With all my new brushes, I will always wash the brush thoroughly first to get rid of the coating that gels the brush hair together. Several people have asked what “Must Have” brush sizes are. Like the brushes themselves, this really depends on you but you also need to be aware that brush sizes are not at all consistent across brands. The replacement brush was better but definitely not as good compared to the other three brushes. Getting the WN Series 7 brush to taper to a point is challenging. The other three brushes could taper easily to a sharp point. The tuft is also somewhat smaller for the size than other brands (33mm long and 26mm around at the ferrule, with a 9mm belly when wet), and the point has an unhappy tendency to split."

Keep in mind that all natural hair brushes don't look pointy when they are dried. They get pointy only when they are wet and only if they are made with the right kind of natural hair. As they are all hand made from hair that come from different animals the quality might not be consistent. For those of you who just want the TLDR: the most “popular” choice of miniatures paint brushes, (by a very ‘clear’ margin) is the Winsor & Newton – Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Brush set. Not to be easily confused with the Winsor & Newton – Series 7 Kolinsky Sable ‘Miniature’ Painting Brush set – more on this later). This set features 2 Series S brushes, the #3 for 99% of your brushwork, this does everything from base colours to eyes. We include the #1 for when you need just a little more control over paint flow. the Series M #0 for absolute precision such as freehand painting or dotting your miniatures eyes.Fully endorsed by several signature (god-tier) miniature artists, I personally use these brushes exclusively now and have done since 2019. If you are just interested in the Top-10 list without all the fluff see below, But we recommend reading the summaries of all the brushes or at least the ones you are interested in to see if they would be the best miniature brushes for you. Popularity I’ve kind of turned to Artis Opus’s base set to answer this question. In their set, you get #000, #00, #0 & #1 and that seems like a fair starter range. However, I use their #3 brush primarily. Like with the Raphael 8404, the point is so fine you can use these brushes for pretty much any job. This looks like a problem with the brush. I posted a few photos of the brushes online and some said the WN quality control has gone down. One suggested putting the hair in boiling water to make it straighter and apparently there's a Youtube video just on this. I tried that too with the hair in boiling water and it did not work.

Even one of the artists working in the big box art shop (where I got it) said they don't use WN series 7. They couldn't suggest anything... but could answer what brushes they used when I asked ;) The paint and water looked weird on the brush. It's like the brush hair is repelling the water. With the other brushes, the water would coat the hair evenly to make the hair look like huge water droplet.

I’ve had no issues with mine, but I’m an infrequent user and I keep them washed and clean with masters brush soap. They are an excellent choice of brush, but you are paying nearly half again on top of the Raphael 8404 Series and they are almost/over triple the cost of Rosemary & Co’s Series 22/33 respectively. The brushes are designed to hold less paint so that acrylic and watercolor painters do not deploy too much onto to the canvas. The shorter bristles provide sharp precision as they are less floppy. For painting miniatures, you would actually want the brushes to hold more paint in the belly but still have a fine tip. Which is why the normal set of Series 7 took the number 1 spot on this list. Don’t fret if you have bought these they are still high-quality brushes and they do the job. But when I swapped a couple of my miniature ones out for the normal ones; I noticed a considerable improvement in my painting, especially glazing. If you have these, great. If you haven’t invested yet, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. To be honest, you could just get a #000 & #1 rather than either of the #00 & #0 depending on what you paint. Another good option would be a #10/0 for things like eyes, but a good pointed brush of any size can do this.

Most importantly, Series 7 fulfils the essential qualities that define the finest watercolour brush for artists:

Essential tips on stretching watercolour paper

When I put the call out asking what the best brushes for painting miniatures were, I had 32 significantly different options (and some daft yet creative suggestions, like the scalps of fallen enemies). The list below makes up the bottom 5% in popularity of all the options mentioned. This does not mean they aren’t worth looking at. Instead, it goes to show that best brushes you can get are really just the best brushes that work for you.