comments:
There's things you can do to keep your good brushes in good condition. Sorry that this will be a wall of text. Just know that if you are using a synthetic bristle brush you just kinda can't stop them from curling fairly quickly, the plastic will bend over time no matter what cleaning you do. Natural hair brushes will fare better but you need to care for them well. A couple of general tips that will help maintain your brushes that may not be the most intuitive when you are starting. With either a natural hair or synthetic brush you should NEVER allow paint to get up into the ferrule of the brush. You really need to be careful with wash and contrast paints since they are extremely viscous and can run up the body of the brush easily. When you are painting you should never use a good/sharp tip brush to stab or do a pushing motion into a model. Always try to drag it from the middle outward to the tip to deposit paint. There are flat end, dome, or drybrush brushes that exist specifically for techniques but stipple stabbing with a sharp tip brush is a very fast way to ruin it. Wash your brush frequently by keeping a well of clean water nearby while painting. While you are learning to thin paint you should have a clean water source at hand and a cup to wash your brush. I have a coffee mug that is from a kit from GW that is branded for Citadel Mephison Red, you don't need to have a GW cup but having one that is distinct from normal drinkware will help you to remember "don't drink from this one". This is my 'paint mug' and I use a silicon paint scrubber at the bottom of it which allows me to glance the silicon nubs without damaging the tip of the nice brushes I have. Again don't stab the nubs to bend the brush hairs back. Between colors and when picking up more color a simple swish of the brush in the cup will be enough to get most of the paint out but you need to draw the water out as well. When I'm painting (as you can see in the image) I have a blue paper towel called shop towels as my working surface. These are great because they don't shed fibers like a normal paper towel (this becomes very important when you start using an airbrush) can and only take on so much water at a time. This means when you run the brush along the shop towel it takes out only so much water but leaves a bit in the body which can be useful for keeping paint thin while working. You should draw it across the towel then across the back of your hand to see how much is left. If it leaves enough to leave a big bead of water you need to do another swipe. You will learn the best consistency for your paints and brush with practice. I don't even consciously do this at this point, it's just muscle memory. You should get fresh water in the cup every so often while painting looking at how cloudy the water gets, if working with metallic paint I do this a lot more frequently as the mica flakes in the paint make problems when suspended. When you're ready to be done with your painting session, go get a fresh cup of water and the soap puck. Swipe the brush in the cup and keep all of the water in the body. Run the brush head through the soap puck, again dragging from body to tip to deposit the water onto the puck. You will start to see the soap puck lather the brush and while swiping around the pick you will start seeing the foaming of the lather turning the color you were using. After a couple of swipes in a twisting motion that produce color, wash the brush in the cup and shake it through to remove the paint laden soap from the brush body. Repeat this until the lather on the puck doesn't produce a color and do one more wash in the cup. After each run in the cup run to get rid of soap try do a twisting motion on the shop towel to take a little water out. After you're done washing the brush use the water cup and twist the brush to a fine point on the towel and try to dry it. Put the tip protector back on the brush and make sure you lay it on it's side as laying it with tip up or tip down can cause a capillary action to bring any remaining water / material back up to the ferrule. I know that looking at this wall of text will be a lot to start with but I promise it will become muscle memory quickly, I honestly don't even have to think to do all of this at this point. When you are starting in the hobby it's good to practice these things with cheap brushes and when the routine of it sets in it will allow you to keep high quality brushes in good condition for much longer.