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Do you think that airbrushes have had a major impact on our community and do you think they will be around to stay? I have been using an airbrush for about the past year and personally I find it to be superior for laying down primers as compared to canned primers.

What kind of set up are your using or do you plan on getting an airbrush in the near future?

Currently I am using a Badger Patriot 105, with a Sparmax AC-27 Airstream Compressor and used thinned down GW paints or Vallejo model air paints.

Airbrushes have been around for decades mate. I guess you could make an argument that the influx of cheap Chinese replicas has made them more accessible, and consequently more widespread, whereas the twenty year old version of me back in the 90s viewed them as somewhat aspirational.

But, no, I think any impact they have had has long since occurred.

Im still more comfortable using a solvent-based spray primer for undercoating.

When it comes to innovations in technique and equipment within the broader family of painters and modelers, wargamers are the backwards cousins that live out in the sticks. The equipment has been available, but very few people were using it for gaming minis, whereas it was pretty much standard issue for the scale model crowd.

I've seen an explosion of airbrush usage in the past few years and I, at least, would attribute it more to an influx of information than of cheap equipment. When I first joined (and beforehand - I lurked for a good year or so before signing up) Dakka, there was nary a thread about airbrushes in P&M. Now, you actually have to qualify the word "brush" half of the time, so people know if you're taking about spraying or spreading. New users poking around to get started come out thinking an airbrush is a necessity - that attitude simply didn't exist, before.

So, are airbrushes here to stay? Definitely. Have they had an impact? Quite. What does my setup look like? Pretty bare bones, to be honest. Cheap Harbor Freight airbrush compressor (no tank - may add one when I have more space) and a 10' hose (way longer than I need to reach my spray area - the extra length helps soften any pulsation I might experience) running to one of two brushes: Harbor Freight siphon feed for hosing down the big stuff and a SOTAR-F for more general miniature work and details as small as I'm willing to attempt spraying.

A Airbrush set-up takes up more space then traditional painting set-ups since you need space to store both the compressor and keep a spray booth so you don't get over spray every wear. (Not to mention fan step-ups to keep proper ventilation.)

students living in a dorm room and people who live in small apartments, a airbrush isn't something they can justify.

Personally I never used mine for more then a over-sized spray can, and touching up with the primer by brush for i wouldn't over spray. Over time I stopped useing the airbrush and just painting on the vallejo surface primer by hand because I didn't want to both with the clean up after using my airbrush.

=/

I think I may have worded my question a little poorly. I know that airbrushes have been around for many years and have been used in many different hobbies. However it seems that the use of airbrushes have been on the rise in the recent past as evident by the increase in major youtube tutorial painters incorporating more and more airbrushing techniques. I also feel that this increase in usage is due to the increasing amount of information as compared to recent years.

I guess the real intent of my initial post was to see how airbrushing has affected your personal hobby and maybe even the hobby as a whole.

Personally, airbrushing has revolutionized my hobby as it allowed me to lay better primers, basecoats and other techniques that would take me hours to achieve lesser effects ( looking at you OSL).

It's nothing new.

However, part of the increase in use is the increase in airbrush manufacturers, many of which are good quality for much less cost.

The cost is still high, however, and you can still paint a tabletop quality army for much cheaper and faster with brushes.

In the mid 90s, I picked up an airbrushing magazine and showed it to my cousin. He got really into it around the same time we started getting into 40k, so airbrushing became a convenient tool for priming and basecoats, especially when we could do it all year round where "traditional" spraycan primers might not set right because of temps (or fumes indoors, blegh). Certainly good for quickly painting tanks, blobs of troops and smoother gradient effects for weapons. If I still painted large amount of models regularly I'd probably invest in one again.

Granted, it had its drawbacks in finding a good paint to use, thickness of paint, cleaning the nozzles regularly, really loud compressor. You still had to go back with hand brushes for finer details and edge highlights.

Understandably space and noise can be an issues, but it's hard to complain about the cost of equipment when people would drop hundreds of dollars on tiny metal figs (back then) let alone plastics now, that only have use for game hobby.

As for the hobby as a whole? Not so much. I guess it depends on experience and amount of usage. I feel availability of 3d printing prototypes in the last few years has had more of an impact than airbrushing, which as others have pointed out, has been around for decades.

I just bought one. Haven't tried it yet though. Just got a cheapo to try it out.

I think to a degree recent interest in airbrushes within the tabletop gaming communities have paralleled greater interest and acceptance of Forge World models. Forge World does most of their work with airbrush and with the popularity of Horus Heresy many of those hobbyist want their models to look like the FW examples.

