Tools
Sculptors often use a high amount of detail in the figures, and painting may require the finest brushes, as fine as 00000 (5/0). Most painters will use a range of different brush sizes; 1, 00, and 0000 is a likely minimum set. Good quality brushes like Kolinsky sable brushes that take a fine point are preferred, although hog or synthetic brushes are better for "rough" work: undercoating and dry brushing. An Airbrush is also a commonly used tool. Airbrushing facilitates leveled painting surfaces and allows for effects like gradiants and soft blended edges. Because of the detail work involved, airbrushes with a small tip diameter are considered more useful.
A palette is used for mixing and thinning paints before application. Non-porous materials, such as a plain ceramic tile, avoid sucking the solvent out of the paint. A wet palette is especially useful with acrylics that dry quickly on a dry palette. A wet palette is a sealable container with a layer of absorbent material (such as tissue paper) that can be soaked with water and a semi-permeable membrane (such as greaseproof paper or baking paper (silicone paper)) over that. The paint sits on the membrane and is kept wet by osmosis. Wet palettes can be bought, but are easily made.
Read more about this topic: Figure Painting (hobby)
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—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
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—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Machinery is aggressive. The weaver becomes a web, the machinist a machine. If you do not use the tools, they use you. All tools are in one sense edge-tools, and dangerous.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)