Nicpro 21PCS Model Paint Brush Set Review (2026): Worth It?
Sixteen graded detail brushes and five goat-hair drybrushes at $21.99 — the most complete graded set on this shelf, and the only one that publishes its full size ladder.
$21.99
Model Paint Brush Set Review — Nicpro 21-Piece With Drybrushes
Sixteen detail brushes and five goat-hair drybrushes in one tray, at $21.99, with a 4.7 rating from 4,066 owners. It is the only set of the five that publishes a full size ladder for every brush in the box, and the only one that pairs detail work with dedicated drybrushes. We score this model paint brush set 8.8 out of 10.
This review is research-based. We did not physically test these products; specifications, ratings and prices are taken from the live listings on the date shown. This model paint brush set is one of five compared in our best miniature paint brushes guide.
On this page
- Model paint brush set — Key Specifications
- Twenty-One Brushes, and a Size Ladder You Can Actually Read
- Why the Drybrushes Are the Reason to Buy This Model Paint Brush Set
- The Triangular Handle and the Shedding Claim
- Model paint brush set — Limitations
- Setting Up This Model paint brush set
- Who Should Buy This Model paint brush set?
- The Verdict
- Model paint brush set — Frequently Asked Questions
Model paint brush set — Key Specifications
| Specification | Detail |
|---|---|
| Reviewed model | model paint brush set |
| Price | $21.99 at the time of writing |
| Amazon rating | 4.7 from 4,066 ratings |
| Pieces | 21 — 16 detail brushes, 5 drybrushes |
| Detail sizes | Liners 4/0, 3/0, 2/0, 1; Rounds 4/0, 3/0, 2/0, 0, 1, 2, 4; Flats 2/0, 0, 1, 2; Angled Spot 0 |
| Drybrush sizes | #3, #5, #7, #11, #13-1/2 |
| Stated hair | Nylon detail bristles; “a blend of pure and synthetic goat hair” drybrushes |
| Handle | Birch wood; round and triangular |
| Listed weight | 0.24 kg for all 21 brushes |
| Supplied with | Brush holder and velvet dust bag |
| Model number | MG691 |
| Manufacturer part number | Hengulus (see Limitations) |
| Head length or belly diameter | Not published |
| Warranty | No term stated |
Twenty-One Brushes, and a Size Ladder You Can Actually Read
Most sets at this price publish a piece count and leave it there. This one publishes the whole ladder: liners at 4/0, 3/0, 2/0 and 1, rounds at 4/0, 3/0, 2/0, 0, 1, 2 and 4, flats at 2/0, 0, 1 and 2, and a single angled spot brush at 0. That is unusually complete, and it is the main practical reason to prefer this model paint brush set to a cheaper tray of unlabelled brushes.
It matters because the number is all you get. Nowhere is there a hair length, a belly diameter or a ferrule width in millimetres, and the same is true of every competing set we looked at. A published ladder at least shows the shape coverage you are buying — five liners, seven rounds, four flats — while telling you nothing about how big any one of them is.
Read the ladder for gaps. There is no round above 4, so a 28 mm cloak gets basecoated with a flat 2 or a drybrush. Fine for tabletop work; not for anything larger than a monster base, where a separate large round is the cheapest fix.
Why the Drybrushes Are the Reason to Buy This Model Paint Brush Set
Five drybrushes is the unusual part. A drybrush is blunt, splayed and stiff-haired, deliberately wrong for everything a detail brush is right for: load it, wipe almost all the paint off, drag the rest across raised edges. One is normal. Five graded sizes inside a set at this price is not.
Nicpro states they are “a blend of pure and synthetic goat hair” — a phrase we return to under Limitations. The sizes tell you the intent: #3 and #5 for edge highlights, #7 and #11 for armour and cloaks, #13-1/2 for terrain and bases.
If you already own detail brushes and are only missing drybrushes, the arithmetic is awkward: five drybrushes alone would cost most of $21.99 bought separately, so the sixteen detail brushes arrive close to free. That is the strongest value argument this set has, and it is the reason it heads our table.
The Triangular Handle and the Shedding Claim
The handles are birch and the detail brushes use a triangular profile. The claim is comfort over long sessions, and the mechanism is real: a triangle stops a thin handle rotating between the fingers, which is what makes a fine line wander. Four of the five sets here use triangular handles, so it is the default rather than a differentiator.
Nicpro also says the bristles are “durable and resistant to deformation or shedding”. No set on this shelf quantifies that, and there is no consumer standard that would let them — so treat it as a statement of intent rather than a specification. The 4,066 ratings behind the 4.7 average are a better guide to whether it holds, and they are the largest honest sample of the five once you discount merged listings.
