Wargaming Bugbears #6 : brushes

If you paint your troops, you need brushes.  Lots of brushes.  Some become your friends - your favourite brushes that you turn to again and again.  Until they inevitably fray, fall apart and are consigned to either the dustbin of history...or become drybrushes.

But there are other brushes that look good on the shelf, look good in the bag, look good as you dip them into the paintpot - and then splay apart on first contact with your lead figures.

I know this because I made the massive error of buying two Games Workshop brushes the other day.  These are laughingly called 'Detail' and 'Fine Detail'.  I used the Detail one first.  Within a minute the bristles started to splay (making detail work on a 10mm figure a bit tricky) - and stayed splayed.  I rinsed it, used thinner to remove any paint and tried again.  Instant splay.

The 'Fine Detail' was not much better and it has barely lasted a day.  Now I have nylon brushes that have lasted months with no problems so clearly there is something not right here.

Never mind the cost of this horror (£3.20) but the fact that it couldn't last 10 minutes defies belief.  I feel sorry for kids who buy this dross in good faith (not knowing any different) and wonder why they find painting so hard  as they're effectively trying to paint with a miniature toilet brush.  At least I have plenty of brushes to fall back on but you'd have thought Games Workshop would have found a decent supplier of brushes.

I'm also willing to bet that GW's staff don't use these crappy brushes to paint their figures so well!

So a word or warning.  Don't try these at home!