A friend helped me order in some brushes from Creature Caster, and these (apart from a single W&N Series 7 000), are my first set of Kolinsky sable brushes. (Kolinsky) sable brushes are favoured by painters for having better water-retention properties, meaning your brush, and therefore paint, stays wet for longer. The bristles come from the fur of the Siberian weasel, rather than an actual sable, a marten native to Siberia and Russia. On the other hand, synthetic brushes are made with plastic bristles. Plastic is hydrophobic (repels water), but by the virtue of having many fine bristles, it can still hold water by capillary action. The Monument Igniter set comes with five brushes in sizes* 00, 0, 1, 2, and 3, shipped in a clear plastic tube for easy storage. I gave them a quick go over the weekend to see how they felt. Even though I'm still pretty novice at this, I could definitely feel a difference compared to the cheap art store synthetic brushes I'd been using up until now. Detail work like freehanding fine lines or painting tiny eyes is a dream. One thing that helps with painting tiny details (e.g. eyes) is having a small brush. However, I found that with synthetics, by the time I'd loaded the brush with a tiny amount of paint and positioned myself ready to carefully dot on the pupils, the paint had dried up. I got an even worse result with toothpicks - turns out it's because the wood absorbs water really well, drying up the paint. With the sable brushes, the paint stayed wet due to the aforementioned superior water-retention. These brushes also held their point really well. They stayed nice and sharp, and even though they're better quality and I was being super careful with them, all five sizes held a great point. It'll be great to see how long they can last with proper care - the man who sold me the W&N said he had inherited his grandmother's W&N kolinsky sable brushes! I'll still use my cheap synthetic brushes for the rougher work like priming, base coating, varnishing, and applying technical paints and some washes, but the sables work so beautifully for blending and fine detail. Really happy with this purchase! * Edit: Monument Hobbies now sells their painting supplies under their own name, while their miniatures are sold under the Creature Caster line. The Igniters have been upgraded to the Pro Sable product. If you enjoyed the article, please do consider donating your spare change on my Linktree https://linktr.ee/junebug.minis. It helps fund my art with supplies, new minis, and upskilling. Thanks for visiting, and enjoy the art!
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