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I am just getting back into the hobby and I notice that quite a few of people airbrush and I just have a bevy of questions on it - but the basics:

1-Why airbrush?
2-What is the general purpose of airbrushing?
3-What advantage does it have over normal painting?
4-What drawbacks does it have compared to normal painting?

That is the basics - and as I hear I will respond with other questions. I know there is probably threads about this elsehwere - but sorting through a search return of 100+ pages will take forever...lol

Thanks for your time...

I got into the hobby recently too, I got an airbrush. I find it's great just to increase the speed of laying on basecoats, and for a few things it's essential, such as OSL, highlighting, any kind of lighting effect pretty much where you want a smooth gradient. Also it gives you a nice smooth basecoat. But it's expensive. If you only plan on painting one army I wouldn't recommend it, but if you really want to explore the hobby and do high-quality artistic minis, then yes, and it's better to get it sooner than later. There are no real drawbacks except for the cost and the hassle of cleaning it, because you still need to use a brush for some things anyway. Make sure that if you get one get a nice airbrush cleaning tool.

Watch the videos by BuyPainted. If that doesnt sell you on how quick and amazing results airbrushing can give, then nothing will. Though the guy has serious skills to make it look that easy :-)

Amaraxis wrote:

I am just getting back into the hobby and I notice that quite a few of people airbrush and I just have a bevy of questions on it - but the basics:

1-Why airbrush? fast and easy
2-What is the general purpose of airbrushing? Greatly speeds painting and gives you expert gradients without having to be an expert.
3-What advantage does it have over normal painting? fast and easy, makes you look far more skilled than you actually are, power weapons become a snap
4-What drawbacks does it have compared to normal painting? brush cleaning, only good for medium - large surfaces (i.e. marine armor, vehicles, etc... but not details like faces)

That is the basics - and as I hear I will respond with other questions. I know there is probably threads about this elsehwere - but sorting through a search return of 100+ pages will take forever...lol

Thanks for your time...

What the others said.



But seriously, it is amazing for everything from basing to advanced lighting techniques (look up zenithal lighting).

Sell you?
Find a friend and watch them use it - it will sell itself right there.

Once you use one it will become as useful as your clippers, or favorite paint brush.

I think one thing not addressed so far is the topic of volume.
What kind of volume of models do you plan on painting?
Unless you are getting in to painting as your primary hobby, then the cost of the gun and all the additional equipment to use it properly, are fairly steep for someone just dabbling.

matphat wrote:I think one thing not addressed so far is the topic of volume.
What kind of volume of models do you plan on painting?
Unless you are getting in to painting as your primary hobby, then the cost of the gun and all the additional equipment to use it properly, are fairly steep for someone just dabbling.

you can get a basic airbrush and compressor for about $90 in the us.

http://www.harborfreight.com/1-5-hp-58-psi-compressor-and-airbrush-kit-95630.html

Thats about what? Two tanks?

Yes, you may want to get a better brush or compressor later, but this alone will do wonders.

Just because you can get a kit for that cheap does not mean it's a quality kit.
Truth be told, a bad air brush kit is actually worse than no kit at all.
There can be a huge amount of configuring and troubleshooting of airbrushes that can make a cheap one almost impossible to use.
Even at $90 I would consider it a serious investment.

Airbrushes are great, handy, non essential tools as far as mini painting is concerned.
I love mine to bits, but could do without it.

They are quite paint efficient, you can get quite far with a mere 1ml of paint, Quick example I can basecoat 40 Skaven clanrats with a ml of GW calthan brown and a couple of ml of liquitex airbrush medium.
Its very quick, brushing a basecoat might take you a few minutes per figure with a brush to ensure even, flat thin coverage. With an airbrush this is down to about 5 seconds of spraying.
You can get more sparkly mettallic effects with spray too - like how cars can look a bit sparkly - thats because its sprayed more than it being better paint.
Some patterns like realistic cammo become quite easy, genuine vehicle cammo is airbrushed anyway.
Can be used to prime, basecoat and topcoat mini's but detailing proabably not so much (because of scale mostly) you will still be using brushes a lot.
Airbrushing is expensive, can be finicky if you wont look after it verywell and are useful for allsorts other than just painting mini's, I actually got mine for painting canvases and fine arts before getting back into modeling.

That video was pretty amazing....

