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Hey all just looking for some advice.

Got myself a new airbrush today at long last, hooked it up to my compressor and proceded to give it a blast.

Its so easy to use and set up I was very impressed coming from the citadel spray gun.

Issue is that I'm getting quite a dusty spray when using the airbrush, I'm not sure wither or not this is due to thinning, running at the wrong pressure or a combination of the both.

I'm running at about 20 psi atm.

Anyone got any idea what could be causing the issues?

The paint is hitting the model 'dry'. Try using a little less pressure, and a slightly closer spray distance. It's not easy to give a good guid 'figure' for pressure as it's a balancing act between paint mix, flow, pressure and distance. Alcohol based mediums (Tamiya / Windscreen Wash etc) dry fast, A water based mix dries slower, especially if you put a dash of some sort of retardant in there.

You'll find the paint rubs off extremely easily if applied 'dry' (but it's a useful technique for dust / filter effects). It's also easier to avoid 'runs' when applying dryer mixes.

You'll also find that your finish colour is artificially light (dusty, matte surfaces reflect more light in more directions). Varnishing will also do this; you can apply a more gloss mix of varnish to counter any dusty finish. Be aware that the light finish you're seeing may not be there when the varnish goes on.

Droped the pressure abit and it seems to be going on alot better thank you

Now time to figure out how to do zenithal highlighting lol

If you've not already seen it, this is a great article looking at zenithal highlighting.

SilverMK2 wrote:If you've not already seen it, this is a great article looking at zenithal highlighting.

I have man thanks for the link though.

Its what inspired me to get an airbrush, that an Les from APJ and buy painted


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A quick question,

Does anyone know if vallejos shadow grey is any less blue than games workshop shadow grey?

Edit: pictures of first attempt