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It’s not what you think!


We have a baby due in 8 weeks and the room currently work and paint in is to become the nursery. So I’m now going to have to be a lot tidier with my paint and minis etc. However my main concern is airbrushing.

The house isn’t very big and anywhere I airbrush will be a communal area. I wear a mask when airbrushing. Is I understand your realising atomised particles not dealing for healthy living.

So if I airbrush in another part of the house am I endangering my babies health and should I knock it on the head until we get the extension or a big shed

This paper suggests dust is bad for babies

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19484587/

I am not a medical expert.

A generally good rule of thumb is that breathing anything but air is a bad thing*. doubly so for little lungs.

I recommend going down the shed or outdoors on good days route, or sorting your self out a non-communal well extracted spot with a painting booth. But outside is definitely the safest bet.


*based on a lifelong study involving attempting to breathe things including, but not limited to; tea, orange juice, cider, water, cereal, sawdust, paint fumes, biscuits, bugs.

CONGRATS on your new little one to be Dad.

Sadly your hobby life will diminish if you want a happy home. Your free time for the next 12 months will be null. Trust me on this you will have to bee 100% Daddy and rise to the occasion.

Airbrushing will have to go away 100%. I would flip your hobby area and go 100% nursery and go 100% full Daddy mode for at least 6-18 months. Sacrifice your hobby for your new family. Double-down, go full tilt and deck out that nursery with all sort of crazy things Mommies find on Pinterest.

If you can compromise maybe you can get a little art bin and carry some paints to the local hobby shop to get away from the home every now and then. You life is going to change and you have to roll with it.

Mommy and and baby will love you for it.

I don’t have a local hobby shop :(

This confirms my worst fears. Although I am aware my free time is going the way of the dinosaur I am hoping to find the odd moment of bliss when I can get my paints out.

As I suspected the airbrush inside isn’t a good idea. And I may have to give it up however can I ask:

How good the airbrush work outside? I’m assuming it’s wind dependent.

Has anyone bought a shed specially for their painting hobby and therefor do you have recommendations?

In the summer I think any shed with good lighting should do but in the winter it feels like it would be too cold

I airbrush in my outdoor porch all the time. You could even do it on a back door provided it's sheltered somewhat, although I'd avoid that in winter due to the cold weather.

Welcome to fatherhood! Prepare for a rollercoaster ride of emotions for the rest of your life!

You definitely don't need to give up all of your hobby time. I have 2 kids, one of whom is 3 months old. I've managed to keep my evening hobby time that I had from our previous routine with my 3 year old daughter. Once she goes to bed. Baby sits with mum and has a feed or sleeps. I get an hour and a half or so to paint before we watch a show for an hour or something. Spending family time is hugely important obviously, but It is possible to get a balance that allows you to have your own time, which is also important

Do you know that you can get small spray booths on Ebay? They also come with an extractor fan and pipe that you can put out a window. As for spray paint acrylic is probably the safest, anything that is solvent based would be bad; it's all about the particles.

Slipstream wrote:
Do you know that you can get small spray booths on Ebay? They also come with an extractor fan and pipe that you can put out a window. As for spray paint acrylic is probably the safest, anything that is solvent based would be bad; it's all about the particles.

Acrylic just refers to the pigment. Whether water based or solvent based if you spray paint you end up with particulates in the air and environment, I.e. dust. Solvent based just adds the extra fun of a toxic vapour to the dust hazard.

I realised only very late in my kids early years that all the time required to spend nearby waiting for them to go to sleep could be converted into painting time with a little mobile tray.



While airbrushing may be out, there is definitely space in new dad life for hobby. You just need to decide carefully how to spend that time.

I'm going to back Flinty on this. No one can really be ready for how a newborn is going to impact one's life. But I completed the majority of the army that won me Best Painted at the 2008 Baltimore GT with a new baby in the house.

It can be done if you schedule your work in small chunks, stick to that schedule, and figure out how to set up your painting stuff quickly. Getting creative as Flinty did helps also.

I've not used an airbrush, so I lack much advice to give.

I will say, though, good luck! Kids are important, so hopefully you're able to be a good parent and the child will bring you much happiness!

Thanks everyone for the well wishes.

I think I’ll just play it safe an but a shed to do my airbrushing in. It’s mostly just priming and basing

I would consider a fume hood.

Realistically, you're likely not going to have serious time, for a long time for any heavy work, so the idea of a dedicated building seems excessive vs. the investment in some cheap tech.

If you're only priming and basing, then get a rattlecan for priming and base using hairy brushes.

Congratulations!

My boys are now 11 and 9. No one is ready to be a parent. Yet uncountable generations have come and gone, and humans are still here, so we all seem to adapt pretty quickly.

