Airbrush basics skills missing

[Alexevh]

 

Ok, this is going to be a long post.. very long (and my natal tongue is not English  so it may be harder to read )

When I started painting I bought this Airbrush

I bought it because I wanted to prime my minis using it, I also bought this Vallejo primer kit for airbrush

My cheap airbrush got wasted after a few sessions so I bought another in my country , another cheap airbrush but he is alive now so it seems to be better

A couple days ago I saw this video Painting Nighthaunt

I love the results, they look 1 million times better than my dull green/white versions so I decide to get it a try, I tried to strip the paint using Isoppilich alcohol but It toke me forever so I just prime them again over the paint

I found a lot of troubles to try to follow her,

She makes Zenithal priming but I cant even get her results

The Morghast primed picture is the results I want to get but I cant get those gradients even with the priming where I use the pre thinned airbrush paints from vallejo

 

1. It toke me a lot of time ti mix the proper balance of ink and medium glazing to get the paint flowing from the airbrush, I use Vallejo paints, Citadel paints and sometimes the Army painter paints.

In my country there is no easy way to get good paints, I have to import every single one of them directly from Amazon, I wasted a lot of paint to get one mini painted.

2. It seems I lack the basic skills to use the airbrush because bo matter what I do I always end up with the paint being to watery that slips or the airbrush just "spot" the paint spitting uneven paint

I clean the airbrush when changing colors but I always get that splash pattern you can see in my pictures above and I dont know if it is because I am bad, or my airbrush is bad or I wasn't able to thin properly the paints or other thing.

The compressor does not have any indication of which PSI we are using so I assume left is less and right is more to adjust things.

I watched several awesome tutorials like the Vinces Venturella Hobby Cheating series but I cant follow him, Because I am not able to do the proper zenithal priming I cant neither follow his glazes tutorials.

I also love an follow Miniac but I wasnt able to found in his channel what I am looking for.

All this long post is to ask if someone has a tutorial or can point to me one where I can get the basics skills of the airbrush, I do not pretend to be Sam Lenz but I would love to get my mini painting to the next level, to get better gradients, effects and colors.

Thanks everyone in advance

 

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Alexevh

[Kenvs]

Grab some "Flow Improver" over thinner, it will avoid the specaling.  Then go find Next Level Painting on Youtube for some very easy to follow "HowTo" type video's.

Strangely enough, cleaning  between paints is not important, just having enough pressure and ~1:2 or 1:3 flow improver to paint at ~25psi does the job.  The video's make it clear.

[XReN]

I will second that you need Flow Improver (of any kind) to dilute your paint, but it's okay to do it even with water. 

Next thing you should know is that every paint is different and it need's to be diluted with different amount of other liquid. What you've got on your models is called "speckling" - that means your paint dries too fast, the opposite is "splattering" when paint is too diluted and it gets pushed around the surface by air from your airbrush. That just means you need to add more flow improver or more paint and get the right consistency. 

Every time you paint with an airbrush you should test how your paint flows by blowing it onto a piece of plastic or sprue to see if you got the right consistency, you should also use the same PSI (air pressure) when you work with paint, find something you get good results with and mark it on your compressor. And you can go with higher pressure for primers and highest when you clear your airbrush or use varnishes.

Few notes on inks - I personaly never dilute Vallejo inks - they already have a great flow, and I reccomend varnishing your inks before you move on because it can sometimes easily rub off by fingers or a brush.

 

Also here is a good video 

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by XReN

[Spears]

I found similar issues when I started my nighthaunt army but here are some of the lessons I learned along the way:

White is a bit finicky to airbrush, you can see in the attached photo that if you zoom in enough the white specks are visible through the later glazes. Consider this whilst planning your scheme and try to go back over it rather than using white as the last highlight. Some of the vallejo paints can be a bit erratic from pot to pot so dont be afraid to experiment with colours you might not actually want to put on a model to get the technique down.

I found that using flow improver as thinner gave subpar results,  adding a smidgen of flow improver with airbrush thinner does seem to prevent it drying on the needle though. 

I don't see it mentioned often but airbrushing is super temperature sensitive, I initially had the setup in my garage but found this cause me issues due to the low temperature.

Whilst I agree with the above that you should mark your 'Standard' psi I disagree that you should use the same all the time, different paints have different requirements so don't be afraid to experiment. That said not knowing the psi seems unusual, are you using a nail art compressor?

Half of airbrushing is the cleaning. In fact probably more than half. Grab a cheapo cleaning kit and make sure its not clogged up.

Glaze medium is not necessarily your friend. The more things you have going on the harder its going to be to work out where you are going wrong, start with paint and water/thinner.

Angel Giraldez is imo one of the best airbrush mini painters doing non patreon tutorials, do note that best doesnt always mean easiest, however he does have some videos aimed at entry level stuff so go have a nosey.

[RuneBrush]

Think most of the points have been covered.  Make sure you clean your brush thoroughly and pale colours are more of a pain to paint with than darker ones.  What size needle does your airbrush use?

With regards to thinning - this (along with "best brushes" and "best paints") is a very personal thing, that does depend upon where you're airbrushing and the climate amongst other items.  I tend to use Vallejo Thinner for all Vallejo paints and bone colours and the old Forge World Solution for most Citadel ones.  Ultimately it's down to practice and learning what works best for you.  At one point I was using blue screenwash that you put in a car for cleaning the windscreen.  It's worth saying that adding things like flow improver can slow down the drying time on paints, which you may not necessarily want to do.

[NauticalSoup]

So much great advice in this thread from so many exceptional painters!

As a relatively novice airbrusher myself, I have found Les' airbrush thinner mix  does the job as well as any purpose-made airbrush thinning agent, depending on what you have local access to. Very cheap as well.

Only downsides are that it can take a bit of effort to keep the stuff mixed (it will try to settle given enough time) and it will probably raise the glossiness of your paint, but that last part is easily fixed with a topcoat.