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.

I just finished reading the Community Spotlight piece on Zenithal airbrushing, and was quite impressed with the end result. What surprised me the most was how little effort and time it seems to take to do the basecoat and object source lighting. Browsing through the Adepticon army pictures, it seems like mechanized fifth edition has forced the hand of painters to utilize airbrush techniques across the board, as many armies were airbrushed. Has airbrushing become the new, quick method to achieve quality without skill? Is it frowned upon in the same way that dipping is? I'm thinking of jumping on the bandwagon and buying an airbrush, it's hard to argue with the results.

Airbrush is the way to go / progress.

Anyone complaining about it is just refusing to advance.
I mean, they are using brushes , inks , primers , no? We arnt finger painting here so go for it!

This is something that has also crossed my mind! There does seem to be a great increase in airbrush uses, although I really don't think its fair to say "without skill" as i've seen airbrushing done less than skillfully and its just a big mess.

I know what you mean though and i'll be interested in other peoples answers and reccommendations!

Emperors_Champion wrote:This is something that has also crossed my mind! There does seem to be a great increase in airbrush uses, although I really don't think its fair to say "without skill" as i've seen airbrushing done less than skillfully and its just a big mess.

I know what you mean though and i'll be interested in other peoples answers and reccommendations!

Totally. I have seem some ugly messes when an airbrush is used without skill. I am even tempted to use an airbrush instead of my traditional brushes.

Ah, yet another thing I wish I could afford...

I must say, I've been rather curious about the (apparent) recent rise in airbrush use, as well. Are more people suddenly buying and using them or is info just starting to circulate on Dakka more prominently? Several of the big proponents say they've been using them for years, but it seems that there isn't a day, anymore, when there aren't at least two or three airbrush questions on the P&M front page, many by people who appear to be relatively early on in their mini painting careers. Seems that airbrushes just might be the next (comparatively expensive) drybrush.

Well, I for one bought an airbrush directly as a result of reading these forums. I don't even recall considering it prior to its rise in prominence on dakka.

oadie wrote:Ah, yet another thing I wish I could afford...

I must say, I've been rather curious about the (apparent) recent rise in airbrush use, as well. Are more people suddenly buying and using them or is info just starting to circulate on Dakka more prominently? Several of the big proponents say they've been using them for years, but it seems that there isn't a day, anymore, when there aren't at least two or three airbrush questions on the P&M front page, many by people who appear to be relatively early on in their mini painting careers. Seems that airbrushes just might be the next (comparatively expensive) drybrush.

You can pick up an entire airbrush kit for less than $50 at Harbor Freight, if you already have a compressor. It's not the best in the world, but it works well.

I bought one, after recommendations from Dakka. It's great for Basecoating, Priming, doing tanks and with Oaka's brilliant Tutorial, it makes these techniques more accessible.

There is no doubt in my mind if i had bought this item and tried to work it out on my own i would have become disheartened and binned it. But due to the encouragement and guidance of many of the people on Dakka my skills have advanced beyond the awkward beginner and charged into the Journeyman painter stage.

This is brilliant for two reasons 1, you feel like you are making progess with this new tool, as you are not wasting time re-inventing the mistakes of other users. 2, Due to you having a basic skillset you quickly experiment and find new techniques that work or do not work.

I would always take the advice of those Dakka users on here especially those in articles with step by step guides. It has improved my painting one hundred fold and I am proud to put some of my Mini's on show, where as a few years ago I was ashamed at how mediocre and poorly they were painted....

All told I think many people are looking for a Holy Grail Solution, the paint that gets it right everytime, the technique that never fails, the brush that never loses it's tip etc etc. I look back and I see a steady progression, big milestones came (like priming properly, thinning your paints, using a wet pallete, learning to wash & glaze, learning to highlight). I personnally don't believe in anyone technique but I do believe in trying as many as possible just because it is brilliant to be able to have a wide and varied skillset. My current technique is using GUNDAM MARKERS on models to see what effects i get in combination with other techniques....

Lonecoon wrote:

You can pick up an entire airbrush kit for less than $50 at Harbor Freight, if you already have a compressor. It's not the best in the world, but it works well.

I picked up an airbrush for alot less than that at HF.
Its not bad, I wouldnt use it for anything fancy, but basecoating, adding hardcoat or glaze or anything else that requires no accuracy? its a DREAM if you have a horde army, I was basecoating models in less than 30 seconds with great results! (though my hands were totally covered in paint afterwards)

Using an airbrush can really save you time or allowing you to create effects that are otherwise very hard or impossible to achieve.

Just don't start using the airbrush for everything, it is an additional tool, nothing more. It is not a substitute for brushes

Well using airbrushes is nothing new in common model making. It just seems to have never really arrived in the miniature painting scene for quite some time. I for myself started with model making (WWII stuff from revell, tamyia,rocco and so on) back in the 1990 and it was pretty common to use airbrush.
Saying it takes no skill or is easy to accomplish is just wrong. Aribrushing is like most other techniques. Easy to start with but hard to master. Plus you need to sink a lot of money into once you want to raise from tabletop standard to highler levels. Harder&Steenbeck pistols plus a good compressor is what you need sooner or later. From my experience airbrushing is superfast but it takes a ton of preparation beforehand. So you wont really save time except you just want to use the airbrush for primer jobs and such basic stuff. Oh well, and you really need to keep an eye on your equipment. There a rule of thumb for airbrushing "Airbrushing is 80% annoyance with the technique and 20% fun." You can ruin your whole miniature/model by just beeing a little lazy with the cleaning process after the session. But once you´re mastered some of the basic techniques the results can be amazing. I´ve seen artists painting a complete 28mm just with airbrush but that´s incredible hard to accomplish.
I agree there with fiddler. An airbrush is a nice (and expensive) additional tool but it wont save you the "brushwork" completly.

