Things I Have Learned: How to Load a Brush

Not like this, in case you were wondering.

This is the way I loaded my brush when I started painting miniatures. I think it's the way most people do. It's horrible, but you don't know that at the time.

The advantages of the big glob of undiluted paint on the end of the brush method are few. You've essentially removed the point from your brush, so precise work is impossible. The paint is so thick it won't just flood off despite the grotesque overloading, but the downside of the thick paint is that you have to more or less scrub the paint off the brush onto the miniature. It will cover reasonably well, but it will do so in thick, uneven coats that will potentially show brush marks or obscure details.

Over time I learned about not overloading the brush - so that it's the same shape loaded and unloaded - and thinning paint - so it flows well and covers smoothly. In my case that ended up looking like this.

Doesn't that look better?

That's how I've been loading my brush for... maybe years? Recently I bought Angel Giraldez's Masterclass book, and it blew my mind with the advice to only load the tip of the brush, because that's the bit you paint with.

I imagined the paint below the part of the brush I was using somehow stopped the tip drying, but I've been experimenting, and it doesn't. I think I may have been overloading my brushes, and that might explain why my nice sables don't keep their points as long as they're supposed to.

I've commemorated my enlightenment by making my very first animated gif. Enjoy, everyone!

Does seem kind of obvious, now I think about it.