Brushes and Greenskins

I was interested in trying out some new brushes, so I picked up a brush from a local gaming shop (they apparently make their own brushes), along with a few AK Interactive brushes that I grabbed at the Fall-In historical wargaming convention in October.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the AK brushes were synthetic.

Synthetic vs Sable

I've been using Games Workshop brushes exclusively for around 17 years. They're fine sable, natural brushes.  The bristle spread of the synthetic brushes is just...weird. My control of the paint strokes is not as accurate as the sable brushes, but i've found that the synthetic holds it's shape better (so far).
I'm not sure if I can make a change to synthetic; it's so different than what I'm used to. We'll see.

As for the Orcs and Goblins, we're coming up on the next battle in the Escalation Campaign and it's 500 points.  Lots of painting to be done, but I realized I needed to do an inventory of the OnG figs I have and come up with a plan for how I'm going to construct my OnG army for the rest of the campaign. Since this is essentially an excuse to finally paint all the OnG figs I have lying around and use them as a "house" army, I need an accurate count of what I have.  I'm not buying any additional OnG stuff (except in a few special cases); the goal is to paint all the stuff I have and move on to The Empire army that I intend to use.

Current Painted Units:
17 Night Goblin Spearmen
17 Night Goblin Spearmen
18 Night Goblin Archers with champion
16 Orc Boyz
16 Orc Arrer Boyz

Next Up:
Command groups for the Night Goblin units (champion, standard, musician)
Command group for the Orc Boyz (standard, musician)
Night Goblin Shaman
Night Goblin Big Boss
Orc Boar Chariot (rare OOP Marauder chariot)
1 Snotling Pump Wagon (old OOP citadel model)
3 Night Goblin Fanatics
1 Doom Diver

Future Units:
Plastic Boar Chariot (from Skull Pass)
Orc Warlord on Wyvern (rare OOP Marauder model)
  -will be the centerpiece of the army. i've always loved this model
Black Orc Warboss from Games Day (2000?)
Orc Boss (old citadel model)
Orc Hero on Boar (rare OOP Marauder model)

Extra Units for later:
60 Night Goblin Spearmen from 4th edition boxed set
  -I'm considering converting these into "goblins" with hand weapons. we'll see
30 Night Goblin Archers from 4th edition boxed  set
  -not sure what to do with these guys. I hate the hoods.
2 OOP metal River Trolls (need to be stripped and re-painted)
1 Plastic Stone Troll (from Skull Pass)
7 metal Orc Boyz (rare OOP Marauder figs that need to be stripped and re-painted)
4 metal Orc Arrer Boyz (more rare OOP Marauder figs)
10 Plastic Orc Boyz (terrible, terrible models. maybe I just throw 'em away).

This is all OnG stuff that I had lying around, except for the Wyvern, old Boar chariot, and the Pump Wagon.

Next post, I'll lay out my army list plan for the next 5 battles in the Escalation Campaign.