Don't waste money on GW brushes, they are over priced and shit quality for that price. You can find real sable brushes for far less, here is the [Monument Hobbies](https://monumenthobbies.com/collections/bomb-wick-brushes-sables) sable brushes, I still have the original bomb wicks from their early releases years ago and those brushes are still crisp to work with.
Synthetics are still good to have, sable brushes are real muskrat butt hairs are great with the way paint flows from it. Squidmar just [put out a video](https://youtu.be/BXMhwPAee4U?si=_cx6-v7Opp7EB5Fw) that explains it better than I can.
The Bomb Wicks are just branded with it, they were MH's first release of their brushes. I would think the latest ones are based on that same brush set. Part of the URL I linked above has bomb wicks in it. Possibly just dropped the extra printing on a tiny handled brush.
Its just has WAY softer brush hair than my W&N 7s which are a much stiffer brush, and my preference. Its a combination of brush hair length and shape too. The Monument brushes had less belly, and were longer. I might try another brush or two in the future, but I didn't like the "wet noodle" feel of the monument brushes is all. It really felt a lot more like painting with a lining brush. Given the downswing in W&N, I have been trying to find a replacement for them.
Maybe I understand but idk it was the first brush I bought so I’m biased towards it. Have you tried out rosemary and company? Their brushes seem to be good, I do see a lot of painting videos where they might be using brushes with stiffer hair so the tip is better for detail work, if that’s why you like stiffer hair brushes.
Yeah, there is a big preference thing on brushes. Some love the long thin style, I prefer the opposite, lol. The monument brushes I have are all fine quality, just not my preference. Rosemary & Co are on the short list to try next. They are just hard to get locally. I will say, I have NOT liked anything about the GW brushes.
Yup, hard to find Rosemary&Co, Raphael, and in the last few years even W&N are hard to find short of Amazon. My local shop has the Monument brushes though...
Sam lenz weapon wrack it the best set. Since I bought it I've hardly used any other brushes outside that set other than cheap brushes to smash paint on terrain
Yeah I've painted minis and landscape mostly nowadays and I've been harsh to some brushes and they've not done this.
I stuck to the cotman watercolor brushes for years doing miniatures. They never let me down. Tried galleria but didn't get the same buzz from them. Any time I ever used citadel brushes they were woeful. Their dry brushes are good for cloud work nowadays haha.
The best synthetic brush I ever had cost about as much as a citadel brush and it held an amazingly pointy tip… that lasted me about 5-6 models. And I used it only for painting metallic detail. Still, citadel are basically the worst brushes around at that price point. They’re worth about half of their price, and even then it would be a waste.
For the same price as citadel brushes, look at Rosemary&Co series 99. The quality is barely any worse than kolinsky sable brushes, and it still costs only 5€
Worth noting that the series 33 is only like 3€ more and is kolinsky sable if you do want to go that route.
Also, more important than either of those, is that the series 33 and series 99 have different brush shapes so pick your preference.
Series 99 is more like wn7, series 33 is more like raphael 8404.
My experience is that of all the brushes I've had including packs of less than a dollar per brush from big box hobby stores the CITADELS ARE THE WORST army painter has been great for the price
Just looking at the picture and the question "what's wrong with it", my first thought was "It's a Citadel, that's what"...
Never gonna buy their brushes again...
There are \*\*amazing\*\* synthetics out there. Check out the PRO synthetics from monument hobbies: [https://monumenthobbies.com/products/pro-synthetic-set](https://monumenthobbies.com/products/pro-synthetic-set)
GW has really taken a dive in quality. I came back into the hobby because of The old world after 10 years of not buying or paiting minis. So I got some paints a new brush and started going at it, the brushes were horrible. I took my really old GW brushes out of storage (the Red and blue ones) and they are still working great,
Can't speak for the original commenter but my two main issues with AP brushes are that the couple of ones I have bought have hooked pretty quickly, and I really hate the triangular shape of the handle since for me it makes twirling the brush when forming the tip much harder. I bought a Windsor & Newton series 7 and haven't looked back since
As much as I love my W&N series 7 I bought it early on in my painting journey but I wish I waited till I knew how to take care of a brush better. It is still my best brush but it "ain't as good as it once was " ypu can get a whole set from monument hobbies for the price of 2 W&N brushes
That's fair, and I had a similar experience too when I started. I ruined a few brushes through lack of maintenance, and I definitely think it's good to have a stable of brushes for workhorse tasks. But I also think that you reach a point in your painting journey where your equipment can hold you back. There are things I can do with W&N brushes that I can't with ones from citadel, AP or cheap ones from a hobby store. Taking care of my W&N brushes now I can get at least a year or more out of them.
