Beginner airbrushing

[ChrisMack26]

I was wondering if I could get some recommendations. I have been thinking about trying some airbrushing but have no idea what I will need. I don't want to spend loads to begin with is all as I may suck at it!

[winterdyne]

You need:

1) Compressor with moisture trap, capable of working pressure of 25psi.  Compressors with working pressure below that will struggle.

2) Gravity-feed, dual-action airbrush. 0.3mm to 0.4mm nozzle / needle size. Larger than that isn't really necessary unless you're painting very large objects, less won't really be suitable for your use till you've got some basic experience under your belt. Cheap chinese brushes are good to learn on and cost less than $30 / £15. The AB-130a type coded ones are good.

3) Appropriate hose to connect airbrush to compressor. If you're buying them separately, one may not be included!

4) Squeezy bottle of water. Bottle of airbrush thinner (I like Vallejo).

5) Airbrush cleaner (I like Vallejo), cotton buds, toilet roll, airbrush cleaning brushes. Optionally an ultrasonic cleaner. Be aware, ultrasonic cleaning is bad for airbrushes (and destructive to welded body airbrushes like the cheap chinese ones). Don't do that too often if you can help it - end of the day if you've been painting  a lot, maybe. I run mine with a mix of windscreen wash and water.

6) Sprayable primer and varnish (I like Vallejo Polyurethane Surface Primers and Winsor & Newton Galleria Acrylic Satin varnish). These will be your most common airbrush tasks, and will save you a fortune in time and effort when used properly, compared to spray primer or (God forbid it, please, it's still awful) Purity Seal.

7) Reasonable airbrush paints (Vallejo Model Air). Use appropriate thinner for the paint you use - certain brand paints and off brand thinners do not always make good friends.

8) Plastic tub with loosely scrunched up tissue, hole cut in lid just big enough for the airbrush end. This makes a reasonable spray away filter if you don't want to buy one.

9) Slops tub (as above, without a lid). For tipping leftover paint / thinner / whatever other ****** you don't want in your airbrush any more.

10) Covered floor and surfaces if you care about them. Filter mask (fine particulate).  A simple dustmask will help a bit, but a proper filter mask is better. Extraction setup once you get serious. If using lacquers / alclad, you need to look at a proper respirator, or very very short work times followed by leaving the area to properly vent.

I think that pretty much covers everything. Start simple, priming, varnishing, then move on to say zenithal priming and/or airbrush work.

[tolstedt]

@Vincent Venturellais your man.  Check out his hobby cheating youtube videos for introductions to airbrushing.

Do not expect it to go easy at first.  You must learn how different paints behave and how much to thin the paints.  Practice on old minis.

You will get tip dry and it will be annoying.  Be patient.

Tip:  Take the whole airbrush apart and put it back together before using it.  Seeing how each part performs a function is a good method to build a foundational understanding of the device.  There are youtube videos for this.

[RuneBrush]

I think the first question to ask is ultimately what you'd like to achieve with your airbrush.  If you're only going to do a bit of undercoating and varnishing then you could pick up a set up pretty cheaply.  If you'd like to do "painting" and getting some nice blends etc then I'd suggest something a little more expensive as it'll last you a lot longer.

The compressor is actually as important as the airbrush itself.  I'd recommend a compressor with a an air-tank.  Basically the compressor "charges" the tank up and the tank powers the airbrush.  This means the compressor comes on in short bursts rather than being on constantly (then overheating).  A moisture trap on the compressor is pretty critical else you'll get water in the air line which then comes out through the airbrush.  The compressor I've got you can actually pick up off Amazon pretty cheaply, you'll find the same re-branded in numerous places.

Airbrush wise, I'd suggest something like an Iwata Neo.  This has a 0.35mm tip and is a real workhorse of a brush.  This is the standard airbrush that Forge World use to paint many of their models, it strips apart really easily but you've more than enough control to do some pretty advanced techniques.  Iwata and H&S are what I'd term the "Rolls Royce" of airbrush manufacturers (though we're talking a few quid here).

Cleaning is probably the key bit of airbrush care.  As @tolstedt says you'll need to become practised at stripping your airbrush apart and reassembling.  Kitchen towel/blue roll, interdental brushes and cotton buds are the key tools for actually cleaning.  Liquid wise I use either Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner (50/50 with water for all Vallejo paints) or Forge World Solution (for Citadel paints).  When spraying varnish I have what can only be described as acetone in a can, which is the most evil substance known to man - however you can't spray this through all airbrushes (mine has no rubber seals).

