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Hi there!

I've got quite a lot of experience painting wargaming miniatures with a brush, but I'm really new to airbrushing. I recently bought a Badger Patriot, a Badger Compressor and some airbrush paint.

The other day I painted a few Space Marines by washing the miniature with soap, priming it with Vallejo's Polyurethane Primer and after letting the primer dry for 24 hours I gave the model a base color of Badger Minitaire Charred Stone followed by a highlight of Badger Minitaire Badger Fur. I thinned the paint with Vallejo's Airbrush Thinner (my store doesn't have Badger Thinner).

I noticed that I could easily rub off the paint with my thumb. The primer would stay on, but the minitaire paint could easily be removed. I let one of the Space Marines sit on my desk for 36 hours, but that didn't help. Paint still comes off when I rub the miniature with my fingers. I should add that, since I live in Sweden, the room where I'm painting is quite cold, around 65 degrees F/18 derees C.

What could be the issue here? Should I simply accept that airbrush paint is less durable than brushed-on paint and make a habit of varnishing my models after painting, or am I doing something wrong?

Airbrush coats are very, very thin, so they do tend to be less durable, but quite often this is because you're spraying from too far - is the paint going on dry / powdery?

And yes, you should varnish after painting as a matter of course.

I use minitaire paints all the time and have never hade that problem but maybe you should try them without thinning them they are good to go out the bottle.

Airbrush paints will rub off if not protected by varnish, but it shouldn't come off quite so easily as you make it sound. It should only come off under normal wear and tear, not at the slightest touch.

So, yeah, definitely use varnish, but something might be up with your paint or the way you're prepping it.

Is Vallejo Airbrush Thinner appropriate to use with Badger paints? Not all acrylics (and thus acrylic thinners) are created equal. I've never used Badger paints but just thought I'd mention that.

When airbrushing you typically apply thinner coats than you do with hairy brush painting, so it's normal for the paint to be more delicate. The best practice is to avoid touching them as much as possible and finish off with a decent coat of varnish. You can use varnish at intermediate steps as well, but the more layers of varnish you put on the more likely you are to start clogging detail which may or may not be a problem for you.

I've actually moved away from acrylics when painting model aircraft because there's often no way to avoid handling the model while painting it and enamels are much tougher, but I wouldn't really recommend it for regular miniature painting, normally it's sufficient to attach the model to a cork or an old paint tin so you don't have to touch it.

You could also try different acrylic paints, I have no idea how tough badger paints are because I don't use them, but I've found Vallejo paints to be very weak compared to Humbrol acrylic paints and Tamiya acrylic paints (though Tamiya is alcohol based acrylic, so not quite the same animal). The Humbrol colour range is more focus on military vehicles though and I hate the Humbrol and Tamiya pots more than I even hate the GW pots

It should not rub off like that after a day, no. What happens if you spray the paint without the thinners?
Work from one end of the issue to another, if the paint without thinner rubs away, you need to shake your paint a LOT more.
If it rubs away only after the addition of the thinner, you need to work on your ratio.

 DarkLink wrote:
Airbrush paints will rub off if not protected by varnish

No, they really won't. Acrylic paints on a properly prepared surface won't just rub off with your thumb, especially after it has cured.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply!

I think I found the culprit:
As an experiment I primed another marine and sprayed it with a Vallejo paint instead of a Badger paint. After letting it dry for a couple of hours I took one model painted with Badger paint and one painted with Vallejo paint and rubbed them with my thumb. The Badger mini had a rubbery feel to it and the paint came off quite easily while the Vallejo mini had a harder, smoother surface with much less friction and higher durability.

So I guess I'll stick with Vallejo in the future.

It's weird, in the last two days I've had two peole report issues with badger minitaire paints, but I have the full set, and love them ,they work very well for me... I guess either I'm lucky, or maybe there's a bad batch going around...

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Airbrush paints will rub off if not protected by varnish

No, they really won't. Acrylic paints on a properly prepared surface won't just rub off with your thumb, especially after it has cured.

