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Hello all,
I see there are quite a few folks that use some kind of airbrush or spray system to base their army. My interest peaked when someone at the game store said they were able to base coat most of their army in around an hour or so after they were assembled.

My question is this - which airbrush or spray system does the community recommend? A FLGS suggested Citadel's Spray gun, but I am hesitant since I have not heard good or bad things about it. I really don't want to break the bank on it, but I also do not want a system I am going to be completely disappointed in.

Thanks all!

If you can connect the Citadel air brush to a small compressor it'd be alright, I had a lack of pressure using the cans because of the freezing temperature of using it for too long.

I think any problems the airbrush had, the citadel one, have been ironed out. I've used it a couple of times and I've experienced no problems at all, other than my inexperience at getting the right thickness of paint. I made it too watery =[

There are links at the bottom of my GK tutorial (linked in my sig), I cannot recommend a true airbrush enough, nor can I more strongly recommend you NOT use spray guns on minis, esp the Citadel one.

The AB is the single most useful tool I have ever come across in the hobby, no joke!

I use a Paasche Talon AB to great effect. Can't recommend it more!

The Citadel spray gun is allright to just lay a cover of a colour to a big amount of models. Its main problem, imho, is that you can only use it with a minimal amount of paint in the bottle and this amount is pretty high, compared with an airbrush. The Citadel spray gun also allows you only to either spray or not. A dual action airbrush allows you to control the amount of paint in the air flow, which makes colour transitions much easier and nicer.

Also, concerning paint amount needed, with my airbrush I can just take off the paint reservoir and put only like three drops of paint, e.g. if I only want to spray one single weapon on one character model. With the spray gun you would have to mix a pretty high amount of paint just to spray one single bit.

I use an Evolution two-in-one.

I also have a Paasche Talon and I like it a lot. Although so far I've only used it to base coat several buildings and tanks.

I found this one on Amazon. It comes with the compressor too.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TO578Q/ref=s9_simh_gw_p201_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=0XSVA8SWYTMAKYPX5VT7&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938811&pf_rd_i=507846

For those that know about airbrushes, what do you think? I primarily want an airbrush to do basecoating.

That's the same as the kit I bought, just with a different brand name on it. It works great, you get a finish you just cant get with hand painting.
The only thing I will say is the moisture traps on those compressors are very meh, so grab one for the airbrush end too, they're cheap and will stop you spoiling your lovely smooth sprayed paint with splats of water. (It happened a lot, especially on humid days, and it's bloody annoying) I got one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AIRBRUSH-MINI-FILTER-MOISTURE-TRAP-/290444700295?pt=UK_Crafts_DrawingSupplies_EH&hash=item439fda6a87

Cool. Thanks for the advice. Is it better to get a gravity fed or syphon fed one?

All you need to know about airbrushes.

http://www.akaranseth.com/blog/tutorials/airbrushing-for-figurine.htm

I've bought from TCP, and they seem like a really good company. The kit youre looking at looks like a great starter set, the airbrush is gravity feed and dual action, the two most important features IMHO.

Just do your research and make sure you can buy spare parts for that airbrush from TCP. Sooner or later you WILL need a new needle or tip, and it's important that you can easily acquire them.

My equipment:

2 Master G44/PS900 airbrushes, gravity fed. Clone of Iwata brushes made in china, dirt cheap and so far work well! http://www.amazon.com/Air-Pro-Tools-PS900-Decorating/dp/B0013DSONI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302747192&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/PRECISION-DUAL-ACTION-AIRBRUSH-Detail-Graphic/dp/B001BY8FWE/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=arts-crafts&qid=1302747235&sr=1-11

Sparmax TC 610 dual action aircompressor with 2.5 litre tank. Same company that manufactures the actual compressors for Iwata, but cheaper. Same deal. http://www.sparmax.com.tw/air_compressors_2.html

TCP is the biggest and best internet AB store in NA. I have ordered from them several times, and believe me, I spent enough $ to make me do a lot of research first, I could not find a better overall deal from a trustworthy company.

Havok210 wrote:My interest peaked when someone at the game store said they were able to base coat most of their army in around an hour or so after they were assembled.

Yeah, well, maybe...

