Citadel STC Synthetic Paint Brush Review

So Citadel released their STC line of synthetic paint brushes – including detail brushes, glaze brushes, dry brushes and more – here’s my review of them.

The full range consists of:

Layer Small, Medium

Base Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large

Shade Medium, Large

Dry Small, Medium, Large

Glaze – one size

Citadel claims that they have noticeable springiness and a different level of stiffness and snap-back compared to their regular brushes. This is definitely the case in practice – they don’t feel much like the normal range of Citadel brushes in use.

So far I have tried the Small Layer brush, Medium Layer brush, Small Dry brush and Medium Shade brush. The Medium Layer brush splayed after the first use, unfortunately, where the Small Layer brush has proved to be excellent for use with metallics – which I am not keen on using with the sable brushes so it’s a good fit to use with those.

The dry brush works well and it’s quite distinctly different to the standard Citadel dry brush – the springiness is noticeable and I find it works quite well, being predictable and easy to manipulate.

The Shade brush works well and deposits washes at a controlled rate, so that’s a winner for me as well.

I’ll pick some more up and see how the rest go. The Medium Layer brush I made the mistake of using a watered down paint with which raced up the bristles into the ferrule as soon as the tip contacted it – and no matter how I rinsed it or used brush soap on it afterwards I couldn’t get it to hold a point. I suspect if I had stuck to thicker paints with it it would have been fine.

2 month update:

I don’t much use the Small Layer Brush after acquiring the Brokentoad Fugazi brush set – the latter holds a much better point for longer. The STC Glaze brush is squarely my favourite from the STC range – followed by the Medium Shade brush, both of which I use daily.