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I haven't used one.
Are they good?
Where is the best place to get them and/or the paints for them?
Do they make painting easier?
Are they better for large area colour i.e. marines?

Boniface wrote:
I haven't used one.
Are they good?
Where is the best place to get them and/or the paints for them?
Do they make painting easier?
Are they better for large area colour i.e. marines?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z67UOO6xqYo

If you want one you can get them from GW along with paints for them, but I find it better/cheaper to just use a base coat brush. If youre doing hoard painting though or a big model (titan) its very useful

Airbrushes are amazing. You can generally get them from a local hobby store or maybe craft store, but you need to get an compatible compressor to go with it and as such start up costs can be quite expensive albeit I'm not sure about the UK given I'm Australian, though I think it is very much worth it.

 WE Drake Man wrote:
If you want one you can get them from GW

The GWs is not an airbrush its a spraygun and is terriable in my opinion and should be activly avoided.

Reasons is you can't adjust the Psi, the spray cone and it has far less control then a true airbrush while begin far to expensive for what it is.
I use a Paasche airbrush and recommend the brand, I've never had any big troubles running mine. The biggest tip I have for getting an airbrush is do lots of reading before hand on how to uses it, different Psi, paint thining, spray distance and techniques, issues with airbrushing etc as the more you know the less mistakes/problems you'll have. Also ensure you clean it very well after each use or small paint pigments will dry inside the brush clogging it and impairing spray.

I use predominantly Tamiya and Gunze Sangyo/Mr Hobby paint both of which spray excellently if thinned correctly, I've never used GW paint only due to cost reason but I assume it would spray quite well and mean to get around to trying it.

An airbrush makes painting any form of large area insanely quick and will use less paint than using a brush while giving a smooth more uniform appearance, I used mine plus Tamiya masking tape to do the 4 colour scheme on my Russ' which turned out very nice. I also used it to base coat all my Red Scorpions which worked nicely and saved alot of time.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/545366-Leman%20Russ%20Vanquisher%20Front%20On.html?m=2

Passche, Iwata, and Badger are all solid brands. I use an Iwata HP-CS airbrush with a dual piston silent rig. It runs about 400 but it is tankless so I don't worry about running low on pressure at all.

Avoid harbor freight as their gear is garbage chinese refuse found at the bottom of the irradiated pacific ocean. Focus on learning to thin paints using proper thinner, they say water works just as good but I've started using proper thinner and I have zero clogging issues and only use lots of water and proper cleaner to clean my gear now.

Just research and research some more. I would start with TCP Global or find a local place that performs airbrushing and just walk in and see what they use or ask a store rep or even better a painter.

If you really are serious about airbrushing you could jump right in but find an adequate rig first from research and opinion then buy something. If you can live with the wait I would buy something in the US at US prices via paypal and save yourself about 30% of the cost. Then buy it at a discount or a sale! Wish I could do that but the US Dollar is utter trash now compared to the rather solid pound. 1 Dollar = .66 cents once converted.

Yeah, airbrush is awesome. After playing with my little toy soldiers for so many years I only question why I didn't buy one earlier. Probably because of the cost, lol.

Granted, some armies benefit a lot more than others from an airbrush. Orks/Orcs are an army I think are better off painted with a hairy stick. Space Marines on the other hand are night and day painted with an airbrush, you can achieve soooooo much better results in a fraction of the time with an airbrush. Most other armies lie somewhere in between.

I just started using one and I'm struggling to grasp it. I have watched a few videos but I think there is a black spot in my brain where airbrushing info is stored! Every other thread I see on Dakka seems to grasp it rather quickly and churn out A+ minis in no time so you I'd recommend you give it a shot. Search on Youtube for "Buypainted" for some good tutorials.

Boniface wrote:
I haven't used one.
Are they good?
Where is the best place to get them and/or the paints for them?
Do they make painting easier?
Are they better for large area colour i.e. marines?

You need a good compressor to go with that airbrush. Make sure you can afford a good compressor too. That means it has a pressure regulator and a moisture trap.

Edit: If I am correct you are based in UK. From what I gather some stuff is very expensive due to import tarrifs and taxes so certain brands would make more sense.

 Zande4 wrote:
I just started using one and I'm struggling to grasp it. I have watched a few videos but I think there is a black spot in my brain where airbrushing info is stored! Every other thread I see on Dakka seems to grasp it rather quickly and churn out A+ minis in no time so you I'd recommend you give it a shot. Search on Youtube for "Buypainted" for some good tutorials.
.

What sort of problems are you having?

It took me maybe a dozen models to learn how to aim it. First few I kept hitting the wrong spots of the model. I still sometimes overspray where I don't mean to though. Certainly not pumping out awesome models as of yet, but it's definitely lifted the quality of my models compared to the hairy stick.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Zande4 wrote:
I just started using one and I'm struggling to grasp it. I have watched a few videos but I think there is a black spot in my brain where airbrushing info is stored! Every other thread I see on Dakka seems to grasp it rather quickly and churn out A+ minis in no time so you I'd recommend you give it a shot. Search on Youtube for "Buypainted" for some good tutorials.
.

What sort of problems are you having?

It took me maybe a dozen models to learn how to aim it. First few I kept hitting the wrong spots of the model. I still sometimes overspray where I don't mean to though. Certainly not pumping out awesome models as of yet, but it's definitely lifted the quality of my models compared to the hairy stick.

I just can't get the consistency right. It's always way too wet so it just runs or it's thick and gluggy and looks like sand paper when it dries.

What paints are you using and what thinner?

You CAN airbrush most paints, but it's a heck of a lot easier when you're starting out to use something like Vallejo Model Air, which are much closer to the correct consistency to begin with. Someone told me Minitaire paints are prethinned for airbrushing, though I haven't tried them myself.

If you're trying to do fine detail work, consistency is hard to get right, there's a fine line between too thick to spray and so thin that it runs.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
What paints are you using and what thinner?

You CAN airbrush most paints, but it's a heck of a lot easier when you're starting out to use something like Vallejo Model Air, which are much closer to the correct consistency to begin with. Someone told me Minitaire paints are prethinned for airbrushing, though I haven't tried them myself.

If you're trying to do fine detail work, consistency is hard to get right, there's a fine line between too thick to spray and so thin that it runs.

Kinda feels like I'm hijacking the thread but hopefully OP can use this info too!

I'm using Army Painter paints and water as a thinner. Is that bad?

I just recently picked up 2 airbrush sets (one gravity-fed, one siphon-fed) plus an air compressor for about £70 new on Ebay - not an expensive one, make is AS 186 kit.

It's actually helped my painting quite a bit - certainly basecoating and creating zenthial highlights on the models is a lot easier. (I haven't used it for much as yet - about 5 marines so far and a couple of test models).

Does take some getting used to and learning to thin the paints (though in my case this also helped with getting consistency right on actual brush paints as well) but once you can get to grips with the basics you can start trying additional techniques (just have a look online at tutorials and youtube - loads of resources available).