Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Since there has been some interest in airbrushed vehicles, I thought I'd post a couple that are still works in progress, showing a couple of different styles you can get with the airbrush.

This Eldar Phoenix has had it's initial shading done, and some detail added. The next phase will be to mask off a tribal pattern to be added in black.




This Vulture is using a desert camo scheme, and you can still see the massive shine left from using future floor wax to dilute the paint before spraying. The pattern was masked off in a series of stages, using a gloss coat between each one to keep the tape from lifting off the paint underneath. With the basic camo done, it's currently being detailed, then markings and insignia will be added.

Nice stuff. Now I REALLY have to pull out my airbrush.

Quick question: Do you use regular masking tape or "painters" tape? Or is the issue, not the tape pulling off paint from beneath, paint peeling off that is next to and on top of the tape?

Just wondering.

ender502

Use painters tape, it wont leave residue on your models, and its easily put on and taken off

Looks great Painter6479. How much time would you estimate that you have spent working on the phoenix so far?

/boggle

Must...get....airbrush!

ender502 wrote:Nice stuff. Now I REALLY have to pull out my airbrush.

Quick question: Do you use regular masking tape or "painters" tape? Or is the issue, not the tape pulling off paint from beneath, paint peeling off that is next to and on top of the tape?

Just wondering.

ender502

Since I'm still getting started with the airbrush, I haven't hunted down much in the way of specialty supplies yet, this was done with an old roll of 3m masking tape I had laying around. It worked well enough for me to work on the basic masking concepts, but I will definitely want to get something with less adhesion and a cleaner release.

legoburner wrote:Looks great Painter6479. How much time would you estimate that you have spent working on the phoenix so far?

Two answers, one for the questions you asked, and one for what you meant.

I have actually repainted that model almost completely twice, first after my original attempt to mask a pattern didn't really turn out the way I wanted, and again after I grabbed the model carelessly before sealing the paint, rubbing some off, so a lot of time went into it because of those false starts.

As for what you see now though, it was a lot easier to repeat the shading once I already knew what I wanted to do, I'd say that the airbrush work took between an hour and a hour and a half tops, and maybe as much as another hour or so for the additional details such as metallics that were painted in afterwards and the lining with a technical pen.

I'd say that further practice will bring that airbrushing time down from there, I've only really been using the thing for less than a month, on maybe a dozen or so models so far, though I have been doing traditional painting for almost 20 years.

was so inspired by the linebreakers i ordered my self an airbrush off ebay (£25 - about $50). Just need a compressor now!

I too have just ventured in to the world of airbrushing .
I have made 2 unsucessful atemps at airbrushing in years gone by which had just put me off the whole idea for many years.Then a friend of mine was hard up for cash so traded me an old badger airbrush for a spare carnifex i had.
I gave this airbrush a bit of a whirl and quite liked it so i bought a book on how to airbrush models (alot of litrature about airbrushing but not alot on airbrushing warhammer models !)
The book is a great guide, but it was very clear after reading it that my airbrush was a lump of poo and would never give me the finishes i wanted , so i went straight to ebay and forkout £25 ($50) and bought an airbrush from hong kong and as the old saying goes "you get what you pay for" and the airbrush from hong kong was very nice to look at and worked great for about 10 mins until the trigger snapped in two and as you may know an air brush with out a trigger is basicly a hollow metal stick useful for stiring your tea at best .

Anyway because of this set back i went back to my old badger brush to see what i could do with it and to practice .Here are some very important finders .

1, YOUTUBE has some great airbrushing videos showing you some great tips .
2,Ignore people who tell you to thin vallejo and citadel paints with isopranol alcohol , it thickens the paint or causes it to clump up and clog your brush due to a chemical reaction.
3,Testors do some great airbrushes designed for working with models that come with a range of tips for different paint and line thickness
4,cans of air suck ,get a compressor or try and rig up an old tyre .
5,clean it well and then clean it again,more time you spend doing this the better the airbrush will work.
6,tamiya do some great airbrush accessories and consumables ,i got a turn table and some making tape from ebay and they are fantastic .
7Ebay is your friend, airbrushes are expensive on the whole but you can pick up serious bargains from people looking to shift the ones the havent used ,buy a cheap one first ,if you like it buy a better one ,if you dont like it sell it on ebay and get your money back .
8,britta filter jug is your friend ,citadel work well if thinned with distilled water , but filtered water works just as well .
9,screen wash for cars works too.
10, practice ,practice,practice.If you can pick up an airbrush first time and paint like a pro then thats great , but i have painted GW models for 20 years and know my way round a paint brush ,but the skills dont seem to transfer to airbrushing .
11, prime it white if its light .Paint goes on almost trasparent through an airbrush and colours show through from other layers so plan your paint scheme carefully .
12,learn to varnish between coats if your going to mask off anything,even low adhesion tapes can pull paint from model(resin models are worst) but if you lightly varnish a model between coats of paint it reduces this happening .

these are just my thoughts and some people may have other ideas and i am no expert ,these are just things i have found out in the last couple of weeks , i will hopefully have some photos of the stormsword im airbrushing to show you the results.

What did you do to leavel the lines black on the vulture?

Mithrax wrote:What did you do to leavel the lines black on the vulture?

I came back after the airbrushing and used a .5mm rapidoliner technical pen to draw them in. It works very well for this sort of thing.