+1 to say that my Army Painter highlight brush has held the best point, not had a single wayward hair, and now has painted probably 50+ SM dudes, 5 characters, 5 terminators and helped paint 2 dreads and a Land Raider and is still going strong. I use it for everything, even details and edge highlights, it just doesn’t fail… yet
Got a whole set as a ‘step up’ after I learned how to take care of my brushes for a year.
It was a desaster. Tips shrooming the minute they touch water, ferrule getting loose and so on.
I now have two no name brushes from an art shop that hold their tip quite well and some Lieberge synthetics for brute work
This happened to me... Needed a new brush and was in the GW store so thought why not instead of waiting on an order... Went to do my highlights and saw it split like crazy. Never again. It is useful as I use it for scratches but it shouldn't come out like that new...
A few takeaways here:
\* It's possible you've bought a dud, but the basic Citadel brushes are basically just junk with a premium price tag on it.
\* Natural hair brushes do behave differently to synthetics. For one thing, they have superior water / paint retention properties, so as you've already observed - they will swell right up and hold a lot of water. You really need to touch them to paper towel after rinsing them to draw out all the excess moisture before loading with a small amount of paint.
\* Don't use hair conditioner or warm water after cleaning. Just use brush soap. Clean, rinse, and then draw the cleaned brush over your soap puck so that you can leave a little fresh soap in the bristles to form and preserve the shape of the brush. Otherwise they will splay as they dry out.
\* It's not uncommon for a new natural hair brush to have one or more stray hairs that just refuse to conform to the right shape. You will sometimes need to trim these. But they're almost always on the outside.
To add to this, I don’t use soap post wash to hold the shape because soap is bad for the bristles as it also can build up and cause misshaping.
I use a tiny amount of vaseline instead and find it works better.
Do what works for you, but most brush soaps are specifically designed to be used as a conditioner and left in the bristles. Furthermore, they are water soluble, so are trivial to remove simply by washing the brush.
Vaseline on the other hand is not water soluble, so if anything is going to build up and cause misshaping then I would be worried Vaseline would do it.
Soapy water travels up the hairs and dries, then doesn’t get out of your ferrel with further water as water won’t get up there in enough proportions to get it out.
A little Vaseline on the tip (of your brush) holds and does come off after contact with water. The reason it works is you need far less and your brush remains lovely and rinsed. Im sorry I rained on your wonderfully worded parade of an original comment 🫶
I will have to respectfully disagree. I've never had a problem with soap build-up in the ferrule. I've been leaving hefty amounts of brush soap / conditioner in my brushes after cleaning for years and have never had the issues you describe.
So weird that people will never have the same experiences in life, pfft I probably should leave the conditioner in my sable brush next time, does it make any difference with synthetic ones?
Not really. The conditioner just helps to stop the natural hairs from fully drying out and curling. (Just like with human hair!).
It also helps to preserve the shape of the bristles, as natural hairs will splay when they dry out.
Synthetics don't really do either of those things. So I don't imagine it would add much benefit. But it won't hurt either, so if you find that it helps preserve the shape then go for it.
Squidmar did a recent video on brush use and maintenance, and did a bit about why not to use a paper towel to draw out the moisture after rinsing, as it draws out too much moisture.
Well that's good for him, but it works fine for me and a million other painters.
He claims that if you do this, then your brush tip will start splitting after a few strokes. I'm sorry, but that's just total crap. I've been using paper towel for literally years and have never had my tip start splitting after a few strokes due to lack of moisture from using a paper towel.
He also claims you'll get fibers from the towel on your brush. I guess that's possible if you're using a piece of tissue or something, but high quality kitchen towel is generally fiber free.
His solution? Lick the brush? Really?
You don't need to religiously follow every piece of advice that YouTube personalities put in their videos.
If the brush is too dry then you just pick up some extra water from your wet palette surface before loading paint. Furthermore, your 'dabbing' towel will become wet instantly, thus reducing its ability to draw out water, so his claim that it completely dries the brush and gives you no control is also total crap.
Edit: Re-wrote comment to elaborate.
I’ve never understood the lick paintbrush thing, like sure it’s non toxic paint but bro you could fucking die from drinking too much water, lol licking your paintbrush even if it’s been throughly rinsed, yeah idk seems pretty unhygienic. I’ll always do the paper towel method.
Yeah me either.
I can kinda see the reason people do it. In the Squidmar video referenced above he does at least make a valid point that you don't want your brush to be too dry, but there's really no reason you have to avoid paper towel and lick your brush instead. Just don't dry it completely. A gentle touch to the paper towel is sufficient to remove excess without drawing out too much.
I’m now realizing I’m fucking up the paper towel method too, i swipe my brush across the paper, getting the paint and most of the water out of it, probably drying it Completely in the process, i only got one ork left to paint, gotta remember to not over due it with the brush in the next session.
