A Brush With Style…X

A few days ago, having been asked to write this review about a new line of paintbrushes, I began to think about how important my brushes really are to me. Without doubt, my brushes and my paint are my most important tools. What would a miniature painter be without his brush? That’s like a burger without the meat! Like a swordsman without a sword! It’s like Games Day without games…

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Style X – The Company

I had never heard of StyleX until the other day. So, I thought I had better do my research. I found them online without much bother, had quick browse around the site and became terribly intrigued by the use of what appears to be Latin as text fillers on their site…I am still intrigued by this and even consider doing on my site, just for the hell of it.

StyleX produce a range of hobby tools and paintbrushes, and are based in Korea. Never heard of them. That was my original thought. Now that I tried them out, I wish I had heard of them earlier.

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StyleX – The Brushes

The first thing I noticed about these brushes is the ferrule on them is longer than most brushes I have used. The brushes themselves look and feel nice in the hand. They have synthetic bristles, which are very stiff coming out of the package.

I would normally shy away from non-natural fibre brushes as they have worn out quickly in the past (Army Painter synthetic brushes feel great for a few minutes, then the bristles begin to lose shape)

I tend to find a brush I like, break in and use it until it wears out.

The main thing I look for in a brush is control and predictability. I want to control where and how much paint I place with each brush stroke. As I used this new StyleX brush, I found that it behaved differently. The stiff synthetic bristles acted more like a drybrush, the less water I had filled it with. Basically, as I played with the brush I found that I could use it both ways.

This is great for fine detail on certain areas like faces. On the Space Marine miniature below, you can see a face done using only the StyleX Basic Pro 1 Brush.

After a few minutes of painting, I am really starting to love these brushes. My only concern is their durability. Will they lose shape after hours of painting? Only time will tell.

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StyleX – Sanding Sticks

I also received a couple of StyleX sanding sticks to play with. These almost distracted me from painting, because they were also brilliant and fun to use.

Model clean-up can be a difficult and frustrating task. It can be easy to damage the model when removing flash and mould lines. These sanding sticks, while abrasive, are gentler than files or emery boards. Shaped to be used in a multitude of ways, and tough enough to take off large unwanted pieces easily, they are a joy to use.

I even found myself tearing things off of sprues just so I could file them down with my new tool.

Sad, but fun…Story of my life.