I’d usually begin an article with a preamble, setting the scene, leading the reader in, but this time, I’m not going to.

Having been using the 33 series of brushes from Rosemary & Co for some time, I am absolutely blown away with the quality of the brushes and the service received from the company itself.

Having read Kev’s article some time ago, it genuinely spurred me on to try different techniques, and take a look at my then current approach and see how I could move things forward. One thing Kev said, which is something that goes right back to the early days, is get the best brushes you can afford, and name dropped Rosemary & Co as ones to check out.

Then having looked over the brushes article he did here, I made my choice and went for some Rosemary & Co’s, the price point looked spot on and they came across well in the article.

I’ve used loads of brushes over the years, and was using Army Painter ones at the time, quite happily, having some larger brushes, then smaller bristled ones for the fine details, such as the insane detail brush.

THIS is exactly where I was going wrong. Like Kev said, you don’t need 87 brushes with 1 bristle to do fine detail, you need 3 or 4 good brushes with a fine point, so I ordered the 0,1 and 2 from Rosemary & Co’s 33 range on the Thursday morning having had a good scan over Kevs second article about which brushes to go for here, and received them with a handwritten note on Friday morning. Where the internet is supposed to speed things up, yet you spend weeks waiting for some clown in a warehouse to put a pot of paint in a box, this sort of service was a genuine breath of fresh air.

Rosemary and Co make the best brushes out there. I choose these brushes for their reliability and absolute quality. I highly recommend these sets, which contain some of my favourite brushes made by Rosemary and Co! These sets will give you the range and versatility you need to master many subjects from portraiture and still life to landscape!”.

• VIKEWE Professional Paint Brushes Set - 16 PCS Paint Brush with Oil Painting Knife and Sponge, Suitable for Acrylic, Watercolor, Oil and Gouache Painting, Perfect Paint Brush for Artist Kids. 4.6 out of 5 stars 994. Rosemary and co brushes oil painting.
• Amazon.com: rosemary and co brushes Miniatures Paint Brush Set - 12pc with Included Case and Mini Palette. Tiny Professional Fine Detail Brushes, Detailing Paint kit for Acrylic, Watercolor - Scale Models, Art, Paint by Numbers Kit 48.
• Rosemary & Co are a small UK based company that hand make their brushes. They have a fast growing following among artists worldwide including many artist superstars. So I was keen to use the brushes and see what the fuss was all about.

For scale, there’s a #2,an Army Painter “Psycho” brush, and a #1. There really is no need for tiny brushes that last 4 days anymore.

Having taken the protectors off and got to work with them on my Forgeworld Fulgrim model, I was floored at how well they worked. They are in appearance long bristled brushes, with shockingly fine point, even the larger brushes, you can quite easily paint the eyelids and pupils on a 28mm face, no sweat. This is not what I was used to previously and upped my painting game by several notches in one swoop. They’re very similar in principle to sign writers brushes, they can hold a lot of paint, they’re long bristled, and the paint goes on perfectly smooth through the fine tip, making them ideal for miniature painting on most scales.

A quick eyeball of some of the 33 range Rosemary & Co. produce.

Rosemary And Co Paint Brushes

Not to forget the price either, between £3.65 and £3.80 for the 0,1 & 2. For a few extra pence, the quality of these brushes when compared to the market leaders like Army Painter and Citadel is phenomenal.

Rosemary & co are a small family run business, which is what Corehammer are all about, the DIY approach, doing it for yourself, and its great to support companies like this, providing top quality products, with a personal touch and impeccable service, something that is in the mission statement on the website itself :-

In dealing with artists direct I’m able to offer exactly what you want in terms of quality, delivery and price. I’m proud to be a small family business who can extend an ‘old fashioned’ approach to conducting my business. I believe this to be a major strength and although the 21st century offers valuable technology I feel it important to remember the courtesies in life, day to day, between each other.

If you’re serious about the painting aspect of this hobby,then I cannot recommend these brushes enough, even if you’re not so keen on painting, or maybe you’re looking to up your game like I was, these brushes will make your life easier, so you’re not scrubbing away with some poor quality bristles. A whole bunch of the Corehammer Crew use them, and had this to say:-

Rosemary And Co Oil Paint Brushes

Rosemary & Co Oil Brushes

In 2012 I was trying to raise my painting game, I read an article on Tale Of Painters that suggested some of those guys use Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes so being the brainless lemming I am I picked up a couple of those, at great expense. I was impressed, they kept a decent point and I could finally paint precision details on 28mm models like I’d always wanted, my game was raised considerably and comparing the models I painted in August 2012 (using Citadel brushes) to models I painted in December 2012 was like night and day. But I started noticing I was damaging the brush by using it as a workhorse for base coating and considering the high price tag of the W&N I wanted something that was easier on the wallet but with the same quality. That’s where the Rosemary & Co brushes came in, I read Kev’s article on Corehammer and instantly bought a couple of series 33’s, specifically size 1 and 2. I was instantly impressed, so much so that I haven’t picked up the Windsor & Newton brush since I took delivery of the Rosie brushes. I’ve been using the size 1 brush for everything detail related, it’s great for medium to small details and even eyes are easy to paint now. – D. Duggan

Professional Paint Brushes

Which, to finish, leads me on to Masters Brush Cleaner, which I’ll be covering next article, because you’ll want to take care of these brushes.