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I have been painting for a while now and am wanting to take my already decent weathering skills to a new level. I am researching the hair spray/salt method of weathering, it looks really nice. My question is, do I HAVE to have an air brush to accomplish that style of weathering? From the looks of it, it would be hard to brush paint over the salt once it is secured by the hair spray. I have some Army Painter primer that I could paint over it, but the videos and sites have suggested use of acrylic paints only for the top coat. Has any one else found a way around this without having to purchase an air brush? Thanks!

my experiance is you can pick airbrushes up pretty cheap but i wouldnt recommend it. you will need a good airbrush and air supply to do the job properly.
As for the weatering side of things I have done this once with my necron army. http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/425580-.html
that was done using chaos black and skull white spray cans so as an alternative the citadel flame could work wonders or could fail badly as i have never used one before.

That was the hair spray method that you used?

No. You need an airbrush.

yes, that was just spray black, spray hairspray, spray white, then scratch with an old toothbrush

So you can use a can of spray paint (as opposed to a spray gun), but not brushing? Makes sense - presumably the brush contact would destroy the fragile hairspray layer.

Nevertheless, I might experiment with brushing (with a really soft brush) - it just _might_ work for making badly corroded/rusted paintwork.

It has to do with the top coat I think.... The primer seems to dry a little more solid than the regular acrylic paint. I will find and post the video I found on this. The guy uses 4 layers of hairspray. The thing about paintbrushing with the salt is that it might knock the salt off prematurely. But with multiple coats of hairspray maybe it would help hold it on there.

yeah you can just use a normal brushed on coat of paint . just thin it and go over the salt mask nice and easy

as seen here ...http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/396927.page

that was spray undercoated grey hairspray was sprayed in to the lid of the can and painted on where i wanted wear and while it was still wet salt sprinkled on then let it all dry then brush on top coats then once dry use a old toothbrush and some warm water to disolve/scrub away the salt