We often hear about the quality of brushes and other equipment, but what about the quantity?
I find that I tend to use 3 brushes what are technically called "medium", "small" and "no I can't really see that" for painting, plus another for applying washes. I have some others for dry brushing and stippling but they don't get used as much.
I have one Xacto craft knife, plus the Dremel which I use for just about everything.
I have a number of files (3), a small saw, pair of pliers, two sets of tweesers and various pokey things. The Optivisor is always to hand.
I have superglue in small tubes, PVA glue, liquid plastic cement, Bostic/UHU, glue gun and, of course, the invaluable Copydex.
So what's in your kit?
6 (rarely used) 2 and 00 brushes. Spray white and spray varnish. Pens 0.1mm for detail markings.
Innumerable other (dead) brushes for basing, one 2 that is only used for removing excess sand and flock from figures.
Dremmel and Pin vice, scalpel, wire cutters. Printer for labels
Files, tweezers. Sugerglue, pva, cut up credit card to get straight edges when labelling basing.
Cutting mat, newspaper, BBC 6 Music.
Anglepoise lamp
I've quite the number of brushes. Games Workshop, Wargames Foundry, some blue handled examples I've not tested yet and Col. Bill's sell, and Army Painter. I don't use 80%+ of them!
I use an Army Painter Basecoating Brush and an Army Painter Highlighting Brush (actually several of each type, most unused, ready as replacements). I also use a Foundry Drybrush, as I like the flat, wide squared profile of the bristles. I've an old Army Painter brush for washes, and a really old (found somewhere) brush for PVA gluing. All are synthetic fibres.
So, when I paint a 28mm figure, it'll normally be three brushes I'll use.
[1] Big, old brush to undercoat.
[2] A paint brush to block in the layers
[3] An old paint brush to apply a shade wash to the figure.
[2]Back to the second brush to paint in contrast layers and the majority of the details.
- [4] If there's some really fine detail, I'll use the thinner point on the Highlighting brush. But I don't use this brush every time I paint.
24 "active" brushes - 10/0 up to a cosmetic powder brush - for ultrafine detail to large scale drybrushing.
Pot of around 50 "dead" brushes, used for glue, for removing errant sand or flock and similar tasks.
42 assorted "reserve" brushes, ready for use, still in their packaging.
Rolson "Optivisor," Dremel-style drill and bits, 3 craft knives, pin vice and bits, miniature vice to hold items being drilled, 2 G-clamps, 5 assorted files, 8 dental picks and sculpting tools for shaping putty, 4 pairs of tweezers, 3 tin snips, 2 pairs of pliers, paper guillotine, 5 pairs of scissors, assorted bits of wire, cocktail sticks, 4 rulers, 2 old toothbrushes for cleaning dust/ mould powder/ flaking paint from castings.
2 packs of quick-dry filler, 8 different glues, 3 types of sand, 3 types of gravel, 100+ pots of paint, 14 pots of ink, 3 tubs of flock, water-effect gel, Milliput, green stuff.
Doubtless I've forgotten stuff!
About 40 brushes in various states: 5'O' for fine detailing, several OO and 1's, some flat ended, stiff bristled oil painting brushes in sizes from 1 to 12 for stippling and drybrushing large areas, a specific Magic Wash brush, specific and separate enamel undercoating and varnishing brushes, a 1/2 inch decorators brush for decanting base paint from the large 1L tin to a smaller jar. Plus old brushes that have curled ends for drybrushing small areas.
A number of different graded boxes of sand for basing; various types of flock, static gras, clump foliage, dried tea leaves for same.
Contact adhesive, epoxy resin, Superglue and PVA.
Over 100 jars, bottles and plastic dispenser types for paint including old jam jars for water, turps and two colours of magic Wash -brown and black. A number of thin marker pens graded from 0.7 down to 0.1. Plus an old cake plate for decanting paint onto and for mixing colours.
Tweezers, pliers, clamps, small vice, model saw, different sized files, metal and plastic rulers, craft knife, scalpel, scissors and shears, wet-and-dry paper for that final smoothing on figures, eye-dropper do accurately drop watered down PVA onto clump foliage to fix it in place, various grades of cardboard for buildings, a small crate for currently unused terrain, i.e bags of trees, hedges etc.
Two anglepoise lamps -one on each side of my painting desk. The business end of an original 6pdr A/T shell that is heavy enough to keep one of my anglepoise lamps from falling over.
Plus any other wargaming impedimenta collected over the decades.
MickS
Have about 20 in my pot from various manufactures. I know the evil empire (GW) is something not mentioned but their dry brushes were very useful.
