Review: Notts Hobbies drybrushes & weathering set

We’ll be putting Notts Hobbies’ brushes and accessories to the test in today’s review. This new budget-friendly UK brand offers a range of tools for drybrushing and sponge weathering. We’ll be comparing them directly with popular brands like Artis Opus and The Army Painter and see how they can compare.

Notts Hobbies is a small company based in the UK, specialising in drybrushing and weathering tools. You can order their products directly from their website, nottshobbies.co.uk. Shipping is free within the UK for orders over £20, and international shipping is also available (from $26 or €20.95).

The drybrushes & accessories

vBy now, drybrushes with a rounded, domed head, popularised by Artis Opus on their YouTube channel, are available from almost every manufacturer. I’ve tested sets like The Army Painter’s Masterclass Drybrushes, PK-Pro’s White Line, and Chronicle’s Techlon Tiger Drybrush set. However, Notts Hobbies’ brushes take a slightly different approach. Like Artis Opus, they use soft natural goat hair, but the bristle shape is more classic, being slightly longer and less domed.

Currently, there are three sizes available: small, medium, and large. The size descriptions might be a bit misleading, as even the smallest size is on the larger side. Medium is slightly longer and bushier, while large has a similar hair length to small but is slightly wider and more rectangular in shape. Compared to the more domed, rounded brushes like Artis Opus, the slightly longer bristles are great for quick back-and-forth strokes, but I found they’re too long for stippling.

“Shedding” is a common problem with natural hair drybrushes, where hairs come loose and end up on your model. I did notice a little bit of shedding with these brushes, but I’ve seen worse, like with The Army Painter’s Masterclass Drybrushes.

Notts Hobbies offers a brush soap, a dampening pad, and a texture palette as accessories. The dampening pad is a plastic case filled with foam that you can wet to slightly dampen your drybrush, creating softer blends. The texture palette is made of wood and is used to remove excess paint. I haven’t tested it, but based on the product photos, the texture doesn’t seem very pronounced.

The weathering sponge holder

In addition to their brushes, Notts Hobbies offers a small tool for holding sponges. This stainless steel gadget has a push button at the end, similar to a ballpoint pen, that extends a small gripper at the tip. You can attach a piece of sponge to this gripper, dab it into paint, and then press it on the model like a stamp to create unique patterns. It’s a great alternative to tweezers and a nice addition to my tool collection.

The sponges that Notts Hobbies sells are very fine-pored and create almost no texture when used for sponge weathering. I prefer coarser foam like blister sponge to create chipped paint edges and similar weathering effects. However, I found that this foam is very good for removing oil paints and enamel washes, as it’s similar to a makeup sponge.

Value

The individual brushes are priced at 8€, which is more expensive than The Army Painter’s Masterclass set but around half the price of Artis Opus Series D brushes of a similar size. For a small company, I think that’s a fair price. For 43€, you can get the complete set with three brushes, a palette, and accessories. The sponge holder is available for a reasonable 4€. You can find all products directly on their website, and with the code TaleOfPainters10 you can nab a discount of 10%:

You can find the latest hobby products at our 🇬🇧/🇪🇺 partner stores Wayland Games, Element Games, and Firestorm Games, at 🇩🇪 Taschengelddieb and PK-Pro, and at 🇺🇸 Noble Knight Games with a welcome discount of up to 10–15% over RRP. Using our links helps to support Tale of Painters at no additional cost to you, so thank you very much for using them!

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.