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I am painting some Imperial fist centurions and I did the first one by hand and it looks okay. The problem is I am having a hell of a time with layering the Yriel Yellow. Using a brush it is either too thick or too thin and watery. When it is too thick it gets gritty and lumpy VERY quickly and when it is not watered down perfectly it pools and creates problems of its own. The smaller areas are not a problem it is the big, smooth armor plating that becomes an issue. So... it looks just okay. I am not unhappy with it but it has some visible brush strokes and some areas where the paint is too thick because it pooled. My plan for the next two is to get an airbrush (I already have the compressor) and do the same layering, averland followed by yriel and then brush highlights with flash gitz. Has anyone tried this? Will it get a nice even coat as opposed to the crap shoot of doing it by brush? If I can get a smooth yellow coat I feel like it would be much easier to work from there and only do touch ups as needed with a brush. Right now it feels like corralling a cat.

If anyone has experience with airbrushing imperial fists I would love to hear how it turned out. Is it generally a smooth finish or does it have the same problems as brush painting? Googled it and watched some videos, read some sites but most of them were not really how I plan on painting them. I am going for bright and vibrant so I guess I should qualify the question with that as well. Any general tips/tricks on painting yellow would also be appreciated.

Both of those paints will airbrush smoothly. I didn't use them for fists, but before the Air paint line I used them on my Dakkajets.

I will say that it'll be a week or so of practise before you wanna put the airbrush near your models. Accidentally blasting watery paint and pooling it everywhere on the figure is just as frustrating, if not more.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Both of those paints will airbrush smoothly. I didn't use them for fists, but before the Air paint line I used them on my Dakkajets.

I will say that it'll be a week or so of practise before you wanna put the airbrush near your models. Accidentally blasting watery paint and pooling it everywhere on the figure is just as frustrating, if not more.

Thanks, good to know! Yeah I plan on practicing on paper and some old broken models for a while before I even think about turning it on a new model.

Definitely practise on some primed models, it's very different to paper. Plus, learning a fast cleaning routine will really cut down on frustration.

Learning to do a simple 45 degree angle highlight will help a great deal, too. Gravity/physics can be a large part of airbrushing.

That is a good idea. I think I may actually get some primer for use through the airbrush and practice putting that on as well. Watch out broken assault on black reach models, here I come!

Not planning on actually doing any highlighting with the airbrush at present. Mainly just looking to get a nice smooth and even coat since I will be doing a lot of yellow and doing it with a brush would cause me to develop tourettes and a nervous tick. The highlighting and shading I will probably still do by hand. Probably for the best anyway since I cannot afford a top of the line airbrush right now so my goal currently is simply to base coat.

You can highlight with zero effort though. Prime them all over with a slightly darker yellow, then just shoot down at them from 45 degrees with the brightest yellow you have, and boom, instant easy highlighting.

Plus, then you get to join in on the whole "airbrushes are cheating" argument, and can be on the winning team!

Hah true. I say I am not going to highlight now but the second I get familiar with the airbrush I can guarantee you I will try everything I can think of. Who knows, maybe it will work well even if I am not a fan of the airbrushed versions of Imperial Fists, the ones I have seen anyway. Too much gradient for my liking.

If you can get a sheet of plasticard and prime it, it makes for a good test surface for practising with your airbrush. Just work on getting lines and dots of consistent thickness without spatter, once you're confident give it a crack on an actual model. One of the first things I sprayed with my AB was a Dark Angel and it came out fine (maybe not perfect, but I was happy with it).

I think it is useful to get your hands on a couple of airbrush paints (like Vallejo Model Air) as they are closer to the correct consistency to begin with, so you can learn a bit faster. You don't have to go out and replace all your paints, I think it's just good to have 1 or 2 on hand when you start off so you can get a feel for what the correct consistency should be. Something like Averland Sunset, it will airbrush smoothly but will need a lot of thinning to get there and it'll help if you have a decent airbrush thinner, while you CAN thin with just water, it'll make life harder (Vallejo's Airbrush Thinner works well with GW paints).

Bah, humbug! I say, take some old models (preferably metal, easier to strip), and blast away Yeah, you'll make a mess of it all, probably waste a bunch of paint, but it's kinda fun. Some will just turn out okay anyhow No learning like doing

You can actually blunder your way into priming and basecoating models -- just don't do anything you care about, and certainly no vehicles, because those are a lot harder to strip. Just try not to lay on the paint too much, and remember, once paint's down, let it dry!

Now, before you do anything much more exciting than that, you should practice some airbrush exercises (on a flat, non-meld surface), like being able to consistently and accurately draw dots, lines, connect dots to each other, fine lines, fat lines, gradients, etc. Don't be discouraged if your first attempts don't look glorious!

i did a trial run of imperial fist recently. Google the forge world imperial fists scheme. I had ask the paints they used which are Tamiya. They airbrush very nice. Just use a mask when you airbrush and clean well because Tamiya get very hard When they dry.