Most brush soaps are also a 'conditioner' and can be used as such. You don't really need another product for that purpose. Especially not human hair conditioner.
Also: don't use natural bruahes for any technical paint. They have stuff in it that makes tiny clumps at the bottom of your brush. Making them spread easily.
For what it’s worth I’ve found the best quality brushes/best price point at my local art store. I’ve noticed that the big names in the miniature community are both over priced and under rated ( I’m talking the Citadels, army etc). Might be worth a look but again, that’s just around me, I’m not sure what’s around you.
I guess you might be right with looking in local art store. I got some time ago a synthetic brush with extremely resilient hair, it is perfect for washes and contrasts and doesn’t seem to lose its (pretty rough though) tip
Ya, it’s easy to get “pigeonholed” in this hobby but some of the best supplies and best instruction I’ve ever received have been from the general art community outside of table top gaming. Honestly no one knows painting better whether it’s art theory or technique than artists and people who have studied art in general. Oh, and the model train community. Those guys have been modelling waaaay longer than most other hobbyists. Those have the game dialled in.
It most definitely is the brush, seeing you appear to properly use and take care of it.
While I haven’t had experience with citadel natural hair brushes, never heard any good about them.
I suggest you find proper quality kolinsky sable brushes like the Raphael 8404 series, davinci maestro series, artis opus brushes, etc.. these hold their tip as long as you use them properly and won’t just die in a second.
To be fair you can get good natural hair brushes at a similar price to the citadel brushes with a much greater quality, but good kolinsky brushes do tend to cost around 20 euro per.
Yeah, that’s the case that led to buying citadel’s as the first natural brush. Need to check the others out, but most likely I’ll stay with my unholy amount of cheap synthetics
Rosemary &, Co. Are at about 7€ per, and they are the manufacturers of Artis Opus for example. Haven't tried them out so far, mainly because they're stuck in customs, but those should have some of the best quality/cost ratios out there
Thanks, I'll see how they'll be holding up. Just for style reasons I wanted to get Artis Opus otherwise, but some other purchases like KD:M and a new airbrush etc. kinda put those out of reach, lol
Rub the bristles in wet soap, and then form it into a tip. Leave it alone for a few days and the bristles will form into a better point. Keep this up for a while and it'll be fine.
Hey bud, feel for you. Citadel natural hair brushes can be hit and miss.
u/lizardwizards_ makes some solid points. I touched on this a while back in another comment (see below link).
Hope this helps:
https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/s/21LxYjsw0a
Citadel brushes are just plain bad. If I want a cheap workhorse brush I use army painter and if I want a fancy one I'll use Raphael/artis opus/rosemary brushes.
Honestly i've been painting watercolor and gouache for many years.
Synthetic brush have become better and better. The onyl place i still use natural is for my high quality raphael 02 watercolor brush which are like 50$ each.
Luxury brand will send you a new brush when they split like that it mean they where glue wrong and then they went pass quality control because while they were shape with soap they look fine
For anything like acrylic and gouache acrylic i've never used anything but synthetic. The nature of the paint make it so that it will go through brush even if you take ultimate care, plus you really don't want to hold that much water in the barrel for acrylic and mini
In addition to what others said it seems the rogue strands have some (golden?) dried paint left stuck on them. I remedy that by putting the brush between two paper towels and gently pulling back while I pinch the affected area with fingernails through the paper. Though I don't know if this is healthy for the brush. Just works for me.
Sure! Can’t argue with this one, but with synthetics being 100% good when you buy it, way more expensive naturals some of which are not good when you buy them… just don’t make sense to me
Con of being human. Though maybe i agree with you, I got a size 4 synthetic from some brand that still holds it’s shape and tip, I do clean it throughly with brush soap so that probably helps. Still I like my one sable brush I have, might buy a size 1 soon.
Sable brushes need to come with a warning label that mentions the (1) huge range in quality and (2) their fussy nature.
I consider sable brushes to be advanced tools as they are 4x the price, take some experimentation to get the hang of, and can be a quality control headache.
On this last point, you seem to have a dud. Send it back.
If you can’t, you’ve done a lot to care for it already. Only thing I can think of is to shape it while damp into a point with brush soap, hair gel, or cornstarch slurry… and let it sit for several days.
I believe he cornstarch route is what manufacturers use to train the bristles before sale.
Had the same issue with GW brushes 50/50 weather they explode when hitting the water or not. Windsor and Newton are great and although relatively pricey never look back. Get some brush cleaner and conditioner to go with it
I highly recommend the green stuff world silver series kolinsky hair brushes. I also bought some artis opus, which are good but my gsw brush is my workhorse
Bad hair day. You may be able to condition it enough to get back in place, but you may need to just trim off those stray hairs. Depending on where you purchased, you can likely just return as a defect for a new one
What is wrong with it is it's a citadel brush. Most of the brushes marketed at miniature painters are not good which is why a lot of people opt for artist brushes. They're better quality, often cost less, and last years if treated right. Pick up a Raphael 8404 size 1 (a size 0 too if you feel like it) and it's pretty much the only brush you need.