As for volume - Right now, as a starter army, I am doing necrons. I am looking into doing a second army completely counter to it - and since the models are ossim, I am going with nids (that and nids are just fun as heck). Beyond that - I have no plans, I may pick up my other two armies (Orks and Dark Eldar) but that would be a long way off. In addition, I am pretty much trying to get my two playing armies up to the point where I can fun any model that I would run in any combinations (For instance, 2 overlords with barges and three barges otherwise - so I will need 5) - basically like that. Now I am not planning on needing all these models in say....6 months - but just where I am heading...

Thank you all for the insight.

Now, as for finding a good airbrush - which ones do you guys use? What sort of aspects do you look for?

There is a learning curve with the airbrush as far as mixing paints, figuring out how close to get to the subject to spray, how much air to flow. I got my air brush about 7 months ago and I am just getting the right mix for my paints, and I still can't figure out how to get hair lines despite ALL the research I do. If you have someone close to you that can teach you then grab it up...if your like me and on your own...expect a learning curve. Once you get it figured out expect great things! H&S infinity 2 in 1 is what I have and it's a really good one....well I'd say middle ground. Do some research on gravity fed cups vs the kind the sucks the paint out of a sealed container that sits on the bottom. Also there is 2 kinds of brushes that control air flow. One does air when pushed down and when you pull it back the paint comes out. The other kind air an paint at the same time releases.

I've started looking into airbrushes myself. I'm currently sold on the Badger Patriot 105. The hang up for me is the compressor. I know there are alternatives, like CO2, but the closest place I could rent and refill makes that an unwanted hassle. I also refuse to buy one that I know I would upgrade later, so the expense of "doing it right the first time" is holding me back, for now. I have to agree with the post above about a bad kit being worse than no kit. Harbor Freight is mostly cheap Chinese crap. Save your pennies and get a set up that'll take you through the learning curve and well beyond.

Kal-El wrote:There is a learning curve with the airbrush as far as mixing paints, figuring out how close to get to the subject to spray, how much air to flow. I got my air brush about 7 months ago and I am just getting the right mix for my paints, and I still can't figure out how to get hair lines despite ALL the research I do. If you have someone close to you that can teach you then grab it up...if your like me and on your own...expect a learning curve. Once you get it figured out expect great things! H&S infinity 2 in 1 is what I have and it's a really good one....well I'd say middle ground. Do some research on gravity fed cups vs the kind the sucks the paint out of a sealed container that sits on the bottom. Also there is 2 kinds of brushes that control air flow. One does air when pushed down and when you pull it back the paint comes out. The other kind air an paint at the same time releases.

Your Infinity should be more than capable of pulling ultra fine lines I use a H&S Evolution 0.2mm and it can too. The trick is mostly in the paint viscosity, and the air pressure.
You want the pressure really low, maybe 10-15psi(or lower), a gravity feed brush, and a really fine tip (the 0.15mm out of your 2 in 1 set should suffice).
Then for your paint, its needs to be ultra thin! I use Liquitex Acylic Inks for this as theyre the thinnest acrylics I can find before getting into strong paint thinners territory. A mix of Liquitex Carbon Black and Liquitex Airbrush medium 1:1 with 5% water maybe if its not spraying well. It really depends on your paint, if you add too much water, then it wont dry fast enough and it will be pushed around by the air pressure (spidering) - it really helps to find a paint the is especially thin with still a strong colour, Inks are perfect for this

As for an airbrush, I really like H&S for the extra simple parts break down. I've got a Badger 150, and to be honest, the thing is garbage and has put me off looking at any of their other brushes! It sprays okay but is so much more fiddly and finicky than my H&S Evolution, I even used a cheap no brand syphon feed in replacement of the badger one hehe. Some people do seem to get on with them though so they cant be all bad, might just be the cheaper ranger one I had.
I've never had chance to use one but iwata do seem to hold the reputation of being the best. Other than that I can only reccomend H&S - theyre beutiful realy, even the cheaper ones are quite good looking

Another note; If you take the above advice and get a quality brush straight up - expect to break it, especially the needle and nozzle. several times! itle happen on the cheap ones too, but the cheap ones are a more pocket friendly way to learn how to look after ones airbrush. If you're good at taking propper care of ones things and will put the effort in to clean it up and rebuild it all properly without being lazy then the quality brush will last a long time. I've broken maybe 5 needles in 2 years of airbrushing, but only one in the last year since I got the H&S brush.
One with solvent resitant seals and o-rings would be a pluss as its goinig to survive harsher celaning products. I've got the H&S silverline evolution. They have another range now with even higher claims of solvant resistance, they might be worth looking at

I would go through and address your questions...but typing out all those hundreds of letters will take too much time...lol

Yea I know my brush can do the fine lines. I think I'm still trying to find that magic thinness at the low pressure.