I have a small pin vice with assorted drill sizes, a couple of pairs of clippers, a Swan Morten scalpel for most of my work but for heavy duty I have a larger X-Acto style knife, a mixed assortment of needle files, a razor saw and a magnifying lamp
On the adhesive front I have Plastic Weld and Revel Conta for plastics, super glue for metal etc and PVA for putting scenic materials on to the bases.
Paint wise I use Vallejo, Army Painter Soft and Dark Tone washes and a few old GW paints :D :D
Have just taken an inventory.
I have a clowder ( > 50) of brushes of which five or six are my favorites and have been given names.
Five X-acto handles each fitted with a different size and style of blade (two of which are used almost exclusively for slicing my thumbs and knuckles).
A box of band-aids (many may call these "plasters" but that's what my grandmother put on her corns)
Superglue, white glue, and glue sticks..
Various lights and magnifiers (some of which are both).
A 1/2" brush (purchased with the idea it might speed things up - it didn't).
An egg of Silly Putty.
An assortment of various dental and surgical tools (having little to do with painting but there they are)
One of my best purchases ever - a cordless micro Dremel.
A tube each of yellow and blue stuff to make green stuff.
I have
6 Brushes that are used regularly, plus 10 or so others in my brush pot and another 20 in reserve
A dozen files (one set I picked up at Lidl for £2 which are ok)
Two craft knives with flexible plastic handles that are used for prying figures off bases, applying texture etc
2 Surgical quality scalpels that are so much nicer to hold than standard ones.
1 normal scalpel
1 retractable scalpel for going on holiday with
A dremel
Wire cutters
Miniature pliers
Squadron plastic filler - works on metal as well
PVA
Superglue (8 tubes a £1 from poundland)
Superglue gel
Evostic
Polystyrene cement
Plus a very trusty and often used Optivisor
Brush wise probably 4-5 that get used for all of my painting, from largeish for adding colours to bases and tanks etc, through to very fine for webbing etc. Tool wise I have a huge range, as my day job is a modelmaker. Then at work I have access to lots of nice toys :D
I have 3 brushes. One for painting detail, one for drybrushing and one for washes
Oh I have another for PVA
As an add-on, how many fingers is enough fingers?
I recently bought some painted 10mm's (Pendraken as it happens) during Ian Hind's 20% off sale. Today I am debasing them.
The two afore mentioned X-acto's (with different size chisel blades) are my primary tools. Here is the status of by left hand after four hours:
(https://inredcoatragsattired.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/20170808_191920789_ios.jpg?w=400)
Im not as quick as I used to be.
Have you tired soaking the bases and figures in water for a few hours? If they used PVA (while glue) they should be easy to remove
That's an excellent idea. That's what I do with my own painting sticks but these are on finished bases and some sort of gum based glue was used that does not appear to be water soluble. I'm finished for the day so I'll run a test tonight and see if it helps.
Quote from: paulr on 08 August 2017, 07:51:22 PM
Have you tired soaking the bases and figures in water for a few hours? If they used PVA (while glue) they should be easy to remove
Paul,I just checked the test batch after about a 5 hour soak. I can now pick them of the bases like ripe grapes!
I thank you and my remaining figures thank you. :) :-bd :-bd
Quote from: d_Guy on 09 August 2017, 01:28:07 AM
Paul,I just checked the test batch after about a 5 hour soak. I can now pick them of the bases like ripe grapes!
I thank you and my remaining figures thank you. :) :-bd :-bd
Is that 'remaining figures' or 'remaining fingers' ;D
Quote from: d_Guy on 08 August 2017, 07:44:28 PM
As an add-on, how many fingers is enough fingers?
I recently bought some painted 10mm's (Pendraken as it happens) during Ian Hind's 20% off sale. Today I am debasing them.
The two afore mentioned X-acto's (with different size chisel blades) are my primary tools. Here is the status of by left hand after four hours:
(https://inredcoatragsattired.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/20170808_191920789_ios.jpg?w=400)
Im not as quick as I used to be.
X_X
Have you considered a butcher's mail/mesh glove?! :-\
There's a wide array of pictures of people grabbing knives by the blade and stabbing themselves in the palm on Amazon for you to choose from... 8-}
Cheers!
Meirion
Quote from: d_Guy on 09 August 2017, 01:28:07 AM
Paul,I just checked the test batch after about a 5 hour soak. I can now pick them of the bases like ripe grapes!
I thank you and my remaining figures thank you. :) :-bd :-bd
Glad to be of service, Good sir
Quote from: GrumpyOldMan on 09 August 2017, 07:54:37 AM
Is that 'remaining figures' or 'remaining fingers' ;D
;D ;D yes - both!