If you grab a copy of Figure Painter Magazine you will see that they seem to be used a lot by the artists showcased in it's pages. In fact, so much so, that I'm looking to get back into airbrushing. I stumbled upon a video the other day that showed 'micro' airbrushing. Basically he removed the main nozzle cap and was airbrushing skulls on to coin size spaces. One was two skulls, on the other smaller space he did multiple tiny skulls. Was amazing.

There has certainly been an explosion of Airbrush usage in the hobby over the last few years, going from a rare and 'different' style of painting to almost an norm for many high-end painters. Particularly commission studios like Awaken Realms and Den Of Imagination seem to use them a lot, as I guess for turning out an army quickly, it's much easier to use an airbrush for the main coats and highlights. There's also been a bit more prevalence of it in 'official' paintjobs, Angel Giraldez' work with Corvus Belli being the primary example, and also the Forge World stuff.

Personally, I'm still not enamoured with it. I do own an airbrush that only really gets used for tanks or for fast basecoats. Could have a lot to do with the fact that I hate overstated/unrealistic highlights, which seems to go hand in hand with airbrushed paintwork.

 Paradigm wrote:
There has certainly been an explosion of Airbrush usage in the hobby over the last few years, going from a rare and 'different' style of painting to almost an norm for many high-end painters. Particularly commission studios like Awaken Realms and Den Of Imagination seem to use them a lot, as I guess for turning out an army quickly, it's much easier to use an airbrush for the main coats and highlights. There's also been a bit more prevalence of it in 'official' paintjobs, Angel Giraldez' work with Corvus Belli being the primary example, and also the Forge World stuff.

Personally, I'm still not enamoured with it. I do own an airbrush that only really gets used for tanks or for fast basecoats. Could have a lot to do with the fact that I hate overstated/unrealistic highlights, which seems to go hand in hand with airbrushed paintwork.

Do you use a single action or dual action airbrush as that could make a difference. Single action, just push lever and get paint & air in one go is fine for undercoating / basing, but a dual action gives you more control and therefore better results (sorry if you knew this already).

I have both, actually, a single action that I use for basecoating and a double-action that I've never bothered to learn to use. I'm just not a huge fan of the look of airbrush minis in general; it can look great, but doesn't suit the style I like to paint in. Airbrushes seem to lend themselves to high-contrast, brightly highlighted models that personally I just don't appreciate.

That said, there is some airbrush work out there that I love, like Angel's Infinity stuff, most stuff Awaken Realms does and Eggroll's Blood Angels here on Dakka, it's just not something I'd want on my own minis.

I've not used one, and have no plans to get one. It seems like a bit of a faff to be honest. Great for base coating a huge army I suppose, but then a can of army painter does that too.

I appreciate the skill it takes to do anything more than just basecoat, but not a fan of the general look. Give me a good brush any day!

If you go over to Facebook and like Figure Painter Magazine you can see some of the amazing stuff that is being done.

The quality of the paintjobs on my models went up a lot when I got my airbrush.
I still use GW cans for undercoats, as I can get far more done at once that way.
But, for basecoats, it's great.

I'm still a novice after 3 years, as I haven't tried much in the way of drawing with the brush. I'm at the stage of painting the edges of things to get a go-faster effect. Everything else is still by hand. Masking tape saves a lot of time, but even that needs practice, to prevent bleeding underneath the edge.

It's been a good investment, if only for the extra skill of waving paint around in a different way.
As for the hobby as a whole. as models get more expensive, we might be spending more of the rest of the hobby instead.

I use my airbrush for super fast painting of bases and terrain. Vehicles, get basecoated this way, too.

Also, if an army is mostly one color (looking at you, mareens), then it gets basecoated with airbrush instead of by hand. If they are many separate colors, then I just do it by hand, its just as quick.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I think to a degree recent interest in airbrushes within the tabletop gaming communities have paralleled greater interest and acceptance of Forge World models. Forge World does most of their work with airbrush and with the popularity of Horus Heresy many of those hobbyist want their models to look like the FW examples.

.

This is actually a really salient point, certainly in my case.

I still consider the money spent on the FW Modelling Masterclass book to be the best I have ever spent because the book is such an eye opener. So I bought that what 5 years ago and I got an AB not long after reading it.

I always found painting models with a brush to be a chore. The time taken and the finished look (too thick or uneven) always made the process unsatisfactory.With an AB it's fun! I now see how all the camo patterns I failed to copy with a brush were done. I can knock out a basic FoW army in an evening; I am also not daunted by the sight of Land Raiders anymore. Scenery is easier too, as you can spray acrylic and not have to hope your spray can is the equivalent of a foam MultiMelta!