Other than that it's mostly down to lots of practice!  One thing that I do is to put a small towel across my lap when I spray.  You will splash paint everywhere at some point, so a towel on your lap means you spare your trousers and floor   It also means that if you drop the nozzle or something small when cleaning your airbrush it gets caught rather than vanishing forever.

[Twh30]

On 11/13/2017 at 10:21 AM, RuneBrush said:

I think the first question to ask is ultimately what you'd like to achieve with your airbrush.  If you're only going to do a bit of undercoating and varnishing then you could pick up a set up pretty cheaply.  If you'd like to do "painting" and getting some nice blends etc then I'd suggest something a little more expensive as it'll last you a lot longer.

The compressor is actually as important as the airbrush itself.  I'd recommend a compressor with a an air-tank.  Basically the compressor "charges" the tank up and the tank powers the airbrush.  This means the compressor comes on in short bursts rather than being on constantly (then overheating).  A moisture trap on the compressor is pretty critical else you'll get water in the air line which then comes out through the airbrush.  The compressor I've got you can actually pick up off Amazon pretty cheaply, you'll find the same re-branded in numerous places.

Airbrush wise, I'd suggest something like an Iwata Neo.  This has a 0.35mm tip and is a real workhorse of a brush.  This is the standard airbrush that Forge World use to paint many of their models, it strips apart really easily but you've more than enough control to do some pretty advanced techniques.  Iwata and H&S are what I'd term the "Rolls Royce" of airbrush manufacturers (though we're talking a few quid here).

Cleaning is probably the key bit of airbrush care.  As @tolstedt says you'll need to become practised at stripping your airbrush apart and reassembling.  Kitchen towel/blue roll, interdental brushes and cotton buds are the key tools for actually cleaning.  Liquid wise I use either Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner (50/50 with water for all Vallejo paints) or Forge World Solution (for Citadel paints).  When spraying varnish I have what can only be described as acetone in a can, which is the most evil substance known to man - however you can't spray this through all airbrushes (mine has no rubber seals).

Other than that it's mostly down to lots of practice!  One thing that I do is to put a small towel across my lap when I spray.  You will splash paint everywhere at some point, so a towel on your lap means you spare your trousers and floor   It also means that if you drop the nozzle or something small when cleaning your airbrush it gets caught rather than vanishing forever.

@RuneBrush what compressor is it you use? Possibly looking into airbrushing. And trying to devise a list to see if financially viable 

[CaptainSoup]

As in all things, there is never a concrete "This is what you should do and use, period." Depending on what you are using or wanting to do with your airbrush depends on what you may need. I'll play off of what other people have said here since it's already been covered and add my own comments that may help you out:

On 11/11/2017 at 1:47 PM, winterdyne said:

You need:

1) Compressor with moisture trap, capable of working pressure of 25psi.  Compressors with working pressure below that will struggle. Depending on what you are working on depends on what kind of pressure you will need to be working with. If you are priming with an airbrush for example, you may need a higher psi since the paint will be thicker and will need more pressure to push the paint through. This may require pressures higher than 25psi. Again, this will depend on the paint, the airbrush, etc.

2) Gravity-feed, dual-action airbrush. 0.3mm to 0.4mm nozzle / needle size. Larger than that isn't really necessary unless you're painting very large objects, less won't really be suitable for your use till you've got some basic experience under your belt. Cheap chinese brushes are good to learn on and cost less than $30 / £15. The AB-130a type coded ones are good. The needle sizes you tend to see are in the 0.35mm to 0.5mm range. Gravity-fed is by far the most recommend brush to use. The smaller the needle the more detailed painting you can accomplish. You can go to Amazon and find some Chinese combo kits that comes with everything you need to get started (including a decent compressor and cheap Chinese brushes) minus the paint and cleaning tools. 

3) Appropriate hose to connect airbrush to compressor. If you're buying them separately, one may not be included! Read 2.

4) Squeezy bottle of water. Bottle of airbrush thinner (I like Vallejo). You can again go to Amazon and find packs on squeezable bottles with dripper nozzles on them so you can better control how much paint you put in the airbrush. 

5) Airbrush cleaner (I like Vallejo), cotton buds, toilet roll, airbrush cleaning brushes. Optionally an ultrasonic cleaner. Be aware, ultrasonic cleaning is bad for airbrushes (and destructive to welded body airbrushes like the cheap chinese ones). Don't do that too often if you can help it - end of the day if you've been painting  a lot, maybe. I run mine with a mix of windscreen wash and water. These are but one of many ways to clean your airbrush. You shouldn't have to completely take apart your airbrush after every use, in fact it is recommended you do not do so unless you have to since you could strip the teeth on the parts which could cause air leakage. 

