 can cover, and my GW basecoat brush has now been delegated to paint-mixing and basecoat/wash applications so I am wondering what other brushes I might need for other applications.
Now all I have to make up my mind with is the proper "paint recipe" for my Blood Angels! :clap:
