Brushes

I’m having an emotional moment with my Winsor & Newton series 7 Kolinsky #2 brushes. I tend to not have many emotional attachments as serious as this. Really, I don’t. This is new to me. I’ve only had emotional attachments to a few items in my life and the crisis I’m having now is making me look inward into myself and dig around. It’s weird how this happens.

There are only a few things I regret losing or getting rid of. I sold a lever action Winchester 94 for $200 once. I got it for free, I had bought 3 firearms from a guy and he threw that 94 on top of the pile to sweeten the deal. My initial thought when selling it a few years later was “pure profit!” but a few years after that I was regretting the sale. I have a Marlin 336 in 30-30 and only shot that Win. 94 once but I was feeling incomplete for an odd reason. I’m still not over it but I trudge on without it!

I’m very happy that I still have the chess pieces I learned to play chess with. I played Chess with my Dad, by myself, and with the couple of friends that understood chess. I’m not good at chess to this day but it’s still something I play – albeit on my iPhone.

I wish I still had some of my old action figures I played with when I was a kid. I didn’t have a ton like my “richer” friends did but I did have a few and I bought half of them with my own money that I earned working and doing chores. As is the typical story most of what was left by the time I had left home for The Navy was sold off in a garage sale my parents had. I will not fault them, I was gone and they needed the space. I plan to do the same when my kid leaves. I will ask her what she wants to keep though. I do have my Darth Vader figure carry case. It’s not worth a lot as there are still a lot of those floating around but it still lives and is above my desk/workstation.

A few years back I had run across some harder times and had to move out of a nice large apartment and into a smaller space. I put a lot of stuff in storage. After a few months I was not able to pay the rent on that storage space and a few bad decisions later I lost it. It was mostly furniture but there were a few other sentimental things in it I regret losing. I had my old foot locker in there with my “uniforms” in it. Cub Scouts, Tae Kwon Do, Alderbrook Park shirt, and my Navy Dress Blues. Other than that the only regret is my old SCA helmet (I still have the horse tail) and my splinted “Varangian” greaves I made. Those were in that storage locker too. The rest of the stuff I could care less about and I hope somebody made some money off of an old couch, 400+ 90s era comic books, and some other random junk.

Back to my W&N Kolinsky brushes, I bought them in 2010 after recommendations from peers and the internet; on Amazon and ordering two. I wanted to up my painting game a little bit and, other than some skill increase, what could I do equipment-wise? My old brushes were Reaper brand brushes I got back in 2001 when I first started painting minis. I still have and use those actually, though relegated to junk and craft as opposed to mini-painting.

I must add, prior to getting into Historical War Gaming 3 years ago I painted 10-12 minis per year for RPGs – Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons. Low-mileage = old stuff still working.

There was a bit of sticker shock, after shipping we’re looking at about $18 a brush, and I am one of those guys that looks for the deal and doubts anything that is “more $$ = more quality” … though, as I am about to relate, I am proven wrong in that often.

Immediately I start to paint with one of them Kolinsky No 7s; a larger figure, a cyclopean lich that was the big-bad for one of the Pathfinder adventures I was running.

These brushes were a game-changer for me. Holy shit they were nice.

Now, I will never be a pro-painter and I will never enter a mini of mine in a contest. I do not have the patience or aptitude to ever be good enough for that. The Kolinskies made me better though – pushed me to use them at their ability to be a brush. I was limited in growth by sub-par brushes. One of them situations where you think this is it only to find your view was quite myopic and there was a whole world out there you denied yourself.

Like with kitchen knives and flashlights, I was being stubborn. Like with kitchen knives and flashlights, I was shown the truth of the matter. I firmly believe that some things just can’t improve on skill. Then I got a decent kitchen knife, then I got a decent flashlight, then I learned I was wrong.

The main thing No. 7 Kolinskies did for me was increase my volume of painting. One of the bars keeping me out of historical gaming was the volume of painting needed to get stuff on the table. Averaging 11 minis a year I would never be able to get any kind of army on the table but now, just in 2016, I have painted:
60+ Dark Ages figures

4 SWAT/Spec Ops figures

24 100 Year War billmen

40+ English Civil War Covenanters

… off the top of my head … I’m sure there are a few more in there.

Those brushes, and a few other major factors, turned miniature painting, a thing I knew how to do, into my #1 hobby currently.

…and that’s how I gained an emotional attachment to these two, 5 year old, getting pretty ragged, high-end paint brushes.

The Kolinskies are pretty old now, over 5 years. Looking back at my Amazon history they were delivered to me November 2010. I did not care for them as best I could though I did wash them with paint brush soap and applied conditioner occasionally. I hear they should only last you a year or 2 anyways, I don’t know if that is true or not. They don’t hold a tip well anymore and, when loaded with paint, the bristles split sometimes.

This past week I looked at my Amazon order history just to see how much of a difference 5 and a half years makes and the brushes are a bit cheaper now, plus I’ve got Amazon Prime so free shipping, and two new No. 7s will cost me about $21 now as opposed to the $36 I spent in 2010. I might shake it up and get some various sizes and I do use various sized brushes though the #2 size takes care of 90% of my needs. I’m thinking a #2, #1, and maybe a 00 for eyeballs and belt buckles.

I’m not sure I know what I want to do with those old No. 7s though. I’m not going to throw them away, I know that. Framing them seems a bit pretentious. As usual I’m sure I’ll figure it out though.

I hope your summer is going well and hope to see some of you across the table from me in the future. Good gaming to you all.