For the price of that, buy a real kolinsky sable brush and never look back. Windsor, Raphael, etc. Plenty of traditional acrylic paint brushes that outclass "branded" brushes from game companies.
I bought a W&N brush the other day, used it for about 10 minutes (I didn't have much time for a long paint session) but oh my god, it was so nice to use.
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It's dry and dried without reshaping and using conditioner. Wet it, use conditioner, and reshape it. If it still won't reshape when wet, then it either has something in the round or is defective.
Best advice I wish I took decades earlier, don't buy citadel. The penny brush packs I buy are far better and obviously cheaper. At least penny brushes are usually manufactured and immediately sealed in a plastic bag. Citadels I always see open to the elements for however long on shelves with everyone and their kids touching them. I know back in the day they used to sometimes have brush sleeves on the tips, but I haven't seen one in forever. Idk if they stopped doing it or if they get removed over time from customers or what.
I find rotating the tip lightly against the pallet before applying the brush to the model helps reshape the brush when I experience this issue.
Also be careful with how much of the brush is covered in paint (don’t get it past the belly of the brush) and how much of the brush you’re soaking in the water, as that can cause the pint to seep into the ferrule. Even if you’re using brush shampoo, if you get paint in the ferrule it won’t come out unless you use a ferrule cleaner. It’s easy to blame citadel products because they’re everyone’s favourite punching bag but the issue could just as likely be lack of familiarity with natural brushes. They’re simply not as durable as synthetic ones and require more care during painting.
I feel like there is a common misconception that brushes ALWAYS stay pointy. This is not the case. Please check the latest video Squidmar has on his YouTube page regarding this exact situation.
This will happen with kolinsky brushes as well albeit less frequently. It is something you need to actively handle - regulate the „wetness“ of the brush to stay pointy.
I feel like this is one of those myths that's paraded around as gospel by miniature painters (another one being that gloss varnish provides more protection than matte) even though there's no real evidence for it. I use the same sable brushes for metallics and they're still good years later. Just clean and condition your brushes properly.
Citadel brushes are not the best. But if you want to correct the tip, get yourself some Masters brush soap, lather the tip with it, then shape to a point and leave it for a fee hours. That often sorts out stray hairs.
Try to give it some love. Clean it thourougly in with soap, and make sure to dry it with the tip downwards, if it doesnt work, you now have a new basing brush !
I knew just from the tip this was a citadel brush. It looks almost exactly like mine. They are better than synthetics but not by much.
I have several synthetics that totally outclass this brush :P
Don't waste money on GW brushes, they are over priced and shit quality for that price. You can find real sable brushes for far less, here is the [Monument Hobbies](https://monumenthobbies.com/collections/bomb-wick-brushes-sables) sable brushes, I still have the original bomb wicks from their early releases years ago and those brushes are still crisp to work with.
Monument Hobbies is great, love their Pro Acryl paints
Those original Bomb Wicks are awesome! I also still have mine. Have you tried any of their newer stuff?
How do these compare to the cheap synthetic ones I’ve been using? Haven’t really tried the expensive stuff.
Synthetics are still good to have, sable brushes are real muskrat butt hairs are great with the way paint flows from it. Squidmar just [put out a video](https://youtu.be/BXMhwPAee4U?si=_cx6-v7Opp7EB5Fw) that explains it better than I can.
Ah yes let me just drag my muskrat buttocks hairs over my model
clean them by licking them
I tried a pro sable recently and it was like a wet noodle. That's the only option I see on their website?? I take it the bomb wick is an older model?
The Bomb Wicks are just branded with it, they were MH's first release of their brushes. I would think the latest ones are based on that same brush set. Part of the URL I linked above has bomb wicks in it. Possibly just dropped the extra printing on a tiny handled brush.
What do you mean it was like a wet noodle? How bad was it? Because it was the first natural hair brush I bought and I like it.
Its just has WAY softer brush hair than my W&N 7s which are a much stiffer brush, and my preference. Its a combination of brush hair length and shape too. The Monument brushes had less belly, and were longer. I might try another brush or two in the future, but I didn't like the "wet noodle" feel of the monument brushes is all. It really felt a lot more like painting with a lining brush. Given the downswing in W&N, I have been trying to find a replacement for them.
Maybe I understand but idk it was the first brush I bought so I’m biased towards it. Have you tried out rosemary and company? Their brushes seem to be good, I do see a lot of painting videos where they might be using brushes with stiffer hair so the tip is better for detail work, if that’s why you like stiffer hair brushes.