So to return to the thread
Have now added to my kit:
One waterbath (thanks Paul)
One chainmail (or whatever you want to call it) glove (Thanks Meirion)
A very useful item I use is a small Ultrasonic cleaning bath I bought from Aldi or Llidl to mix paint and clean things , e.g. airbrush. If mixing paint in a bottle with a paper label I put the paint bottle in a plastic bag to stop the label coming off.
Martin
Quote from: d_Guy on 09 August 2017, 02:34:03 PM
;D ;D yes - both!
So to return to the thread
Have now added to my kit:
One waterbath (thanks Paul)
One chainmail (or whatever you want to call it) glove (Thanks Meirion)
Glad to be of assistance :)
What type did you go for? Let us know how you get on with it, especially with regards to handling small figures.
Cheers,
Meirion
Quote from: Smoking gun on 13 August 2017, 04:15:46 PM
A very useful item I use is a small Ultrasonic cleaning bath I bought from Aldi or Llidl to mix paint and clean things , e.g. airbrush. If mixing paint in a bottle with a paper label I put the paint bottle in a plastic bag to stop the label coming off.
Martin
This is also an excellent piece of equipment to have handy. Good suggestion!
As to the "mail" glove, the do make them but very pricey - I ordered a pair of cut resistant kitchen gloves the should arrive soon and will test (without my fingers in them!). I base with locktite gel on wooden squares and soaking is not useful. Simply need to protect my left hand when shearing off figures, fortunately don't need to handle figure with gloves.
Just to finish the thought:
(https://leadenshipsandtinmen.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/20170817_141451611_ios-e1502980655191.jpg?w=400)
This is a Dowellific High Performance Cut Level 5 glove. It is very flexible and fits tightly so reasonabley easy to manipulate small things (even picking up and rotating a single 10mm figure is fairly easy). My initial cut tests were OK (about the same force that occurs when I use a chisel blade to debase). It will not turn the sharp point of a blade but would reduce the depth of penetration. No - I did NOT have my fingers in the glove for this testing. :)
Have debased the remains 30 figures but no slips so I have no data on live use - yet.
Quote from: d_Guy on 17 August 2017, 02:51:33 PM
Just to finish the thought:
(https://leadenshipsandtinmen.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/20170817_141451611_ios-e1502980655191.jpg?w=400)
This is a Dowellific High Performance Cut Level 5 glove. It is very flexible and fits tightly so reasonabley easy to manipulate small things (even picking up and rotating a single 10mm figure is fairly easy). My initial cut tests were OK (about the same force that occurs when I use a chisel blade to debase). It will not turn the sharp point of a blade but would reduce the depth of penetration. No - I did NOT have my fingers in the glove for this testing. :)
Have debased the remains 30 figures but no slips so I have no data on live use - yet.
Great stuff, hope they do the job and keep the fingers safe :-bd
As if I need one of those gloves.
Shares in Elastoplast will plummet if it ever gets out that I've bought one of those. :D
Cheers - Phil
Quote from: Techno on 18 August 2017, 06:14:55 AM
As if I need one of those gloves.
Shares in Elastoplast will plummet if it ever gets out that I've bought one of those. :D
Cheers - Phil
I'm not sure that style would do it with your track record Phil - probably best to go straight to a mail butcher's glove or even a plate gauntlet to be on the safe side X_X ;)
Cheers!
Meirion
Thank you. :P
Cheers - Phil
Course your modelling standard will get even lower if you do use one. :D
I'm sure it would ! ;D ;D ;D ;D
Cheers - Phil
Plus your best work requires blood sacrifice, apparently. ;)
Getting back to the original question, in my experience it is about x + 5 , where x = the number you currently own.
Mollinary
Quote from: mollinary on 18 August 2017, 09:15:03 PM
Getting back to the original question, in my experience it is about x + 5 , where x = the number you currently own.
Mollinary
In all truth, about 4 - I have about 30 brushes, but still seem to come back to a faithful few! Most of the rest were bought to eventually replace the '4' that are slowly wearing out, but never seem quite right... :'(
;)
That's what I've found - I own about 15 brushes, but only use 3 or 4.
It's a sad day when a old faithful wears out.
Quote from: fsn on 19 August 2017, 08:17:22 AM
That's what I've found - I own about 15 brushes, but only use 3 or 4.
It's a sad day when a old faithful wears out.
Too true! :(
Although I prefer to look at it as a shift to light duties or the reserves: it'll still do a job dry brushing for a good few years yet even if it can't keep a point like it used too ;)