6) Sprayable primer and varnish (I like Vallejo Polyurethane Surface Primers and Winsor & Newton Galleria Acrylic Satin varnish). These will be your most common airbrush tasks, and will save you a fortune in time and effort when used properly, compared to spray primer or (God forbid it, please, it's still awful) Purity Seal. 

7) Reasonable airbrush paints (Vallejo Model Air). Use appropriate thinner for the paint you use - certain brand paints and off brand thinners do not always make good friends. If you are doing miniature painting than more often than not yo uare using acrylic paints. Airbrushing is no different. Vallejo has some good products including thinner and flow improve (Does what it says on the tin) to help with your painting needs. You can also consider buying other paints like from GW then thin them using the appropriate thinner. 

😎 Plastic tub with loosely scrunched up tissue, hole cut in lid just big enough for the airbrush end. This makes a reasonable spray away filter if you don't want to buy one. In other words, you need a place to spray all your excess cleaner or paints from your airbrush when you are cleaning it. This is one of the cheap creative ways to do it, though you can also buy containers that do the same job. 

9) Slops tub (as above, without a lid). For tipping leftover paint / thinner / whatever other ****** you don't want in your airbrush any more. Same as 8.

10) Covered floor and surfaces if you care about them. Filter mask (fine particulate).  A simple dustmask will help a bit, but a proper filter mask is better. Extraction setup once you get serious. If using lacquers / alclad, you need to look at a proper respirator, or very very short work times followed by leaving the area to properly vent. A filtered mask with replaceable filters is recommenced since a lot of paint will be flying around in the air as you paint. An easy and cheap way to prevent any paint from going where it shouldn't is to simply aim your brush into a cardboard box as you paint. If you really want to spend the money you can also invest in a vacuumed box with a filter, though they are pretty expensive. 

 

On 11/13/2017 at 5:21 AM, RuneBrush said:

Pretty all around good tips here!

One last thing, if you happen to live in the US, your run of the mill hobby chain stores like Hobby Lobby and Michaels sells most of what you would need to start airbrushing. If you do happen to go to those places remember to use their daily 40% coupon you can print off online. It will save you A LOT of money!

[portablezombie]

I would highly recommend the Masters Airbrush combo from TCP for beginners. You get an airbrush (sometimes 2) with multiple needles and a pretty good compressor with a tank, PSI regulator, and moisture trap for under $120.

The brush isn't anything special, but it will teach you how to use and maintain an airbrush without you having to worry about accidentally breaking a $200+ brush. The brush alone runs about $30 - it won't last forever, but it's definitely worth the money.

The compressor is actually pretty good - you want a tank to help regulate airflow (no pulsing) as well as not forcing the compressor to run constantly just to keep up airflow.

[CaptainSoup]

31 minutes ago, portablezombie said:

The compressor is actually pretty good - you want a tank to help regulate airflow (no pulsing) as well as not forcing the compressor to run constantly just to keep up airflow.

Indeed. You don't want to burn out your compressor by having it constantly run, though with some cheaper airbrushes it may not be able to help but do that. That being said, attaching an air tank isn't necessary for the airbrush to work. A compressor alone can handle the job of providing a steady, constant airflow under most cases. 

[LunarLizard]

Just jumping in this topic, what health and safety thing do people use. 

I have an airbrush and compressor but I've not used it yet as someone told me you need a respirator  and extraction?  how true is this?

 

Thanks

[CaptainSoup]

52 minutes ago, LunarLizard said:

Just jumping in this topic, what health and safety thing do people use. 

I have an airbrush and compressor but I've not used it yet as someone told me you need a respirator  and extraction?  how true is this?

 

Thanks

Airbrushing creates a ton of paint particles in the air and while acrylic paints aren't posionous you still don't want breath a bunch of it into your lungs. Fortunately buying a respiratory mask is fairly affordable at your local hardware store.

As for a way to extract it paint particles, while it can be convenient to have something like that, it isn't as nessesary to have and can rank up in price. I simply use a cardboard box to make sure any excess paint doesn't go where it shouldn't on my desk.

[Theduke]

https://www.facebook.com/BadgerAir/

Badger has some great deals this time a year.  You can get some very high quality products for much cheaper than if you buy them any other time a year.  I got a 150$ brush for about 1/3 the cost.  If you take advantage of these deals you will have to be patient waiting on the brush to show up.