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I was looking to get some info on thinning paints, specifically for an airbrush. Basically, I don't understand the types of paints and thinners. I've always used the same two paints pretty much - Citadel paints when I do brush work, and Vallejo Model Air when I airbrush. That being said, I want to thin a Citadel paint for use in my airbrush for the first time, and these questions came up.

I've got water, 70% alcohol, and Vallejo's airbrush thinner for acrylics. I don't really understand what acrylics are, though, and I don't know what type of paint the Citadel paints are, nor the Vallejo Model Air paints. I've always thought the GW paints were water-based, so should be thinned with water... right?

Anyway, can anyone give me a breakdown?

GW, PP, Vallejo, Reaper etc are all acrylic paints. It's what we use on models 90% of the time.

For GW and the like I thin with airbrush thinner from Vallejo. It works well. If your paint is extra thick I would add some matte medium in there as well.

The best thing is to practice and see what works for you and how your spray. Just remember the lower your PSI the thinner its needs to be.

Good Luck.

Hey Tangent! I use mostly GW paints thinned with vallejo airbrush thinner, in fact all the screamers were done pretty much exclusively with just that. Always put the thinner into the brush before the paint or you'll get clogging or tip dry if you're mixing in the brush itself. Citadel paints are indeed water based acrylics, you could thin them with water but the airbrush thinner seems to flow better and I get less tip dry with it.

I'm sure someone could go into more specifics but I've yet to encounter any real problems doing it this way.

Vallejo airbrush thinner has been doing a great job of thinning citadels paints for me.

I find its best to mix separate to the brush to avoid lumps in the paint cup. A little disposable shot glass works well.
Just mixing the paint with the thinner drop by drop untill the results look good (looking good has flow properties similar to skimmed milk) Look for youtube videos to see what we mean by the skimmed milk - its about how it runs down the sides of the cup.

Just practise practise practise and it becomes easier to a point where your just plopping the right amounts of things together and mix up up with confidence.

Yo! Ok, so what exactly is an acrylic paint? Am I correct in saying that it's "water-based?"

As a bonus question, does anyone have any tips about getting the paint out of the GW pots so I can put it into something easier to mix from, like a dropper bottle, without just pouring it and likely spilling it all over the place?

I have GW, Vallejo Game Color, Model Color, Model Air, Reaper, Army Painter, and Craft store paint.

Everything thins fine with either just plain water or windex (glass cleaner). I will use the Vallejo thinner when airbrushing metalics and sometimes Vallejo glaze medium.

I think an important factor that is overlooked is the needle size of the airbrush. .35-.4 mm or larger is very forgiving. Anything smaller/finer is very picky about how thin the paint is and may require additional flow improvers to lessen paint build-up on the needle tip.