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Hi everyone. I have a few hours to play around with my new airbrush finally and I need some quick help. I have mostly Citadel Paints but I also have some Vallejo and Vallejo Game Air Paints. However the colors Im needing to paint right now are only in my Citadel paints. I need to thin them but Im not sure whats best to use. People say to use Windex while others say not to and just use water. Ill lay out what I have to use for you. I have some Citadel Lahmian Medium (Not a lot but enough to do this with), Vallejo Thinner Medium, Liquitex Matte Fluid Medium and of course tap water. Which of these will get me the best results? Thanks in advance.

I use Vallejo Thinner Medium to 100% Works like a charm,
Get some dirtcheap plastic dropper bottles from Ebay and dunk the Citadel paints in them with the stuff and voilá you have citadel airbrush paints ready to drop down in the airbrush with no messyness involved!

*If you feel cheap mix the Vallejo Thinner Medium with tap water, But as alwase being cheap is.. cheap? And will dull the quality

Water is fine though some paints will have issues regardless of what ya thin it with. If you intend to premix in pot then use distilled water just encase of hard water reacting. Not sure if it will really effect it but just a precaution

Avoid Windex and Tap water.

If you use the wrong type of windex you will damage your airbrush. Some variants of windex have ammonia in them which in turn will damage the chrome of your airbrush. Just,,,don't

Tap water can leave minerals that build up over time. Use distilled water for best result. You can get a jug at the local pharmacy for like $2-4.

Vallejo thinner works great. If you ever make alot of use out of your airbrush and need something cheaper that lasts longer you can make your own thinning solution.

Take an old bottle of rubbing alcohol for the mix.
2/3 Matte Medium
1/3 Distilled Water
A cap-full of Flow-Aid
A cap-full of Slow-Dry

Transfer some of the mix into a small dropper bottle and use that for all yor thinning needs.

This comes up a lot, and many people have a lot of ....strong opinions - so if you do a search (airbrush paint, thinning paint, etc.) you will get a lot of accumulated wisdom on the topic.

Now, for my ...experience....use a real thinning medium - either an actual airbrush medium (worth EVERY Penny) or one of the various "airbrush thinner".

Just water itself does not actually "thin" the paint past a certain point - it has to do with chemical bonds and the surface tension of the water molecules - instead you get paint dispursed in a watery soup - that comes out splotchy - again, a tiny bit of water works - but beyond that you just don't get good results.

Also, some swear windex is fine (I used to use it), but many swear smoking has not killed them yet....just avoid it.

Depending on the paint, I find alcohol (91%) is a decent thinner, but a few paints dont react to it well.

Of course, you could also make your own - the recipe posted above by Morki is spot on - basically making your own airbrush medium...

best of luck!

This question was posed to the Badger Airbrush boss....you can check it out on youtube. Anyway, in short, he said just use water and avoid alcohol.

The man advantage to airbrush medium or thinner to water is that the paint dries slower. This is an issue if you stop for a few minutes, and the paint dries in the airbrush. If it's in the tip, you may have to empty the reservoir and scale the tip (scrape off dried paint), which is incredibly annoying.

Another benefit may be that if you over thin your paint with water, it can dry unevenly or with rings, particularly if you spray on too much. Airbrush medium has more body (thickness) which may or may not be desirable. At the end of the day, nothing beats airbrush thinner, in my opinion, and it's really cheap to boot.

 Talys wrote:
The man advantage to airbrush medium or thinner to water is that the paint dries slower. This is an issue if you stop for a few minutes, and the paint dries in the airbrush. If it's in the tip, you may have to empty the reservoir and scale the tip (scrape off dried paint), which is incredibly annoying.

Another benefit may be that if you over thin your paint with water, it can dry unevenly or with rings, particularly if you spray on too much. Airbrush medium has more body (thickness) which may or may not be desirable. At the end of the day, nothing beats airbrush thinner, in my opinion, and it's really cheap to boot.

I would have said the main advantage is lower surface tension which leads to better self levelling properties and I believe better atomisation.

But all of it helps widen the window for success when airbrushing. You have a certain window of pressure that will produce good results, a window of spray distance, a window of paint viscosity. Sometimes those windows become so small that it's impossible. Using a good thinner just helps make life a bit easier.

I bought some Liquitex matte fluid medium (It has Basics instead of Professional. It was cheaper and Im broke so I got it instead. They didnt have any airbrush thinner) and I used the recipe for making it into airbrush thinner. Havent tried using it yet but I plan on it either this evening or tomorrow. Here is a picture of what I bought. If this is the wrong stuff let me know ASAP so I dont mess something up. LOL. I hope I didnt waste half of it making airbrush thinner if its the wrong thing.