Review: Chronicle Cards Techlon Tiger Drybrushes Kickstarter

Chronicle Cards have caught my eye with their high quality and stylish brush sets. After the successful launch of their wolf bristle brushes and Kolinsky sable brushes, Chronicle has now launched a new Kickstarter campaign. This time, they aim to fund an assortment of drybrushes in various shapes, along with matching accessories. I’ve had the chance to try out some of the Techlon Tiger drybrushes, and I’m here to let you know if this Kickstarter is a worthy investment or not.

Chronicle Cards are located in Brisbane, Australia, shipping worldwide via their online store. The Techlon Tiger Drybrushes Kickstarter has been funded in 8 minutes and runs until 15 September 2023. Backers pledging within the first 72 hours (= Thursday, 24 August) will receive a 10% shipping discount and one of six gifts, for example, a brush soap or combat gauge. After fulfilment, the Techlon brushes will find their way into Chronicle Cards’ online shop.

Techlon Tiger Drybrush set review

The complete Tiger set contains 14 drybrushes and comes in a velvet pouch and round gift tube (the campaign started with 9 brushes, three more brush sizes, and two spares have been unlocked via stretch goals). The pledge starts at $49 / 45 € / £40 / $80 AUD plus shipping, and is advertised to have a discount of 20% over RRP. Like Chronicle’s previous sets, the brushes have extra thick and comfortable handles. Whereas the Kolinsky brushes were black, the Techlon Tiger brushes are now white with stylish black ferrules.

Five of the brushes have round heads, perfect for drybrushing large areas or whole models slapchop-style, or for an Artis Opus like combination of stippling and drybrushing. The other brushes have straight, angled, and pointed bristles. Great for picking out edges on vehicles or armour, and for reaching small areas. I really like the variety of shapes and can see a use for every brush in this set.

The brush hair is synthetic (vegan) Techlon hair, familiar from high-quality make-up brushes. The bristles are super soft, which helps achieve softer blendings, and have a pleasant spring and snap. With regular cleaning with brush soap, the brushes should last a long time. All in all, the two brushes I was able to test made a really good first impression.

The addons

No Kickstarter without addons, right. You can pledge for a set of all three brush sets from Chronicle, which also includes the all-around wolf fibre beatsticks, which I reviewed here, and the premium Kolinsky sable set, reviewed here.

You can also get a hand-poured resin texture palette in various designs, plus matching painting handles and cups. The palette is quite heavy, and the black “Eclipse” marble-like design I chose is a real eyecatcher. One side is textured, the other side flat. The flat side can also be used as a wet palette and has the exact dimensions of Redgrass Games Everlasting Wet Palette. Foam and palette paper is not included. The palette also doesn’t come with a lid, so you can’t keep your paint fresh after a painting session. You can also use the flat side for rolling dice, but the walls are not very high, so in my opinion can’t replace a real dice tray.

I think that the palette, handles, and cups are for people who enjoy beautiful and unusual things and can live with the fact that they’re not necessarily the most practical solution. Function follows form in this regard.

Apart from the painting accessories, there are brush soaps, a dampening pad, a brush agitator, a leather pouch, dice sets, a combat gauge, and a bath/brush bomb in a purity seal design. No, I kid you not. I haven’t tried the bombs yet, somehow I don’t dare lol. But I’m sure it’s a fun idea for a gift.

The stretch goals

At the time of writing, the $100,000 mark has already been cracked, so you get five extra brushes, which makes a total of 14 brushes. The other stretch goals don’t add any more physical products, but digital goods such as miniatures for printing and tutorials by well-known painters.

Value

For the basic pledge of $49 / 45 € / £40 / $80 AUD, you get 14 brushes, so about $3.5 / 3.21 € / £2.85 / $5.71 AUD per brush. Pretty amazing, considering there are quite a few large brushes in this set. Shipping for a single Techlon Tiger Brush set is $21 AUD for the US & Canada (about $13.57), and $25.75 AUD (about 15.34 € / £13.12) for Europe and the UK. The shipping costs include delivery duties, so no additional import costs!

For a clean conscience, Chronicle Cards supports One Tree Planted, a non-profit organization that will plant a tree for every pledge. Neat.

I hope you found this review helpful, feel free to leave a reaction or comment below, or post your questions here or discuss on our Discord channel.