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I'm asking on behalf of a friend of mine, who just got into painting minis. He's using VMA paint. He ran into a situation I have not seen before. He had been painting in a long session without issue and at the tail end, this started happening:

I need advice. By the end (2 hours or so) the paint was coming out dry, clogging my needle and landing on the model "dry" (that textured dry paint look). I could not figure out why. I tried cleaning the well, needle and nozzle to start over twice but it didn't help.
My working theory is that the compressor system got too hot. It's a tankless compressor so maybe after 1.5 hours of fairly heavy use it just got too hot. The unit does get hot to the touch. I did ten minis at once, maybe I should cut that number back.
Theories/advice?

I've attached a picture.

Any advice, Dakkaroos? I will try and get him to register for the site.

Looks like classic "Orange Peel" syndrome to me. Which is where the paint is drying too quickly leaving a rough texture on the surface.

I guess it could be attributed to a hot compressor (especially if it's actually blowing hot air) but my first guess would be that because of the prolonged airbrushing session that the paint in the airbrush cup started drying...

EDIT: just noticed that your friend cleaned everything and started over with the same results... In that case, to prove your working theory, I would give the compressor a few hours to "cool off" and then come back and start for another few hours seeing if it concludes with similar results...

Does he have a water trap downstream from the compressor? Ideally for a trap to work you need the air to have a chance to cool a bit. Some setups use a 10' or so coiled air hose to go from the compressor output to the trap and then a normal air hose from the trap to the airbrush.

We figured out the problem. For posterity, here's what it was:

He didn't know what the trigger restrictor did, so had it closed nearly all the way. That 2 hours was spent basecoating 10 miniatures, because he was using a fineline setting, as well as 30 PSI, so indeed the paint was mostly dry by the time it was hitting the mini. He's since figured out you can open it up the trigger, and has lowered the PSI - issue resolved.