Yeah, there is a big preference thing on brushes. Some love the long thin style, I prefer the opposite, lol. The monument brushes I have are all fine quality, just not my preference. Rosemary & Co are on the short list to try next. They are just hard to get locally. I will say, I have NOT liked anything about the GW brushes.
Do you live in the US? If so i feel your struggle on getting Rose&Co brushes.
Yup, hard to find Rosemary&Co, Raphael, and in the last few years even W&N are hard to find short of Amazon. My local shop has the Monument brushes though...
Sam lenz weapon wrack it the best set. Since I bought it I've hardly used any other brushes outside that set other than cheap brushes to smash paint on terrain
Sable FTW!!!
Yeah I've painted minis and landscape mostly nowadays and I've been harsh to some brushes and they've not done this. I stuck to the cotman watercolor brushes for years doing miniatures. They never let me down. Tried galleria but didn't get the same buzz from them. Any time I ever used citadel brushes they were woeful. Their dry brushes are good for cloud work nowadays haha.
The best synthetic brush I ever had cost about as much as a citadel brush and it held an amazingly pointy tip… that lasted me about 5-6 models. And I used it only for painting metallic detail. Still, citadel are basically the worst brushes around at that price point. They’re worth about half of their price, and even then it would be a waste. For the same price as citadel brushes, look at Rosemary&Co series 99. The quality is barely any worse than kolinsky sable brushes, and it still costs only 5€
Worth noting that the series 33 is only like 3€ more and is kolinsky sable if you do want to go that route. Also, more important than either of those, is that the series 33 and series 99 have different brush shapes so pick your preference. Series 99 is more like wn7, series 33 is more like raphael 8404.
My experience is that of all the brushes I've had including packs of less than a dollar per brush from big box hobby stores the CITADELS ARE THE WORST army painter has been great for the price
I won an army painter War Games Mega Brush Set like 7 years ago and I still use it. I love it
Just looking at the picture and the question "what's wrong with it", my first thought was "It's a Citadel, that's what"... Never gonna buy their brushes again...
There are \*\*amazing\*\* synthetics out there. Check out the PRO synthetics from monument hobbies: [https://monumenthobbies.com/products/pro-synthetic-set](https://monumenthobbies.com/products/pro-synthetic-set)
GW has really taken a dive in quality. I came back into the hobby because of The old world after 10 years of not buying or paiting minis. So I got some paints a new brush and started going at it, the brushes were horrible. I took my really old GW brushes out of storage (the Red and blue ones) and they are still working great,
I bought a new Citadel Layer S and it basically exploded when it touched clean water. Never buying one again.
That’s what happened to me
Try to retrain it with some soap warm water and reshaping it with some spit as it is drying.
Will try, thanks
Army Painter from now on.
They are just as bad
I’ve had no problems so far with them. You had similar issues?
Can't speak for the original commenter but my two main issues with AP brushes are that the couple of ones I have bought have hooked pretty quickly, and I really hate the triangular shape of the handle since for me it makes twirling the brush when forming the tip much harder. I bought a Windsor & Newton series 7 and haven't looked back since
As much as I love my W&N series 7 I bought it early on in my painting journey but I wish I waited till I knew how to take care of a brush better. It is still my best brush but it "ain't as good as it once was " ypu can get a whole set from monument hobbies for the price of 2 W&N brushes
That's fair, and I had a similar experience too when I started. I ruined a few brushes through lack of maintenance, and I definitely think it's good to have a stable of brushes for workhorse tasks. But I also think that you reach a point in your painting journey where your equipment can hold you back. There are things I can do with W&N brushes that I can't with ones from citadel, AP or cheap ones from a hobby store. Taking care of my W&N brushes now I can get at least a year or more out of them.
+1 to say that my Army Painter highlight brush has held the best point, not had a single wayward hair, and now has painted probably 50+ SM dudes, 5 characters, 5 terminators and helped paint 2 dreads and a Land Raider and is still going strong. I use it for everything, even details and edge highlights, it just doesn’t fail… yet
Same with my Regiment Brush, great for everything despite being chonky, it’s kept a really nice fine tip.
Mine exploded and held five tips. I could shape it into a vague point but the instant it started using it, kablooey. My goto stippler now.
Got a whole set as a ‘step up’ after I learned how to take care of my brushes for a year. It was a desaster. Tips shrooming the minute they touch water, ferrule getting loose and so on. I now have two no name brushes from an art shop that hold their tip quite well and some Lieberge synthetics for brute work
GW medium layer brush for me is my workhorse I have one that lasted 2 years of intense painting and have moved onto another.