If you want to do a nice job, and make sure all the underarms and inside legs get painted then it might take a bit longer than an hour to do a whole army. I base coated 16 assault marines last night, and I think it took me about an hour. Though I wasn't trying to be especially fast. Airbrushing is certainly much faster and more fun than undercoating with a brush. You can get such a beautiful finish too that it almost seems a shame to paint over it.

Cool. Thanks for the advice. Is it better to get a gravity fed or syphon fed one?

Gravity is better for miniatures and fine work. Syphon is possibly better for spraying big areas because it can carry more paint, it might be a bit less hassle to change colours if you have a lot of syphon jars. Gravity is usually going to be more than big enough for anything you will likely encounter in wargaming.

I have used TCP Global for all of my airbrush needs. Great
service, I had a compressor go out on me, they replaced
it with no questions asked and at no cost to me. I have several of the Master airbrushes and they work well. They
will do a very fine line to about 1" line with no trouble. As
with any airbrush, paint consistency and air pressure are the key. I think you'll like this airbrush very much once you get used to using it. Good luck with your purchase, and happy spraying.

Good advice i see here.

My two cents would be: DO NOT buy a compressor without air tank and moisture trap. The tank will ensure constant pressure (rather critical), and the moisture trap will eliminate any condensation droplets in the air flow (which can seriously mess up any paint job). You can find decent ones on Ebay for 50-80EUR and they will last you a very long time. Kinda useless to be skimpy on the air tank as the little extra cost will save you a lot of headaches over a period of decades..

For airbrush, I personally use the GW spray gun for base coating. The thing is decent enough if you take care of it and the simple mechanics makes it a breeze to clean. For more detailed work I use a regular dual-action airbrush.

I own 4 airbrushes (Masters G44, Iwata Neo, DeVilbiss DAGR, Harder and Steenbeck Infinity) and would not get a spraygun unless it is a professional quality and really need to base coat some very large items.

http://models-workshop.com/buying-a-new-airbrush/

There is a tutorial I wrote and then did a video for. Should answer a lot of basic questions in regards to airbrushes.

For a basic rig as a beginner I really recommend the Master G44/G43. More advanced brushes, do research. If you have the cash a good Iwata or Harder and Steenbeck is the way to go.

Awesome. Thanks everyone for the info so far. I took the plunge and purchased the one I mentioned in my link to Amazon. Hopefully the compressor is oil-less so that I dont have to read up on how to maintain it.

One question - What is the common ratio of water to paint for an airbrush?

I'm not a big fan of using water to thin regular paints as it can easily mess up the consistency of acrylic paints. I prefer to use Vallejo Airbrush Thinner, comes in handy 20ml bottles. The ratio varies depending on the paint itself of course, but the Goldilocks zone to paint with is just a little bit thicker than the consistency of full milk. (so somewhere between cream and milk). I'm guessing somewhere between 1/5th to 1/4th usually is good, sometimes a bit more if the paint is thicker.

I only use water to thin inks and glazes as the milky composition of airbrush thinner tends to matte down inks and introduce a white/grey hue.

Another two handy tips. Try and get you hands on something like the 'Klear' they sell in the UK, which is basically a glossy waterbased varnish they use to seal tile floors. Comes in big bottles, costs next to nothing and is a perfect additive to your airbrush mix, as just a tiny bit of that will act not only as a thinner but also will give a good strength to the paint when dry. I even remember seeing a website giving alternatives country-by-country, because that Johnson's Wax Klear is just great stuff. Basically it's just like any other acrylic gloss varnish they use for modeling, just in house-hold scale bottles for cheap prices.

The other tip is, add a tiny amount of dishwashing detergent to your mix, as this breaks up the surface tension of the fluid and will ensure a better coverage. Now, really use a tiny amount, I'm talking of the tip of a tooth pick dipped in detergent without any drops dangling off. you don't want your paint to be foaming, just stir in the tiny coat on the tip of the pick and it should be enough.

Its known as Future Floor Wax here in the states. I prefer Testors Acrylic Thinner, you get a lot more of it and the price is pretty good.

Said thing is with paints, each color is different and 'perfect ratios' are difficult to pin down.