Sable brushes are the softest and highest quality natural hair brushes available to you. They are typically made from the tail hairs of a weasel and are renowned for their unique flexibility, snap and high water retention. Sable brushes are all handmade and go through a very labour intensive collection process, which makes them a very high quality brush, but also very expensive. 

There is a higher quality version of sable hair paint brushes, which come in the form of a kolinsky sable brush and is obtained from the long tail hairs of the Kolinsky Sable. These animals are only found in parts of Siberia, which makes them harder to obtain than regular sable hairs and, therefore, much more expensive. The quality, however, is unmatched and all of the characteristics of kolinsky sable bristles are very difficult to replicate with a synthetic bristle.

The Key Characteristics 

• Durability - A lot of natural hair brushes can shed and bend as you use them, so to preserve them, you are not advised to use them for many harsh painting techniques. Synthetics, however, are able to withstand any heavy-handed painting and are less prone to damage from harsh paints or cleaners. 

• Snap - Synthetics have a very durable snap and shape retention that is helped by their durability. Since the nylon hairs are very resilient to any damage from cleaners or painting techniques, they maintain their shape excellently, regardless of what you are using them for. 

Synthetic brushes are usually made out of nylon and other polyester filaments and can be made to emulate most natural brush hair types. Many people choose to use synthetic brushes because they are cheaper or feel they are more ethically acceptable and cleaner than animal hair brushes, often appealing to those who are vegan or vegetarian. 

The development of these brush hairs started in the 80s, solely using nylon that was processed to resemble a hog hair bristle. However, these early synthetic bristles were only able to replicate the feel of a stiffer animal hair and companies started to develop synthetics that could resemble softer hair types, like sable. Manufacturers can now replicate many characteristics that you find in pure animal hair brushes,such as the flags you find on hog bristles, enabling you to purchase synthetics in a wide range of stiffnesses.

Key Characteristics 

• Durability - A lot of natural hair brushes can shed and bend as you use them, so to preserve them, you are not advised to use them for many harsh painting techniques. Synthetics, however, are able to withstand any heavy-handed painting and are less prone to damage from harsh paints or cleaners. 
  
  
• Snap - Synthetics have a very durable snap and shape retention that is helped by their durability. Since the nylon hairs are very resilient to any damage from cleaners or painting techniques, they maintain their shape excellently, regardless of what you are using them for.
  
  

Synthetic brush bristles will always be able to be made with a machine, making them much easier to obtain than extracting specific hairs from animals for natural hair brushes. This also means that obtaining uniform bristles for synthetic paint brushes is much easier, as they can be made to a specific standard, rather than hand sorting through thousands of irregular hairs when gathering sable bristles for brushes. Synthetic brush prices are therefore kept low, making them the more affordable of the two.

This lengthy manufacturing process, coupled with raising animal hair costs and their extraction processes, makes sable brushes very expensive, when in comparison to synthetic brushes for miniature painting. ABC’s sable brushes, the Spearhead Red Sable range, run from £4.95 - £17.95, for the sizes 000 - 5, while the brushes in our TriGrip Detailer range, made with synthetic hair, are £2.50 each. It is a large price difference, especially if you are using larger brushes, so it is very important to consider what techniques you choose to use your sable brushes and synthetics for. Kolinsky Sable brushes are available as the highest quality brush hair type, with our Imperium range available from £7.95 - £25.95 for the sizes 000 - 5. The combined characteristics of a Kolinsky sable brush cannot be replicated by a synthetic brush and are increasingly difficult to make, due to the scarcity of the Kolinsky Sable, making the prices significantly more than a pure sable or synthetic brush. 

Beginners vs Experienced painters

The best beginner brushes for wargaming painting we would recommend would be synthetic brushes, they are much more forgiving in price and in durability. If you make mistakes in your use or brush care, they will not become as damaged as easily as a sable hair brush and won’t cost you as much to replace. As you learn and develop in your painting skills and style, you can start to introduce sable brushes into your tool kit with full confidence. Always experiment with different brushes, there will never be one set way of painting and your brush choice will vary with time. And remember, you do not need to purchase expensive brushes to enjoy painting miniatures!

• Detail brushes - The best brush hair type for detailing is usually a sable hair or Kolinsky sable brush and most miniature painters tend to keep their sables solely for this aspect of miniature painting. They maintain their points extremely well and are flexible, enabling them to capture details quickly. Our go to brushes for detailing and precision are the smaller sizes found in the Kolinsky sable brushes in our Imperium range. However, as you work down to the smallest of details, a more rigid point may be required to achieve certain aspects of highlights within your models, making synthetic brushes the better option. The smallest brushes within our Micro All-Media set maintain a rigid point, so you can paint crisp and controlled marks with ease.  
  
  
• Layer brushes - You will need to choose which brushes you use for layering and blending, depending on what effect you would like to achieve. Sables and synthetics have slightly different characteristics that will alter the final layering effect you achieve on your wargaming models. Sable paint brushes have a very soft hair that will help with soft edges between gradients, gently blurring two colours together, an effect best achieved by using the larger paint brushes within our Sentinel range. Synthetic brushes have stiffer hairs, so they will always produce a crisper, straighter line when applying paint, but are also able to withstand harsher paint application when layering. If you are aiming to create a more complete blend between colours, we would recommend the larger synthetic paint brushes within our detailer model set. 

To make sure you are getting the most out of your brushes, both sable and synthetic, you need to make sure you are cleaning and maintaining them correctly. A well maintained synthetic or sable brush can last for years, helping you to save money on constantly buying new paint brushes. 

• Proper Cleaning - Always ensure that you rinse your brushes regularly as you work and are properly cleaned after every use. Only ever dip your brush to the halfway point of the bristles, avoiding getting any paint onto the ferrule of the brush. This ensures that paint won’t harden inside this and damage it. You should also use a mild shampoo or brush cleaner regularly to ensure your brushes are always properly cleaned. Always use cold water when cleaning sable brushes and lukewarm water when cleaning synthetics. Natural hairs are always more sensitive to warm or boiling water than synthetics. 

• Common Mistakes - Since sable hair brushes are more delicate than synthetic brushes, you will need to ensure that you are not using any harsh chemicals or techniques with them to maintain their longevity. If you are using any harsh paint cleaners or metallic paints whilst you are miniature painting with sable brushes, you will damage their tips and shape retention. Using techniques like dry brushing or stippling will damage the bristles on both synthetic and sable bristles, so if you are planning on using these techniques, make sure you are using older or cheaper brushes. 

• Extending Brush life - You can reshape your brushes using water immediately after cleaning them. To extend your brushes’ life further, you can always reshape them with a brush conditioner. You can then rectify any hairs that are splaying and maintain the shape and point of the brush for much longer.