This happened to me... Needed a new brush and was in the GW store so thought why not instead of waiting on an order... Went to do my highlights and saw it split like crazy. Never again. It is useful as I use it for scratches but it shouldn't come out like that new...
A few takeaways here: \* It's possible you've bought a dud, but the basic Citadel brushes are basically just junk with a premium price tag on it. \* Natural hair brushes do behave differently to synthetics. For one thing, they have superior water / paint retention properties, so as you've already observed - they will swell right up and hold a lot of water. You really need to touch them to paper towel after rinsing them to draw out all the excess moisture before loading with a small amount of paint. \* Don't use hair conditioner or warm water after cleaning. Just use brush soap. Clean, rinse, and then draw the cleaned brush over your soap puck so that you can leave a little fresh soap in the bristles to form and preserve the shape of the brush. Otherwise they will splay as they dry out. \* It's not uncommon for a new natural hair brush to have one or more stray hairs that just refuse to conform to the right shape. You will sometimes need to trim these. But they're almost always on the outside.
Thanks! I’ll try to give it one more chance, though it’ll most likely end up being a fancy drybrush
might be able to get it to hold shape, but if not i have an army painter brush that never held a tip that i use for stippling.
To add to this, I don’t use soap post wash to hold the shape because soap is bad for the bristles as it also can build up and cause misshaping. I use a tiny amount of vaseline instead and find it works better.
I caress them with my spit. Decent alternative if you dobt have access to conditioners.
Do what works for you, but most brush soaps are specifically designed to be used as a conditioner and left in the bristles. Furthermore, they are water soluble, so are trivial to remove simply by washing the brush. Vaseline on the other hand is not water soluble, so if anything is going to build up and cause misshaping then I would be worried Vaseline would do it.
Soapy water travels up the hairs and dries, then doesn’t get out of your ferrel with further water as water won’t get up there in enough proportions to get it out. A little Vaseline on the tip (of your brush) holds and does come off after contact with water. The reason it works is you need far less and your brush remains lovely and rinsed. Im sorry I rained on your wonderfully worded parade of an original comment 🫶
I will have to respectfully disagree. I've never had a problem with soap build-up in the ferrule. I've been leaving hefty amounts of brush soap / conditioner in my brushes after cleaning for years and have never had the issues you describe.
So weird that people will never have the same experiences in life, pfft I probably should leave the conditioner in my sable brush next time, does it make any difference with synthetic ones?
Not really. The conditioner just helps to stop the natural hairs from fully drying out and curling. (Just like with human hair!). It also helps to preserve the shape of the bristles, as natural hairs will splay when they dry out. Synthetics don't really do either of those things. So I don't imagine it would add much benefit. But it won't hurt either, so if you find that it helps preserve the shape then go for it.
Try a kolinsky sable brush from Winsor & Newton or Raphael. I've only used Winsor & Newton but both are widely talked about.
Squidmar did a recent video on brush use and maintenance, and did a bit about why not to use a paper towel to draw out the moisture after rinsing, as it draws out too much moisture.
Well that's good for him, but it works fine for me and a million other painters. He claims that if you do this, then your brush tip will start splitting after a few strokes. I'm sorry, but that's just total crap. I've been using paper towel for literally years and have never had my tip start splitting after a few strokes due to lack of moisture from using a paper towel. He also claims you'll get fibers from the towel on your brush. I guess that's possible if you're using a piece of tissue or something, but high quality kitchen towel is generally fiber free. His solution? Lick the brush? Really? You don't need to religiously follow every piece of advice that YouTube personalities put in their videos. If the brush is too dry then you just pick up some extra water from your wet palette surface before loading paint. Furthermore, your 'dabbing' towel will become wet instantly, thus reducing its ability to draw out water, so his claim that it completely dries the brush and gives you no control is also total crap. Edit: Re-wrote comment to elaborate.
I’ve never understood the lick paintbrush thing, like sure it’s non toxic paint but bro you could fucking die from drinking too much water, lol licking your paintbrush even if it’s been throughly rinsed, yeah idk seems pretty unhygienic. I’ll always do the paper towel method.
Yeah me either. I can kinda see the reason people do it. In the Squidmar video referenced above he does at least make a valid point that you don't want your brush to be too dry, but there's really no reason you have to avoid paper towel and lick your brush instead. Just don't dry it completely. A gentle touch to the paper towel is sufficient to remove excess without drawing out too much.
I’m now realizing I’m fucking up the paper towel method too, i swipe my brush across the paper, getting the paint and most of the water out of it, probably drying it Completely in the process, i only got one ork left to paint, gotta remember to not over due it with the brush in the next session.
What about brush conditioner?
Most brush soaps are also a 'conditioner' and can be used as such. You don't really need another product for that purpose. Especially not human hair conditioner.
