Tag Archives: brush

Review – The Fine Touch 3-Brush Set (1-,2-, and 3-inch Flat)

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I’m not a painter, or at least, not very often. Painting is expensive, time consuming, and space requiring. But nowadays there are budget products that are easing the “pain” a little bit. Bopping in to your local superstore and buying a set of brushes with a canvas or two for less than $20 is incredible. And “The Fine Touch” is one of the more visible brands (in my area at least) selling inexpensive painting supplies, like a set of three 1-inch increment synthetic brushes. Do they really work though?

Despite the common wisdom for years being that natural hair brushes are superior to synthetic nylon ones, they have made some improvement in quality over that time. I don’t know if the best synthetic brushes are better than the best natural ones, nor would I claim that these are better than any other brush, but I personally prefer the little extra “bounce” the nylon provides, and they’ve worked quite well for me over several painting projects.

The basic structure is the same as virtually all paint brushes: a wooden handle with information printed on it (varnished in this case) shaped like a paddle with a ferrule on one end that holds in a set of bristles. Conveniently, these also have a hanging hole at the end for easy storage. Everything about them is cheap; the wood is lighter than the bristles, with brush strokes in its finish and burs on the drill holes; the ferrules are a flimsily metal (which will likely rust) that has either cracked or slightly splintered each handle in the fastening process, and the bristles have a bad habit of falling out during the first few uses.

So obviously they aren’t “forever” brushes, but for what they are (cheap superstore brushes) they are entirely adequate to paint with. If you only have a couple projects, just want to get some paint down, or feel the need to ease into things you might not know you want to do “forever”, then they will work just fine for that. You won’t become a master using these, and you might get frustrated with the bristles in your paintings, but they work, and for just getting started, that’s enough.

Review – BIC Cover-It Correction Fluid

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In what seems like fate’s attempt to make my reviews less relevant immediately, I discovered another type of correction fluid in the store just after I had made a comparison review. Curiously, it’s made by BIC, who already own Wite-Out and Tipp-Ex, and it’s the same volume per-bottle as Wite Out, so I don’t know why they need another brand of white paper paint. Is it really any different?

The container is very simple (the same as Tipp-Ex it appears). The main body is cylindrical and screwing on to the top is an octagonally-faceted cap. Inside, suspended from that cap, is a bristle brush that does go down pretty far into the container, but I haven’t accurately determined just how far. The fluid itself goes on smoothly, and even with the brush there are minimal stroke lines. Dry time is decent but far from instant, and when dried the mark is matte while being on the cool side of off-white. Coverage for pencils, pens, and other mild inks is good (there is an indentation where the fluid is displaced but that’s the same with all BIC correction fluids), and it even does a decent job with permanent marker, but it starts to show its limits there.

If I were to compare it to other correction fluids I’d say that it’s almost the coverage of Wite-Out extra coverage, while being a little more on the cool side of the color spectrum. It covers better than Wite-Out quick dry and is more matte and paper-like than Liquid Paper. So it is ever so slightly different. But I’m not sure it’s different enough to warrant its production. Perhaps at store prices it might be a bit less expensive but online it is quite comparable in price to BIC’s other correction fluids, and it’s not in a very nice package. It will get the job done, and done quite well (I’d rather use it than regular Wite Out quick dry) but I don’t see why it isn’t another Wite-Out variation.

Review – Sterling Studio 4-Piece Synthetic Brush Set SS-117

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One of the problems with painting miniatures (doll houses, dioramas, war game pieces, etc…) is that it’s difficult to find brushes in the right sizes, and even then, brushes can be expensive. But if you’re not going to be doing a whole lot of work with them, how well would an inexpensive brush set like the Sterling Studio SS-117 work? Let’s take a look.

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Just a bit of a disclaimer, I’m not sure if this set is available anymore or even where one would get it. I got it at an outlet store at a considerable discount and waited to use it a few times before making this review.

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The bodies of the brushes are quite simple. They are a thin piece of wood painted a dark blue with “Sterling Studio” and the brush size written on the side in white. This is followed by a very cheap piece of crimped silver metal, which holds the orange synthetic bristles. The set include a round, two brights, and a spotter. The brights being flat-ish and semi-rectangular while the other two are rounder and pointier. The differences in the round and spotter are very little save one feels a bit stiffer, but I don’t know if that’s from other factors.

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The sizes are quite small, 10/0 (0000000000) and 2/0 (00) {Side note: paint brush sizing is weird sometimes} but they aren’t massively different. While the double zero (2/0) is noticeably larger I’m not sure how much of a difference it will make. The bristles are a pretty cheap synthetic material that is quite springy (which I hear is a bad thing, but my painting skill is not fine enough to really notice) save for one which is very stiff. They seem to wear quickly, but they are quite a small surface area so it stands to reason they wouldn’t take much abuse. I know they aren’t the best quality but I’d say they’re about medium seeing as I’ve used much worst brushes. Since they are so small they don’t hold a lot of paint, but they do work well for very fine detail or fine highlighting. I believe the common wisdom among mini painters is use the largest brush you can get away with, and these in most cases aren’t. And while I have used them, I can’t imagine too many scenarios where I would need to.

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They are quite a cheap set, the wood is weightless, the finish is far from perfect (though fortunately the crimping is not loose), and the brushes will wear out quick. But for the amount of times a brush of these sizes would be applicable (unless you were doing 6mm minis, all of the detail in an already small scale doll house, or all of the detail in an N scale train set) they will do just fine. I can’t say I’d recommend them, but if you might need to paint some fine detail every once in a while, I’d say pick them up if you run across them.

万年筆 10,000 Year Brush Hiatus


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Hello followers and fountain pen fans! I’m sad to say that, after the next two 10,000 year brush comics are published, the strip will be put on indefinite hiatus similar to Dice Comics. They reason for the stop at this point is both because 84 is a good number to work with in collection format, and because I like the number. But I also feel that I’m just not making as good a strip as I can. I’m not out of jokes yet, but there are some weeks when I feel like I’m forcing a joke where there is none, and I don’t want to continue on and produce a sub-par product. I hope y’all have enjoyed the run so far and that in the future I can restart with fresh ideas.

– Austin