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I’m new to airbrushing, and am starting to basecoat my models with the airbrush.
I’ve used Vallejo black airbrush primer, and it seems to spray fine. I then tried spraying macragge blue on a few space marines.
No matter what I do it seems to spray unevenly, and too watery.
Vallejo Prussian blue seems to spray fine.
I use a few drops of Vallejo Airbrush Thinner to thin my paints, and 20 psi.

I’m probably missing something obvious, but some help would be appreciated.

Thanks Dakka

Are you thinning the macragge blue?

What line of citadel paints are you using? I've not used their 'air' range, but they should be pre-thinned and ready to airbrush out of the pot; no thinning needed.

Even the Citdel AB paints may be too thick to shoot out of the jar.

Most AB paints are reduced to be shot through a .5mm AB or larger. I run a .30 AB and I find in most cases I need to thin the paint a little more.

20psi should be enough if the paint is thin enough. Not sure how good Citadel AB paint is but most of the "AB" paints I use can be thinned to water and not lose opacity. Some acrylic paints I find the more I thin them the less opaque they become.

Without knowing if you are using Citadel Air or normal Citadel it's hard to steer you right.

I’m using the macragge blue base paint. I am thinning it to the consistency of my airbrush primer with airbrush thinner.
Citadel air paints are pricey and hard to get ahold of.

I’ve been been testing this on walnuts. Quite amusing

Thanks for the replies

Ok so here is the thing.
Airbrush primer is a different beast from Airbrush paints, it works differently.
So thinnging to the consistancy of the primer for paints isnt going to work.
What you want to do is thin it a bit more. and try to not use too much thinner, you want to thing ith flow improver or water more, Airbrush thinner can mess with the chesion of the paint.

 Jetmortar wrote:
Citadel air paints are pricey and hard to get ahold of.

The Citadel Air paint pot is 24ml versus the standard 12ml, so Citadel Air would come out to around $0.39/ml Canadian versus $0.45/ml Canadian for Citadel Base and Layer paints.

If the paint is coming out too watery then it sounds like a problem with over thinning, or possible too much pressure for the distance you're using the AB from.

A consistency check on a piece of plastic card or any other surface before you move to the model is always a good idea, even just to get use to controlling the paint at your current consistency.

When you spray briefly on the plastic if you see spider webbing where droplets are scattering away from the center then you have too high a pressure, or you've over thinned.

What you want is a translucent, smooth coat on the card. If you see speckling, you probably haven't thinned enough.

Every paint is different, and thinning is an inexact science that takes a little while to get use to. I know the general rule of thumb is to thin to the consistency of milk, but it's pretty damn hard to figure out what that is which is why you're always better to test in a flat surface you don't care about, and then judge what you need to do.

Primers are a much more dense pigment too, so will have much better coverage on the model. For paints with less pigment that are intended to be brush painted you'll have to give multiple layers to build up the colour. When you thin to get a good flow through the air brush you're reducing the pigment density by dispersing it with more medium so it will take more coats.

A quick tip on airbrushing too: make sure you get full opacity out of the paint if that's what you want. With a brush it's very easy to see that you haven't reached full opacity because the coat will look uneven until you do. With an airbrush you get very even coats, so you don't see as easily that you haven't achieved full opacity. It can lead to inconsistency in an army where you get varying shades where you want uniformity because they aren't all the same level of opacity. It's a good idea to keep a "control" model that's just been base coated so you always have a reference point.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Jetmortar wrote:
Citadel air paints are pricey and hard to get ahold of.

The Citadel Air paint pot is 24ml versus the standard 12ml, so Citadel Air would come out to around $0.39/ml Canadian versus $0.45/ml Canadian for Citadel Base and Layer paints.

The only thing in paint that's actually expensive is the pigment... The quanitity of paint is of almost no consequence when it comes to cost. Adding more solvent and thinners to a paint increases the quantity sure, but not really the value.