If I could make one suggestion, it would be to focus on learning to be a good father and spouse. That doesn’t mean giving up all your “you” time, but your kid/s will only be small for a short time, and learning how to be an involved parent pays tremendous dividends in your future.

In my experience, you’re going to be very involved with child rearing until your youngest turns 4. At around that time, I felt like my life was getting back to normal. (So for me, 6 years as my youngest was born 2 years after the oldest.)

And because you don’t have kids yet, you don’t realize how hilariously meaningless your concerns about airbrushing are about to become. And someday you will look back at this and remember how you used to think this or that was important. Or that you used to be “tired” sometimes. That one in particular will seem *really* funny to you when you basically haven’t slept for 6 months because your baby needs to eat every 3 hours, and you never get to sleep for more than 2.5 hours in a row. (It was worth every agonizing, sleep deprived, zombifying moment!)

You’re going to do ok. But if you look back at this thread a year from now, you’ll laugh your ass off that you were worrying about it.

I have lost my hobby room twice and I am now in the garage, it’s lit up nicely but I need to insulate it to get it warmer. My advice if you go and purchase a small shed is to get it wired with some power if you can, then get the foam insulation board on the walls of the shed as it can be Baltic outside trying to hobby outside in the wilds of the garden, with power you can obviously have lights, airbrush power but most importantly a little heater on the go. If you do get that rare opportunity to do some hobby stuff grab it while you can, just gives you an little me time as you will be knackered trying to support the wife, baby wise ,don’t freak out you will be doing things well even if you both don’t think you are (trust me unless your a complete imbecile you naturally can look after the little one). you will be tired as that little bundle of joy will be up at some very interesting hours, batch cook a foook load of meals to get through the first two weeks of the baby being here and whack it in the freezer. First two weeks limit how many people want to tip up and see the new arrival as you will be too banjaxed to function normally and you need some time to adjust. Oh Day 2/3 your partner will have a massive hormone dump and will be a emotional wreck and won’t know why she is crying, it’s a natural thing that happens post birth so definitely don’t have anyone visit outside of her mum/best friend, as she won’t appreciate great aunt Sally’s, cousins, hairdresser coming over to visit when she is on that state .

Thansk for the parenting tips guys, I’m preparing my self to experience the unpredictable.

We’ve opted to take shared parental leave so we will both be off work for the first three months which most of our friends with kids think will make a big difference. Sure I’m still not expecting to get loads of painting done in that time and to be honest even at my current rate I have about a years worth of painting to do.

I’m not thinking of getting a shed just for airbrushing, I also need somewhere to put the lawn mower etc.

I think from a health and safety point of view that’s the best idea. I know I could cope without an airbrush but I only got one about 3 months ago and it’s changed my life frankly. I’m thinking of getting as much assembly done and basing everything now (hopefully my indomitus box comes before the baby) so at least I can just go down the brush route. I think it will be a good excuse to buy more contrast paints for quicker basing.

For this of you with kiddies at what age did you let them have a go at painting their first mini? And how do you stop them turning your prize army into their toys?

For both of our children, it was around 2-2.5 years old.

It was a few Reaper minis, so I didn't care about them (no offense, Reaper guys!) and didn't have to undercoat them.

They got let loose with some Vallejo paints and some shockingly bad brushes. 6 months of the odd bit of painting and they've grasped the need to shake the bottles first and to rinse the brush between colour changes!

Slipstream wrote:
Do you know that you can get small spray booths on Ebay? They also come with an extractor fan and pipe that you can put out a window. As for spray paint acrylic is probably the safest, anything that is solvent based would be bad; it's all about the particles.

In my experience those ebay painting bays don't get the air out of the room fast enough. I installed a more powerful fan in one and it's only just good enough, but if I'm blowing out a window and the wind decides to blow on that window, the fan loses the battle and can't extract any more.

There are powerful extractor fans that you can get from hardware stores, but they're quite noisy.

 Flinty wrote:
While airbrushing may be out, there is definitely space in new dad life for hobby. You just need to decide carefully how to spend that time.

Agreed, I don't know anything about airbrushing (yet), but I can safely say that while diminished, I've had plenty of hobby time the last 13 months since my son has been born. If you get a baby with a solid sleeping rhythm you can plan your day around that and make sure you get some hobby time in while your little one is sleeping. Babies should sleep a lot (that of course is very baby depending), so painting for 1-2 hours a day isn't impossible.

Congratulations, good luck and enjoy! The first couple of weeks are the toughest. Things get better in due time .

No, I'd strongly advise against airbrushing your baby. If you're not happy with its natural color at birth, keep in mind that it will change throughout its growth.

But I do believe congratulations are in order.