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Hey guys, so I recently got an airbrush and I started messing around with it in my spaces wolves scheme. I ran into a number of problems though as this was my first time using the airbrush, any sort of varnish, oil washes, and mineral spirits. I have been trying to step my painting game up.. and here is the end result.

Problems I really found annoying - I used the ghost tints from Vallejo, nice idea but the red needs to be thinned to run through my airbrush smoothly. Also I tried applying a varnish to it a few HOURS after painting it and the paint started to come right off.. really made parts of him balloon up and look bad. Speaking of varnishes, after it was all done with oil washes (which I quite liked using) the model looked fairly shiny. So I took a matte varnish to it, first by airbrush -which only made it even mOre shiny!- then by hand, which then made parts of it balloon up again. I am using Winsor & Newton matt uv varnish. I also have vallejo satin and gloss varnish, I was thinking of putting satin on it now.. but it's already looking so glossy idk how much it will help.

Anyway, though parts of it were discouraging.. ultimately using an airbrush is the next step in painting and I expected a number of things to go wrong. So I am not that unhappy with it, just looking for advice! Thanks guys.

** Update.; I went over it with a satin gloss with my airbrush because the shine was really bothering me. It's a little frosted now but much better imo. news pics replacing the old.

I would say it looks good. I have yet to shoot any varnish through my airbrush onto my models, so I can't help there.

Hi mate , I'm no airbrush ninja , but usually if the medium isn't spraying smoothly and consistantly it either needs thinning or you've got particles such as dried paint flakes from the last session or the gloop from the bottom of the paint pot blocking the nozzle . Open the air out full and shut back or pulse a bit sometimes blows it thru , otherwise clean it out . try not to allow bits in your paint in the first place is what I learnt fairly fast !

The bubbling is probably caused by two mediums that don't agree with each other , try an acrylic varnish on acrylic paints and oil based varnish on oil based paint, also ensure its had a full 'cure' time before applying further coats.

Hope that was of use !