So yeah, Airbrushes; not so much the future more the now.

All hail our Chinese Overlords for this bounteous gift!

I originally got an airbrush to paint some Armoured Core and Gunpla kits, as well as Terrain for Infinity (as I didn't want to go through all of that with a brush).

After using it, I branched into using it as an additional tool for painting minis and never looked back.

I think Infinity might have something to do with it too, as their studio painter uses an Airbrush a lot, and is really fast and effective with it. That, and the use on terrain made it a useful buy for me on top of the large 'scale kits' (Gundam, real-world vehicles etc).

Got an airbrush tried it a fair few times- didn't like it. Too much messing about for my liking so I'm now back to brushes and I enjoy it so much.

There were airbrush es being used by miniature painters and Modelers as far back as the 1900's (and by that, I mean since the invention of the airbrush).

It remained a very expensive piece of technology (akin to a computer for photo manipulation in the 1980's/90's), and thus not readily available to artists until manufacturing methods allowed them to be more cheaply made in the 1960's/70's.

They were still rare in the gaming community until the 00's, but some of us who had a background in the arts used them.

They present a different tool for doing certain jobs, but they are not universally applicable to doing everything for miniature painting like a paint brush is.

For instance, painting man-sized 30mm miniatures remains something for which an airbrush has limited application. The surfaces on such a miniature present too small an area to effectively work with an airbrush and produce acceptable results.

And.... Priming is something that it can be used for, but priming a miniature with acrylics isn't a very good way to prime, since the acrylic is not as durable a paint as an enamels' based primer (which has much longer polymers, giving stronger bonds over the surface).

I have previously also explained about how acrylics shrink a great deal when they dry, which enamels tend to resists, making the bond stronger between the miniature and primer.

But.... Airbrushed enamels for a primer are better than canned primers, which is why auto-body shops used an airbrushed primer, rather than cans.

But at this point, to get back to the main content.....

Airbrushes have pretty much penetrated as far as they can into the Hobby. People are either aware of them,or become aware of them relatively quickly, and adopt them as soon as they can for the jobs they can do with them.

MB

An airbrush is just another tool for laying down paint.

It has become a "must have" now for me since I find "block painting" a bit of a yawn so when faced with 100 odd foot sloggers the thing is a god-send.

Rough surfaces are brutal on brushes and suck-up a huge amount of paint when being pushed around.
So when I go to paint my graveled miniature bases, an airbrush makes it quick and looks good with half the paint.

One word: "Terrain".
Cities of death buildings are just not the level of suffering I am used to anymore with an airbrush, I can see why some threads of airbrush viewed as "cheating" keeps springing up.

Unless you are willing to lay down some 4+ washes, no other paint tool can lay down such an even layer of paint or a natural form of zenithal highlighting.

Artists have been using these for photo-touch-up tools for years (since 1890's!), so really fine painting has been refined for years prior to Photoshop...

I have touched-on the more brute-force applications of the tool but it can be used for so many other applications.
I just recently am using it to tint clear canopies on models.. it is awesome.

If you can think of how to paint it with a brush, you can do it with an airbrush.
Each of them have applications that may be more suitable for one than the other.

 Paradigm wrote:
Airbrushes seem to lend themselves to high-contrast, brightly highlighted models that personally I just don't appreciate.

I disagree with this. Airbrushed models and brush-painted models can look exactly the same, the airbrush is just a tool like any other method of getting paint onto a model. There's definitely a "look at me I have an airbrush" style with bright colors, exaggerated shading, poorly-done OSL everywhere, etc, that seems to exist for the sole purpose of allowing "pro" painters to justify charging obscene amounts of money for a 30-second paint job. But that's not all airbrushes can do. For example, this model was painted almost entirely with an airbrush:

That's oil paint weathering so allot of brush work is on that tank too.

 notprop wrote:
That's oil paint weathering so allot of brush work is on that tank too.

And a lot of that oil paint weathering was done with an airbrush. The step-by-step process is shown in IA:Model Masterclass 1. And the point is that using an airbrush and the "look at me I have an airbrush" style are not the same, not that you can or should paint a model without ever using a brush. You can do nice subdued colors with an airbrush if that's what you want to do. You're only committed to the bright obnoxious style if you're a "pro" painter and you need an easy way to produce something that your client can't do without spending much time on it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Airbrushes seem to lend themselves to high-contrast, brightly highlighted models that personally I just don't appreciate.

