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Hi all

I've been painting minis for a while now but have recently got an airbrush. Now I'm looking to expand my skills beyond base coating. I'm about to start a new 40k Ork army in the bad moon scheme, but my problem is.....
Do I airbrush the skin or airbrush the yellow armor to achieve subtle highlights and shadows? I could easily do it all with just a brush, but really want to put the airbrush to use, besides just base coating.

Also my second drama is, painting flesh eater courts. I'm trying to achieve the official box art color scheme for the ghouls and crypts. Is it possible to achieve using a zenithal highlight method then wash over the top to get the shadows and to give the green tint? Any other ideas?

Thanks for any advice I can get.

It's all a question of using the right tool for the job!

An airbrush's strengths are smooth application and shading. That doesn't change regardless what you are trying to do, be that priming, painting something a solid colour, applying a clear coat, doing a zenital highlight, applying a very thin coat of semi-transparent paint over a model with highlights (more like a glaze)... In each case you use the brush to apply a variable amount of stuff to the area in front of it. You can mask with liquid mask or masking tape or with the model itself (zenital highlight with shadows cast by the raised bits of the model).

A brush is better at getting paint exactly where you want it, without spilling over to adjecent areas, without the need for masking.

My usual process is to prime with the airbrush. Then I consider what my best strategy is for the individual model. Usually that will be easy - what is the majority of the model going to be painted like, e.g. power armour, vehicle chassis, skin for organic models. There are moments when you want to refrain from adding parts of the assembly before painting the base colour since you want them to be a different colour, (e.g. jetbike hoods, fenders, weapons, heads, backpacks..) so you can save yourself a lot of work by deciding paint something separately and by avoiding something that can only be masked by someone with inhuman patience or done with a brush ;-]

Once you are done with the airbrush, it's over to the regular brush, applying trim, details and all that. The airbrush may return later to apply a gloss or matt coat.

Thanks for your help. Very informative

An airbrush mostly shines when blending colors. I find blends are more important and more difficult to achieve on flat surfaces with a standard brush (because it's much harder to use washes or drybrushing). On the contrary, very rough surfaces are pretty hard to shade/highlight with an airbrush.

So for bad moon orks I would probably prime white, then airbrush all the yellow parts (from a light brown/yellow mix to a yellow/white mix) to get a decent blend. Then use a normal brush for the skin.

Cheers fresus, sounds like a plan

This is all depending on the model, but on ork boys. I would to shade the skin first, then you could base coat the armour with a brush, then highlight it with the airbrush.

Ive always painted my models in the order you would get dressed ( a method used and preached by Adam Savage) where you first paint the skin, then the clothing/armour then the details ect. worth giving a go

Hi,

Depending on how much yellow you've got to airbrush, I suggest to go from light --> dark colorwise. If you want your yellow to really "pop" - I cannot emphasize enough the importance of white primer.

Yellows tend to be very transparent and are the more trickier paints to airbrush, it might be easier to paint skin and details "around" yellow areas. Seal the yellow with varnish as soon as you're happy with it.

Here's couple of examples from my Imperial Fists:
white primer --> Vallejo Game Air Gold Yellow --> post-shading with very thin Vallejo Model Air Burnt Umber --> black oil pin wash --> (chipping/weathering) --> edge highlights with bone/sand color --> trims/details etc. when everything else is painted.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPDbde7D7mx/?taken-by=therealjosku
https://www.instagram.com/p/BNoJG0xjvkW/?taken-by=therealjosku

- Johannes

Awesome!!!! thanks everyone for replys, it's really helpful. Should've joined here earlier

For what it's worth, it's absolutely possible to get good yellows over black primer with an airbrush. What I do is base with GW Skrag Brown over the black, and then go to P3 Heartfire from there. It's a nice warmer yellow, IMO way better than the bright lemon yellow that GW used for their most recent Bad Moonz scheme. After the Heartfire, you can still highlight from there using Yriel Yellow and Flash Gitz yellow.