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Hi guys,

Just bought a citadel paint gun to help with basecoating tanks etc. Ive had an initial stab at it, but the paint seems way too watery despite following directions. Any ideas what Im doing wrong? Too close maybe? what sort of settings are people using for the ajustable nozzle to get decent results?

And you've definitely tried increasing the paint to water ratio?

Had a go at it. I think at least part of the issue might be a dodgy pot of mechrite red i got sold. Do you use the same water:paint raito for standard paint that you use for foundation paints?

Here's some images to better illustrate my failures:

Pooling on the bottoms to illustrate:

Post wiping off excess so its fixable when I figure out my issue. Note that this is red gore on top of the initial mechrite layer:


Ill buy some more paint tomorrow night and have another stab.

Im obviously not expecting pro airbrush level results, just looking for a decent consistent coat to work on.

Looks like your spraying far too heavily, the paint should mist on very finely and dry quickly. I'd try dialling back the ammount of paint in the paint/air mix and make sure you keep the gun moving.

Did you stir the red before adding it to the brush too?

The gw spray gun should be capable of laying down a good base coat for 1 tank at a time. Keep an eye on your air can temp too, when frost starts forming on the outside it's time to have a break and let it wam up

also, though I'm not sure from the pics, but did you prime the model first, or spray directly on the plastic? Primer is intended to create something to which the paint can bond, but without it the paint tends to act watery and slide right off. The citadel spraygun, though I've not used it, is not intended as an alternative to priming, but a quicker way to basecoat, which is the step after priming.

The water/paint ratio for normal paints is going to be different than for the water/foundation paint mix. Whilst the markings on the jar are "fine" for Foundation paints, you will need to experiment with the non-foundation types to get "perfect".

The foundation paints have a higher pigment density and are a thicker, gloopier paint.
The normal paints aren't anywhere near as pigment dense, and some of them are very light on pigment (yellows, reds and whites).

Cheers for the suggestions lads: Rushed off from work to the Gee Dub to get some paints tonight, neatly forgetting its shut all day Monday and won't have a change to get more til Weds :/


@Skippy - Yeah I got a couple of cans of air, as apparently its the way forward and I swapped them out when they frosted.

@shadow chaplain - Yes, they were primed first. The results photo is primer -> Mechrite -> Red Gore

I think Im looking at a combination of cock ups here. I suspected the mechrite was from a "bad batch" and over watery anyway, and I was using the same 1:1 paint:water for the non-foundations as foundations.

Ill attempt something like a 1.66:1 paint:water, and dial down the amount of paint in the airstream per Skippys suggestion and hope I end up with better results.

Cheers for the input and I'll report back here with some hopefully less crap results at a later stage. I'll put this one down to a learning experience!

You can coat a model with even the watery-est paints, if you do very, very thin coats.

Hell, I was airbrushing black ink onto my models, thinking it was black paint, and I didn't realized I had the wrong stuff until like 10 models in... worked just as well for me lol.