Sprue & Brush

What the site covers

The site states its own size as 77 pages across seven categories, covering 67 products in 29 ranked roundups, and the third counter on its homepage reads "Claimed lab tests: 0", which tells you most of what you need to know about how it writes. Those seven categories are paints, brushes, primers, workspace, airbrush, kit tools and guides, and a Start Here page puts them in buying order rather than alphabetical order: primer first, because acrylic paint on bare plastic beads up, covers patchily and rubs off with handling; then a starter paint set, which costs less than the dozen colours separately; then one good brush, a size 1 or 2 round rather than a set; then a wet palette, a brown wash the site calls the best value purchase in the hobby, and a matte topcoat. It says outright that a reader whose budget runs out at item three can still paint, and that items four to six make it better and easier. It is just as specific about what not to buy first — brush sets, a full paint range, an airbrush, an expensive brush, and the large bundled tool kits it describes as mostly filler. The paints section argues that the three big brands are not interchangeable and that the wash is not optional while the fortieth colour is; the brushes section opens on the claim that two brushes do ninety percent of the work and that the drybrush is the one shape to buy synthetic on purpose; kit tools leads with nippers, called the most important purchase in that category by a wide margin because a bad cut creates work every later tool exists to undo; and the airbrush section is unusual in telling readers to delay it until they know they are staying in the hobby.

Picks run a stated method. Products are selected from the manufacturer's published specifications — nozzle diameters, bristle materials, bottle formats — read against whether the design actually matches what a beginner needs and against the chemistry and physics of the material, and every roundup carries a "how we picked" section with its criteria written out. What passes is scored out of 10 on four to six criteria chosen for that category, and the site is careful about what that number is: it calls a score its editorial read against the stated criteria rather than a measurement, says scores are not comparable between categories because an 8.8 brush and an 8.8 compressor were judged against entirely different criteria, never aggregates them from user reviews, and keeps them out of its structured data. Drawbacks are mandatory on every pick, on the stated ground that a roundup where the top choice has no downsides is a roundup nobody checked, and where the budget option is genuinely good enough the page says so even though it earns less. The limits are stated as plainly: there is no test lab, no page says it tested anything, and it names the tests it has not run rather than implying them. Its price handling is its own: no figure is ever typed into a page, prices render only from a live data layer behind a 48-hour freshness gate, and where there is no verified figure the button reads "Check price on Amazon" instead of showing a number. There are no customer reviews or testimonials on it, no product has been supplied free, no credential or industry tenure is claimed, and it states openly that drafting, structuring and editing are AI-assisted while the substance — the product selection, the criteria, the sources and the claims — is verified by its author. Sources are listed at the foot of each roundup with the date they were last checked, pages carry a visible last-updated date, and corrections are made in place rather than quietly.

That is the same arrangement MadGrey LLC runs on every site it operates. Sprue & Brush is free to read and funded entirely by affiliate commission as an Amazon Associate — if a reader buys through a link the retailer may pay a commission, at no extra cost to them — and that commission does not set the order: where the cheaper product is the better buy, that is the pick. It takes no paid placements, no sponsored posts, no guest articles and no products sent in exchange for coverage, and it refuses requests to remove a stated drawback. It is written under one byline, Brijon M., owner of MadGrey LLC, with no anonymous content team behind it, and it answers at its own address rather than through a form farm. The disclosure sits on the site itself rather than buried in a footer, and the basis for a recommendation is always stated, because a reader can only weigh a pick if they know what it rests on.