"What kind of brush do you use for drybrushing miniatures?" Topic

Drybrushing seems so hard on brushes that I don't want to use a good one. But older ugly brushes are might be too spread out.

What kind of brush is best? What quality, in what shape?

andy

New (but cheap) square tipped brush about 10mm across.

Am old one past its prime.

I have used various depending on what I am trying to accomplish and to this point, only on 28mm. Never tried on smaller figs. If I am going for an overall dry brush, I use an old but larger brush. If I am trying to hit more specific parts of a fig, I began using a smaller, square ended, stiffer bristled brush by Army Painter specifically called a "dry brush" brush, about one year ago.

Same as Winston.

Short, stiff bristles. If using a worn out pointed brush, take scissors and wack the tip off.

I actually have a variety of all of the above, for various scales and types of drybrushing.

- Ix

With rustymusket and Yellow Admiral, it depends on the effect you want.

Size, shape, firmness all give you different effects. Old brushes just end up with different firmness and shape than they started with. I keep old brushes around for drybrushing as well as large area coverage.

The lighter a touch I want, the thinner and softer the brush I will choose. Very soft fan brushes are one end of my spectrum.

Cheap ones from Michaels. I prefer the softer ones. Or artist's goat mop if you find one on sale

John

I use an old brush of appropriate size to the project. Just about any old brush of size 1 or above will do. Too fine a brush takes too much time. I'll cut off stray bristles.

#4 Filibert, soft
I find a square top leaves too much hard edges,
and the Filibert seems to smooth out those for me

agree with different brushes for different size projects though :)

Cheap ones that come in a multi pack from Hobby Lobby (plus use the 40% coupon).

Old used brushes that are not good for fine painting. A number of them in different sizes and shapes, depending on the size and area I'm dry brushing. I really don't do much of it anymore, usually I do a two or three color highlight.

I use cheaper square brushes, but never worn ones. I realized that using old worn-out brushes often gave an uneven effect, because they were, well, worn-out. Also, pointed brushes don't drybrush evenly.

Think about it – the drybrush is the last color that you put on. It is closest to the viewer. It is the highest contrast color. It is what makes a miniature pop. Why would you use your worst brush for that?

Just like the other guys, old and busted. Usually 1/4 inch flat.

The problem with using a good brush for drybrushing is that the brush will soon be bad. Curls the bristles right up.

andy

Hell if I know, I just grab a cheap, old, worn out brush from my stack, Skinner is absolutely correct, any brush you use will look like that soon anyway.

Wally World sells cheap flat brushes that work well for about $3.49 USD for 6.