What brushes for Figure Painting

[Bortig the Viking]

Hi all, going to be painting my first figure and just wanted some advice, I have some Windsor and Newton brushes and was interested to know what brushes I could need to paint my figures just to help me along my way.

[Tim Marlow]

What sized figure Mark? What sized brushes do you have?

[Bortig the Viking]

What sized figure Mark? What sized brushes do you have?

Hi, it's a 1/16 scale figure, the brushes I've got are a couple of each,
0000, 00, 0, 1, 2 plus 2 flat brushes 4mm and 6mm.
Any that I should have?

[Tim Marlow]

Sounds like you have all bases covered. For a 1/16 I personally would use sizes 1 and 2. I find it’s the point that is more important and a larger brush holds more paint. It is extremely worthwhile learning how to care for your brushes though. Masters brush cleaner is an essential if you don’t have any.

[Bortig the Viking]

Sounds like you have all bases covered. For a 1/16 I personally would use sizes 1 and 2. I find it’s the point that is more important and a larger brush holds more paint. It is extremely worthwhile learning how to care for your brushes though. Masters brush cleaner is an essential if you don’t have any.

That's good, yeah I got some of Master's brush cleaner a while back, another recommendation, find it's good, thanks for the help once I'm finished my current project my Viking figure is next, so we'll see how that goes.

[Guest]

Hi Mark. I seems that you have got it covered. My personal favourite is the Pro Arte Prolene Plus Series 7 0000 - a very fine point and not too flexible. As with most things to do with modelling, people tend to settle on their favourites through trial and error, so it's worth experimenting with different makes as you go along.

[AlanG]

Sorry to hijack the thread Mark.

What brushes would you recommend for 1/32 and 1/35 figures? I really need to figure out (no pun intended) this figure painting thing. Especially when it comes to armour builds.

Also any easy to follow tutorials out there for this size of figure painting.

[Tim Marlow]

Well Alan, I would again use 1 or 2. I rarely go below size O even on my 28mm builds. I use Rosemary and Co brushes these days. I have W and N sevens, but am a little reticent about using them for general model work.
For technique tips, the ones I gave on my Renault blog for the Simon T group build should get you decent results. They won’t get you to P Diddy standard, but they will take you a long way past block painting.

[AlanG]

Anything that gets me past painting one flesh colour and one uniform colour is a bonus Tim lol. Never tried different flesh colours or shading on figures.

[Tim Marlow]

Go for it Alan. It really isn’t as hard as you think....

[Peter Gillson]

I recently discovered a brand called Rosemary & co whihc are reasonably priced considering they are hand made.

https://www.rosemaryandco.com/watercolour-brushes

i like the designer series 22 or 33

Peter

[Tim Marlow]

I prefer the series 93s Peter, I found they hold their point better. I do almost everything with a size 1 series 93 sable. Not quite as good as series 7s, but much cheaper. Good brushes for the price.

[Norfolk_Modeler]

ok just ordered 000, 00,1 & 2 from Rosemary & Co to try, seems they are recommended on here, What is the best brush care you can recommend Thanks

[Tim Marlow]

Hi Kerin . I use Masters brush cleaner

I use my Rosemary and Co brushes almost daily and using this after each session I can get at least a year out of them. Once clean store your brushes bristles down in the protector they come with so that any residual paint and moisture doesn’t dry in the ferrule and ruin the point.

[Norfolk_Modeler]

Thanks I'll look in to that