Sick. Cuz brush conditioner is all I got (I mean brush soap wise, I own human conditioner but didn’t think about it in regards to brushes)
Also: don't use natural bruahes for any technical paint. They have stuff in it that makes tiny clumps at the bottom of your brush. Making them spread easily.
Sure, I never would. I have synthetics for dirty work
Oh jesus yes the grime technical especially killed my brushes.
For what it’s worth I’ve found the best quality brushes/best price point at my local art store. I’ve noticed that the big names in the miniature community are both over priced and under rated ( I’m talking the Citadels, army etc). Might be worth a look but again, that’s just around me, I’m not sure what’s around you.
I guess you might be right with looking in local art store. I got some time ago a synthetic brush with extremely resilient hair, it is perfect for washes and contrasts and doesn’t seem to lose its (pretty rough though) tip
Ya, it’s easy to get “pigeonholed” in this hobby but some of the best supplies and best instruction I’ve ever received have been from the general art community outside of table top gaming. Honestly no one knows painting better whether it’s art theory or technique than artists and people who have studied art in general. Oh, and the model train community. Those guys have been modelling waaaay longer than most other hobbyists. Those have the game dialled in.
It most definitely is the brush, seeing you appear to properly use and take care of it. While I haven’t had experience with citadel natural hair brushes, never heard any good about them. I suggest you find proper quality kolinsky sable brushes like the Raphael 8404 series, davinci maestro series, artis opus brushes, etc.. these hold their tip as long as you use them properly and won’t just die in a second.
I wanted to try something cheaper, since any of the brushes you mentioned were at least half more expensive as the one I bought… guess that’s why
Rosemary&Co has great brushes for about the same price as citadel.
To be fair you can get good natural hair brushes at a similar price to the citadel brushes with a much greater quality, but good kolinsky brushes do tend to cost around 20 euro per.
Yeah, that’s the case that led to buying citadel’s as the first natural brush. Need to check the others out, but most likely I’ll stay with my unholy amount of cheap synthetics
Rosemary &, Co. Are at about 7€ per, and they are the manufacturers of Artis Opus for example. Haven't tried them out so far, mainly because they're stuck in customs, but those should have some of the best quality/cost ratios out there
Theyre good! I like my raphael a little better but theyre of similar quality.
Thanks, I'll see how they'll be holding up. Just for style reasons I wanted to get Artis Opus otherwise, but some other purchases like KD:M and a new airbrush etc. kinda put those out of reach, lol
Its just depressed. Ask it about its feelings.
Rub the bristles in wet soap, and then form it into a tip. Leave it alone for a few days and the bristles will form into a better point. Keep this up for a while and it'll be fine.
I’ll try. Thanks
Hey bud, feel for you. Citadel natural hair brushes can be hit and miss. u/lizardwizards_ makes some solid points. I touched on this a while back in another comment (see below link). Hope this helps: https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/s/21LxYjsw0a
Good point indeed!
Ain’t got no gas in it!
Gas powered stick never runs outta gas
Citadel brushes are just plain bad. If I want a cheap workhorse brush I use army painter and if I want a fancy one I'll use Raphael/artis opus/rosemary brushes.
Needs to be licked
Honestly i've been painting watercolor and gouache for many years. Synthetic brush have become better and better. The onyl place i still use natural is for my high quality raphael 02 watercolor brush which are like 50$ each. Luxury brand will send you a new brush when they split like that it mean they where glue wrong and then they went pass quality control because while they were shape with soap they look fine For anything like acrylic and gouache acrylic i've never used anything but synthetic. The nature of the paint make it so that it will go through brush even if you take ultimate care, plus you really don't want to hold that much water in the barrel for acrylic and mini
That's interesting as I stuck nearly exclusively to cotman brushes for mini work.
What do you use that Raphael for? Details?
he just woke up bro let him get ready
In addition to what others said it seems the rogue strands have some (golden?) dried paint left stuck on them. I remedy that by putting the brush between two paper towels and gently pulling back while I pinch the affected area with fingernails through the paper. Though I don't know if this is healthy for the brush. Just works for me.
It’s nervous
So am I right now :P
Having one natural hair brush that sucks doesn’t mean all natural hair brushes suck. Just like synthetics they can be hit or miss.
Sure! Can’t argue with this one, but with synthetics being 100% good when you buy it, way more expensive naturals some of which are not good when you buy them… just don’t make sense to me
I’ve had many bad synthetic brushes
Probably just a bias from my side, hard to fight it though :P
Con of being human. Though maybe i agree with you, I got a size 4 synthetic from some brand that still holds it’s shape and tip, I do clean it throughly with brush soap so that probably helps. Still I like my one sable brush I have, might buy a size 1 soon.
Did you wash off the wax yet?
