ANIME-FUDE SAKUYO KOZUE / アニメ用筆 削用 梢

Usage:Animation background art, background painting, line brush, coloring brush, poster color, watercolor
Main raw material:High-grade weasel hair, high-grade goat hair, deer hair
Full length:222mm
Brush head diameter:9mm
Brush head length:27mm
Product Details:This brush is used for animation background art.

Versatile Line Brush for Animation Backgrounds – “Kozue” (Saku-yo Fude)
A beginner-friendly brush with excellent control and balance

This brush is designed to be easy to use even for beginners, with excellent spring and cohesion at the tip, allowing for a full range of strokes—from fine lines to broad fills.

The “Animation Brush – Kozue (Saku-yo)” is carefully crafted to have a slightly finer tip than the “Tokusen Animation Brush – Saku-yo”, but slightly thicker than the “Tokusei Animation Brush – En.” With a longer-than-average tip, it is easier to shape and control, making it suitable for both experienced artists and those just starting out in animation background art.

■ Product Description
In professional animation background studios, artists often need to complete many paintings in a day. To save time and reduce the number of brushes needed, they often rely on versatile saku-yo brushes (a type of line brush) capable of performing multiple tasks.

In response to such needs, we developed the “Tokusen Animation Brush – Saku-yo” in the early 2000s at the request of a major animation studio.
At the time, durability was one of the studio’s primary concerns. Traditional saku-yo brushes would wear down in just one to two weeks under heavy daily use. They asked us to create a brush that could last over a month.

After repeated improvements, we produced a brush that used a significantly higher amount of weasel hair than standard brushes—enhancing both performance and longevity.

The “Animation Brush – Saku-yo Kozue” offers a more cost-effective solution while still ensuring high durability. While it does use weasel hair, we did not simply increase the weasel content to achieve durability. Instead, we blended in other selected hairs to strike the right balance.

This brush is ideal for those beginning their journey into background painting, as well as professionals working in high-output studios.
With this one brush, you can handle both line work and painting, and thanks to its longer tip and higher hair volume, it's easier to shape the tip into various forms—especially useful for those new to shaping brush heads.

■ For Hobbyists and Light Use
If you're painting at your own pace or pursuing background art as a hobby, a standard saku-yo brush may be sufficient.
We currently offer six types of saku-yo brushes, two of which—“Saku-yo Brush – Kanade” and “Tokusei Saku-yo Brush”—are available in our online shop.

While these may not match the durability or versatility of the “Tokusen Animation Brush – Saku-yo” (due to differences in tip volume and shaping range), hobbyists or light users can easily compensate by selecting the right brush for what they want to paint.

Notably, even professional background artists use the “Tokusei Saku-yo Brush” in production.

All of our animation brushes and tools are tested using New TMK Poster Extra Thick paper (Muse) and poster colors (Nicker), both widely used in the animation industry.

Our brushes are handcrafted in Kumano, Hiroshima, a town known as Japan’s center of traditional brush-making.
Each brush is made with care by artisans who carry forward generations of skill and respect for Japan’s cultural heritage.