I disagree with this. Airbrushed models and brush-painted models can look exactly the same, the airbrush is just a tool like any other method of getting paint onto a model. There's definitely a "look at me I have an airbrush" style with bright colors, exaggerated shading, poorly-done OSL everywhere, etc, that seems to exist for the sole purpose of allowing "pro" painters to justify charging obscene amounts of money for a 30-second paint job. But that's not all airbrushes can do.

Oh, I agree, some very nice work that is still subdued but neat can be produced with an airbrush, and often faster than doing the same thing by brush. All I was saying is that in many cases, airbrushing and an extreme-highlighted and 'clean' but in my opinion garish style seem to go hand in hand. I look at a lot of it and, while I can appreciate the talent it takes to produce such models (and they are still a hundred times better than what I can do) I personally wouldn't want them anywhere near my shelf. There is some absolutely excellent, not overblown and sublimely subtle airbrush work out there, but for every one like that there's ten with overdone OSL, too-bright highlights and gradients that don't approach looking 'realistic' unless everything in the given setting is chromed.

 Paradigm wrote:
Oh, I agree, some very nice work that is still subdued but neat can be produced with an airbrush, and often faster than doing the same thing by brush. All I was saying is that in many cases, airbrushing and an extreme-highlighted and 'clean' but in my opinion garish style seem to go hand in hand. I look at a lot of it and, while I can appreciate the talent it takes to produce such models (and they are still a hundred times better than what I can do) I personally wouldn't want them anywhere near my shelf. There is some absolutely excellent, not overblown and sublimely subtle airbrush work out there, but for every one like that there's ten with overdone OSL, too-bright highlights and gradients that don't approach looking 'realistic' unless everything in the given setting is chromed.

Sure, but that's a problem with low-talent "pro" painters choosing to paint that way, not the airbrush. There's nothing inherent about an airbrush that forces it to produce any particular style, so it doesn't make much sense to say "airbrush style doesn't belong on my miniatures". It's like looking at a picture of a bright pink space marine and saying "painting with a brush doesn't make any sense for my style".

 Peregrine wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Oh, I agree, some very nice work that is still subdued but neat can be produced with an airbrush, and often faster than doing the same thing by brush. All I was saying is that in many cases, airbrushing and an extreme-highlighted and 'clean' but in my opinion garish style seem to go hand in hand. I look at a lot of it and, while I can appreciate the talent it takes to produce such models (and they are still a hundred times better than what I can do) I personally wouldn't want them anywhere near my shelf. There is some absolutely excellent, not overblown and sublimely subtle airbrush work out there, but for every one like that there's ten with overdone OSL, too-bright highlights and gradients that don't approach looking 'realistic' unless everything in the given setting is chromed.

Sure, but that's a problem with low-talent "pro" painters choosing to paint that way, not the airbrush. There's nothing inherent about an airbrush that forces it to produce any particular style, so it doesn't make much sense to say "airbrush style doesn't belong on my miniatures". It's like looking at a picture of a bright pink space marine and saying "painting with a brush doesn't make any sense for my style".

Which is not what I'm saying, I'm basically agreeing with you! If I had the confidence and skill to be able to airbrush stuff and still keep the style I use now and am happy with, then I would be doing it all the time. I was just saying that the style often associated with airbrushes does nothing for me, so while I can appreciate the skill behind it, I'm not a fan of the aesthetics. I'm not trying to make out the airbrush is some infernal device of evil, quite the contrary. It's a great tool that allows people to do great things, I just don't see that it's any better than a brush for the way I like painting.

 Paradigm wrote:
Which is not what I'm saying, I'm basically agreeing with you! If I had the confidence and skill to be able to airbrush stuff and still keep the style I use now and am happy with, then I would be doing it all the time. I was just saying that the style often associated with airbrushes does nothing for me, so while I can appreciate the skill behind it, I'm not a fan of the aesthetics. I'm not trying to make out the airbrush is some infernal device of evil, quite the contrary. It's a great tool that allows people to do great things, I just don't see that it's any better than a brush for the way I like painting.

Ok, I was just referring to the post where you said "I'm just not a huge fan of the look of airbrush minis in general", and pointing out that there's no such thing as "the look of airbrush minis in general", just like there's no such thing as "the look of brush-painted minis in general". Airbrushed miniatures can be (and often are) so subtle and realistic you'd never know an airbrush was involved, and brush-painted miniatures can have awful over-done shading/OSL everywhere/etc. I think it's important to be clear about the fact that the "pro" painted "look at me I have an airbrush" style is a problem with low-skill painters, not the tools they're using. It's an annoying misconception that I'd really like to get rid of.