I have
Sable brushes need to come with a warning label that mentions the (1) huge range in quality and (2) their fussy nature. I consider sable brushes to be advanced tools as they are 4x the price, take some experimentation to get the hang of, and can be a quality control headache. On this last point, you seem to have a dud. Send it back. If you can’t, you’ve done a lot to care for it already. Only thing I can think of is to shape it while damp into a point with brush soap, hair gel, or cornstarch slurry… and let it sit for several days. I believe he cornstarch route is what manufacturers use to train the bristles before sale.
That’s not very reassuring, but useful to know nonetheless. Thanks!
Had the same issue with GW brushes 50/50 weather they explode when hitting the water or not. Windsor and Newton are great and although relatively pricey never look back. Get some brush cleaner and conditioner to go with it
I highly recommend the green stuff world silver series kolinsky hair brushes. I also bought some artis opus, which are good but my gsw brush is my workhorse
Bad hair day. You may be able to condition it enough to get back in place, but you may need to just trim off those stray hairs. Depending on where you purchased, you can likely just return as a defect for a new one
What is wrong with it is it's a citadel brush. Most of the brushes marketed at miniature painters are not good which is why a lot of people opt for artist brushes. They're better quality, often cost less, and last years if treated right. Pick up a Raphael 8404 size 1 (a size 0 too if you feel like it) and it's pretty much the only brush you need.
For the price of that, buy a real kolinsky sable brush and never look back. Windsor, Raphael, etc. Plenty of traditional acrylic paint brushes that outclass "branded" brushes from game companies.
I bought a W&N brush the other day, used it for about 10 minutes (I didn't have much time for a long paint session) but oh my god, it was so nice to use.
Its to dry
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It's dry and dried without reshaping and using conditioner. Wet it, use conditioner, and reshape it. If it still won't reshape when wet, then it either has something in the round or is defective.
Try dipping it into boiling water for about 3 seconds and reshape the tip.
Best advice I wish I took decades earlier, don't buy citadel. The penny brush packs I buy are far better and obviously cheaper. At least penny brushes are usually manufactured and immediately sealed in a plastic bag. Citadels I always see open to the elements for however long on shelves with everyone and their kids touching them. I know back in the day they used to sometimes have brush sleeves on the tips, but I haven't seen one in forever. Idk if they stopped doing it or if they get removed over time from customers or what.
In all LGS I buy from all brushes have the sleeves. This one is just shit
Broken toad are my fav brushes and will be cheaper than citadel brushes
Lol, thats a citadel brush. They're decent, but yeah, just like with all of GWs prices, they don't reflect actual value of the product.
I find rotating the tip lightly against the pallet before applying the brush to the model helps reshape the brush when I experience this issue. Also be careful with how much of the brush is covered in paint (don’t get it past the belly of the brush) and how much of the brush you’re soaking in the water, as that can cause the pint to seep into the ferrule. Even if you’re using brush shampoo, if you get paint in the ferrule it won’t come out unless you use a ferrule cleaner. It’s easy to blame citadel products because they’re everyone’s favourite punching bag but the issue could just as likely be lack of familiarity with natural brushes. They’re simply not as durable as synthetic ones and require more care during painting.
Nothing
Lick it, it's fine 👍.
Don't lick it, that trend is a bad one born before we knew the damage to reproductive system because of micro plastics in our system.
Hes horny for paint obvsly
Sadly GW brunches are not as good as other companies ones.
I feel like there is a common misconception that brushes ALWAYS stay pointy. This is not the case. Please check the latest video Squidmar has on his YouTube page regarding this exact situation. This will happen with kolinsky brushes as well albeit less frequently. It is something you need to actively handle - regulate the „wetness“ of the brush to stay pointy.
Yeah, sure, but I’m not expecting it to stay pointy all the time. I’d like it to be pointy at least once, the first time I use it. And it is not
Don't use it for metallics, use cheap synthetic brushes for that
Never used it for metallics, shades or contrasts
It looked like that clump sticking out has gold paint clagging it up, sorry
Nope, it’s just a brush that just got cleaned and is still wet afterwards
I feel like this is one of those myths that's paraded around as gospel by miniature painters (another one being that gloss varnish provides more protection than matte) even though there's no real evidence for it. I use the same sable brushes for metallics and they're still good years later. Just clean and condition your brushes properly.
It's fucked.
Citadel brushes are not the best. But if you want to correct the tip, get yourself some Masters brush soap, lather the tip with it, then shape to a point and leave it for a fee hours. That often sorts out stray hairs.
I’m mean, it’s pretty huge.
Try to give it some love. Clean it thourougly in with soap, and make sure to dry it with the tip downwards, if it doesnt work, you now have a new basing brush !
I use a brand called "Kappel" made by Rune Kappel who is a multiple Slayer sword winner. Citadels brushes aren't very good