Painting Miniatures: Paintbrushes

Painting miniatures is a skill that can be learnt. Of course it helps if you have an artistic flair, but it is one of those skills that CAN be learnt, and learning how to do it well takes a different amount of time for everyone.

One of the main stumbling blocks that I myself came across was paintbrushes, and which one to use and when. I have been through many brushes of almost every size, and have come to the conclusion that I need 3, no more and no less. I think this will apply to most people who just paint for the tabletop and themselves. If you are painting for competition or display purposes, all the sizes will have a purpose, but for the average gamer/painter, I believe that you only need 3.

So which ones? Well, I have a size 000, for detailing, a size 1 for everything else, and a old Games Workshop large dry-brush for, well, dry-brushing. I paint everything from large aircraft to the smallest Grot with these brushes.

The size 1 I use for just about everything. Get a brush that will always come to a good point (personally I use Winsor and Newton, expensive granted, but ALWAYS come back to a point.) With a brush with a good point, no matter what size it is, you will always be able to do detail, and be able to switch in and out of doing large areas, such as armour, back into doing wristbands and necklaces with ease.

The 000 is used for those hard to reach areas and other things, like eyes and gun scopes. That’s all that’s used for, don’t even think to use one of these for flat surfaces, you will get brush marks and be there painting for a long time.

The large dry brush I use is defiantly at the end of its useful life. Any large stiff bristle brush will do the job for dry brushing though, even other brushes that don’t keep the tip can be used for dry brushing, as it kills brushes fast.

The most important aspect however, I practising with a size 1 brush. The size of it at first may seem prohibitive, making you think that it could never be used for detail, but when you get used to using just the tip of the brush with different pressures, you will be amazed at what can be achieved with such a large brush.

Practice, practice, practice. Paint to your best standard you can, and other times just go out and buy a cheap model and just paint. Don’t care too much what you do to this model, keep it fun. Get good brush control and the rest will come.