The brush holder and velvet bag are not padding. Miniature brushes die from being stood on their tips in a jar, and a holder that keeps them horizontal with the hair clear of the surface does more for a set’s working life than any claim about bristle quality.
Model paint brush set — Limitations
The hair description does not survive a close reading. The bullet says the drybrushes are “a blend of pure and synthetic goat hair”; the specification table lists Material Type: Birch Wood, Nylon, Mixed Goat Hair and Bristle Type: Fine Point Bristle, Synthetic Goat Hair. Synthetic goat hair is not a material — a filament is either animal or it is not. What is almost certainly meant is a goat-and-nylon blend, but the listing never says so plainly, and a buyer who needs to avoid animal hair cannot resolve it from the page.
The Manufacturer Part Number field reads Hengulus — a company name, in a field for a part number, on a product branded Nicpro. It is the fifth consecutive category in which we have found a specification field used as scratch space, and it is a reminder that the structured data on these pages is typed by hand.
No head length, no belly diameter, no ferrule size, and no warranty term. The only dimensional figure anywhere is a 0.24 kg weight for all twenty-one brushes together, which tells you what the parcel weighs and nothing about what you are painting with.
Setting Up This Model paint brush set
New brushes arrive with the hair glued into a point by a water-soluble size. Soak the head in clean lukewarm water for a minute and roll it gently between finger and thumb until the hair moves freely. Dry-flexing a sized brush breaks points before the first use.
Load from the belly, not the tip. Thin the paint on a palette, touch the brush in up to about half the hair length, then draw it once across the palette edge to shed the excess. Paint driven up into the ferrule dries there, spreads the hair at the root and ends the brush — which is the commonest way a new set is destroyed inside a month.
Clean with soap and lukewarm water, never solvent and never hot water, and reshape the point with your fingers before the brush dries. Store horizontally or hair-up in the supplied holder. The drybrushes get the opposite treatment: they are meant to be abused, and a splayed drybrush is a working drybrush.
Who Should Buy This Model paint brush set?
This set suits the painter who is starting from nothing and wants one purchase to cover basecoating, detail and highlighting. The combination of sixteen graded detail brushes and five graded drybrushes covers every stage of a tabletop figure, and at $21.99 it costs less than two individually bought natural-hair brushes.
It also suits someone replacing a worn tray. Brushes are consumables; fine points go first and drybrushes outlive them several times over. Graded sets beat single brushes on long-run cost, and this is the most complete graded set here.
It is the wrong buy if you want natural hair. Nicpro sells a Kolinsky sable version of the same idea for $35.99, and we review it separately. It is also the wrong buy if you need only three or four liners — the 30-piece anezus tray does that job for $6.99.
The Verdict
Scored 8.8 out of 10, and the highest of the five. It wins on completeness rather than on any single component: a published size ladder, five drybrushes most rivals do not include at all, a storage holder, and the second-largest unmerged rating sample in the group.
The marks come off for the hair description, which contradicts itself across three fields, and for the same missing dimensions that cost every set on this shelf. Nothing here is measured. But as the one purchase that equips a painter from bare table to finished figure, this model paint brush set is the one we would buy first.
Model paint brush set — Frequently Asked Questions
Is a 21-piece brush set too many brushes for a beginner?
No, because the count is spread across four shapes rather than twenty-one variations of one. You will use five or six constantly and the rest occasionally. Buying single brushes as you discover you need them costs more per brush and leaves gaps mid-project.
What is the difference between the detail brushes and the drybrushes in this set?
The sixteen detail brushes have soft nylon hair that holds a point and carries thinned paint. The five drybrushes are stiff goat-blend hair, blunt and splayed, used almost dry to catch raised edges. They are opposite tools: a detail brush used dry is ruined, and a drybrush will not hold a line.
Can I use these brushes with acrylics, oils and watercolour?
Nicpro lists acrylic, watercolour, oil, gouache, face paint and model paint, and synthetic nylon handles all of them. The caution is oils: solvent cleaning shortens synthetic hair faster than soap and water, so keep separate brushes if you use both.
How long should these brushes last?
There is no stated warranty and no stated life. It depends on whether paint reaches the ferrule: a point washed immediately lasts months, while the same brush left standing in water overnight can be finished. The drybrushes effectively do not wear out.
Where to Buy
Check the current price on Amazon — Nicpro Miniature Paint Brushes Drybrush – 21PCS Model Paint Brush Set, listed at $21.99 at the time of writing.
Affiliate disclosure: we earn a commission on qualifying purchases made through the links on this page, at no extra cost to you.
There are no reviews yet.