I have been using an airbrush now for about 10 years, and anyone who thinks that it is cheating, or requires no skill clearly does not know what they are talking about. Every tool an artist uses to achieve a result requires skill, and all tools progress the model forward to an end result. The thing is understanding what is the right tool for the desired effect.

As I have painted things in the past I have used everything, brushes, dry brushing, yes, even dipping, and of course my airbrush. Each technique produces a specific result, so there fore no one can be "better" than the other, each is unique and specific in their own purpose, to claim other wise is ignorance.

Ashton

Oaka wrote:I just finished reading the Community Spotlight piece on Zenithal airbrushing, and was quite impressed with the end result. What surprised me the most was how little effort and time it seems to take to do the basecoat and object source lighting. Browsing through the Adepticon army pictures, it seems like mechanized fifth edition has forced the hand of painters to utilize airbrush techniques across the board, as many armies were airbrushed. Has airbrushing become the new, quick method to achieve quality without skill? Is it frowned upon in the same way that dipping is? I'm thinking of jumping on the bandwagon and buying an airbrush, it's hard to argue with the results.

Without skill?

Airbrushing is a guaranteed method to come up woth swearwords no one has ever heard before. If anyone told me I was cheating because I airbrushed, I'd have a dirty protest. The walls would run brown with rage.

Airbrushing requires a lot of practice, careful choice of tools and paints, careful mixing, more practice, brushwork to finish, some practice, and I don't know if I've said practice.

Gorbad wrote:Well using airbrushes is nothing new in common model making. It just seems to have never really arrived in the miniature painting scene for quite some time. I for myself started with model making (WWII stuff from revell, tamyia,rocco and so on) back in the 1990 and it was pretty common to use airbrush.

Same with any of the scale rail or 1:144 naval modeling. The effects produced by the airbrush were never showcased in WD to any great extent and internet forums basically didn't exist. So when you painted your 40K stuff way back in the 90's you were usually trying to emulate what you were being fed in WD. I have a few Tamyia naval kits I airbrushed 17yrs ago but I only use it for base\guide coating 40k mini's which were smaller and had less defined edges for the most part.

Of course now I wish I hadn't sold it.

Airbrushing is great, but as stated before, it is a tool. I airbrush almost everything now. However, detailing work (lining, drybrush, washes) can't be replaced by an airbrush.

Time is my biggest factor. I just dont have time to hand paint everything. Plus, my hand painted models versus my airbrushed models are night and day. Espcially SM shoulder pads which stink painting by hand. Nothing is more fun than thinning paint and applying it evenly on the pad only to have it move because of the rounded edges. Airbrushing makes shoulder pads a snap.

BTW, to any purist who complains - I'm sorry if I don't want to waste hours, models and money working on hand techniques when I could do the same thing in a fraction of the time. I'd also love to butcher my own meat, but I'll trust the grocery store to take care of it for me.

Sorry for lil OT but I really have to say, that I´m pretty pleased by the thoughtful comments here. It´s rare nowadays to see people dont complain about some techniques b/c they think you need no skill for it. May sounds little strange but I was thinking we will see another airbrush hate thread. Not that I have read one here on dakka but I had so many bad comments on airbrushed stuff .... thanks dakka

I think it's simply a case of trends in painting.

When I got into the hobby back in the late 90s, pretty much everone used layering (even the starter boxes had layering tutorials) and drybrushing was very rarely done.

Soon everything was done with drybrushing, feathering and extreme highlights.

When I joined dakka, the current trend seemed to be insanely smooth blending, which I think occured due to the mass use of NMM techniques.

Now of course, there is airbrushing, which allows you get those smooth blends much faster.

So the way I see it, there is always a trend in painting whereby people evolve the previous technique, as layering evolved into feathering, feathering into blending and now blending into airbrushing (which gives much smoother and more complex blends).

I have a cheap airbrush with a canister of compressed air, will probably use it for basecoats and such but quite happy to still pick up a brush for 90% of the work. Just my personal preference (that and I'm not any good with a brush so I am too afraid to attempt any of the amazing work we see here on dakka)

Oaka wrote:... Has airbrushing become the new, quick method to achieve quality without skill? Is it frowned upon in the same way that dipping is? I'm thinking of jumping on the bandwagon and buying an airbrush, it's hard to argue with the results.

Hehehe... buy an airbrush. Spend two years learning to use it properly. Skill is most definitely a prerequisite.

An airbrush is a tool, nothing more. Yes, it can help achieve a fairly smooth result (if used correctly), and it can make a lot of other techniques a lot easier by providing guide coats, open up techniques more often seen in military/aircraft modelling (such as preshading) but you'll find that to achieve a quality job with the AB is every bit as demanding as traditional painting. To achieve a smooth result, you generally still need to blend by hand over the top, and if your traditional blending techniques aren't up to scratch, you'll be wondering why everything's grainy and you can't fix it.

It's no silver bullet.

Mathhieu Fontaine put up a really nice post introducing the kit and general toolishness, you should check it out.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gorbad wrote: There a rule of thumb for airbrushing "Airbrushing is 80% annoyance with the technique and 20% fun."

I've never read anything more true. :-)