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Bit late to this thread but I can offer a little advice as I was recently in the same position as you Crushy.

The problem I found with this topic is that allot of the advice was US orientated (lucky buggers seem to have a hobby superstore on every street!) so it can be difficult to obtain the stuff advised either nationally or locally and at what I would consider to be an affordable price.

I also ummed and arrred about what to get for ages and looked into a few other threads on Dakka as well as more general searches.

I decided to buy a cheap compressor kit that came with two airbrushes (both dual action, one gravity and the other siphon) and 3L tank. A 16L tank is way too much btw unless you have a permanent position to house it and use it in - i.e. workshop/garage etc.

I bought mine from RDG Tools http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/cgi-bin/os000001.pl?ACTION=Start. I found this lot after allot of searching. There quite a few traders selling cheap compressor kits on the web and eBay in the UK and I plumbed for RDG Tools after doing a bit of research on them (I have trust issues what can I say!).

While they have a webstore and an eBay store, I called them up and asked for a few changes with the stated kit (I upgraded to the cased compressor and added some cleaning kit) and they delivered it to me the next day!

Lets be quite clear what I got was Chinese (probably) knock-offs of I believe Badger airbrushes. But a quick check of the kits and it is all A1. While I appreciate that you will get what you spend with airbrushes, there is no need to splash out on an Iwata set up while you are starting out. My whole set up cost me £119, the equivilent brand set up would cost £300-500. I think that this is the best approach while learning, I can get quaility stuff as my skill developes (or not ).

I have been up and running with it this for a couple of days and have learnt numerous quirks of airbrushing and finally took the plunge of spraying one of my tanks. I am really chuffed with the results and throughly recommend that you take the plunge!

Good-bye hours of brushwork!

Hey Crushy...

I've never used any Golden products (gesso or ab medium)... but I've used the Liquitex equivalent of both.

The golden, might be totally different, I doubt it, but once you see how Gesso behaves you might really be reluctant to put that junk in your AB heh. And actually I have a hard time imagining how it would work even... because it doesn't really go on in layers like other primers. You sort of gloop it on... and it shrinks around your model. It puts like a chaulky/rubbery skin around your model, that you can paint on.

I would think you could get vallejo... they are European.

Gunzhard wrote:Hey Crushy...
I would think you could get vallejo... they are European.

You'd think :p Curiously Vallejo is made in Spain which is the only country Portugal borders. I think even the hobby shop I go to (the only place over here I've seen selling Vallejo) orders their paints from UK warehouses.

In fact most of the paints I see here are from Italian brands. I have no idea where they're made, but certainly waaay further away than Vallejo.

Capitalism has it's strange quirks.



Anyway, thanks for all the advice, I think I found an ideal kit on this website:
http://www.airbrushcompressorshop.co.uk/products/compressor-kits/airbrush-compressor-kit-i-all-purpose/
From reading up, the compressor is tank-less but automatically turns off at a given pressure, making sure it doesn't build up if I close off the airbrush. It seems good enough to try out at least.

Someone on BoLs says it was a pretty cool deal but he has no airbrushing experience. If none of you pros say otherwise I think that's where I'll order from

Make sure you can get spares as things like needles and o-rings are easily damaged.

It is worth paying more for a known brand because of spares and build quality. Once you get used to using the airbrush you will use it more and more and within a month or two you may find you end up getting a better one anyway.

If it means saving for a bit longer to get a decent one its def worth it IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
With regards to priming I reccomend a light dusting with GW white primer and spray your base colour on nice and thin.

Way quicker than messing about mixing primer and cleaning your AB.

GW/P3/Vallejo Game paints should be mixed 50% paint 40% distilled water and 10% isoprop alcohol both the water and alcohol can be ordered via ebay i.e hassle free. Pre mix the water/alcohol mix into a lab squeezy bottle and its ready to go.

You can use the mix to clean out the AB between sessions too (by that i mean you should flush it out after a few minutes to prevent any clogging).

Vet Sgt Ezekiel wrote:Make sure you can get spares as things like needles and o-rings are easily damaged.

It is worth paying more for a known brand because of spares and build quality. Once you get used to using the airbrush you will use it more and more and within a month or two you may find you end up getting a better one anyway.

If it means saving for a bit longer to get a decent one its def worth it IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
With regards to priming I reccomend a light dusting with GW white primer and spray your base colour on nice and thin.

Way quicker than messing about mixing primer and cleaning your AB.

GW/P3/Vallejo Game paints should be mixed 50% paint 40% distilled water and 10% isoprop alcohol both the water and alcohol can be ordered via ebay i.e hassle free. Pre mix the water/alcohol mix into a lab squeezy bottle and its ready to go.

You can use the mix to clean out the AB between sessions too (by that i mean you should flush it out after a few minutes to prevent any clogging).

I don't recommend gw spray PAINT (it's not primer) to spray anything (well, maybe spray it on hornets and bees and other poisonous bugs to kill them). Prime anything metal for sure but use an auto primer, not the "gak in a can" that is GW spray PAINT.