If you'd actually read my post, you'll notice that I said that the paint shouldn't rub off that easily. Airbrush paint can be rubbed off or scratched under normal wear and tear, I've seen it several times before, but, again, if you can rub it off with your thumb like the op said, there's something wrong with the paint.

 DarkLink wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Airbrush paints will rub off if not protected by varnish

No, they really won't. Acrylic paints on a properly prepared surface won't just rub off with your thumb, especially after it has cured.

If you'd actually read my post, you'll notice that I said that the paint shouldn't rub off that easily. Airbrush paint can be rubbed off or scratched under normal wear and tear, I've seen it several times before, but, again, if you can rub it off with your thumb like the op said, there's something wrong with the paint.

I did read your post and it's still incorrect, so your rudeness is not warranted. Airbrushed paint, that has been applied to a properly prepared surface, will not be rubbed off without varnish. Cured acrylic paint is pretty resilient even without primer.

Like I've said in other threads, varnish is not a necessity. It has become one of those things that is said so often that everyone just accepts it as true.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Like I've said in other threads, varnish is not a necessity. It has become one of those things that is said so often that everyone just accepts it as true.

Maybe not necessary, but it can definitely be helpful, especially on models that you can't mount in a way to avoid touching while painting and/or when you don't want to wait 3 days for the paint to cure.

Well, I tried brushing on some varnish with a paintbrush, but the friction from the brush removed the Badger paint. Did, of course, not happen with the Vallejo paint

Baneslayer wrote:
Well, I tried brushing on some varnish with a paintbrush, but the friction from the brush removed the Badger paint. Did, of course, not happen with the Vallejo paint

Wowser! That's not good. What varnish was it and how long between painting the paint and trying to paint the varnish?

That definitely doesn't sound right though. Some varnishes do have a tendency to strip paint that hasn't fully cured yet, but still that's a surprising outcome. I'd say airbrush the varnish rather than using a regular brush, but your underlying paint should not be so weak that you can't use a regular hairy brush.

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with Badger so I can't really comment. Some paints are definitely tougher than others, there's quite a marked difference when comparing Humbrol acrylic paint (the toughest I've tried) to VMC (middle of the road) and VMA (the weakest I've tried).

I do still question whether Vallejo Airbrush Thinner is appropriate for Badger, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has experience with using the Vallejo thinner vs the Badger thinner with Badger paints.

EDIT: And also the simple thing, are you shaking your paints good and proper? I know some paints won't cure if they aren't properly mixed.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Like I've said in other threads, varnish is not a necessity. It has become one of those things that is said so often that everyone just accepts it as true.

Maybe not necessary, but it can definitely be helpful, especially on models that you can't mount in a way to avoid touching while painting and/or when you don't want to wait 3 days for the paint to cure.

Varnishing over paint that hasn't cured won't protect it. Most acrylic paints are fully dry within twenty-four hours.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Baneslayer wrote:
Well, I tried brushing on some varnish with a paintbrush, but the friction from the brush removed the Badger paint. Did, of course, not happen with the Vallejo paint

Wowser! That's not good. What varnish was it and how long between painting the paint and trying to paint the varnish?

That definitely doesn't sound right though. Some varnishes do have a tendency to strip paint that hasn't fully cured yet, but still that's a surprising outcome. I'd say airbrush the varnish rather than using a regular brush, but your underlying paint should not be so weak that you can't use a regular hairy brush.

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with Badger so I can't really comment. Some paints are definitely tougher than others, there's quite a marked difference when comparing Humbrol acrylic paint (the toughest I've tried) to VMC (middle of the road) and VMA (the weakest I've tried).

I do still question whether Vallejo Airbrush Thinner is appropriate for Badger, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has experience with using the Vallejo thinner vs the Badger thinner with Badger paints.

EDIT: And also the simple thing, are you shaking your paints good and proper? I know some paints won't cure if they aren't properly mixed.

I used Vallejo Matt Varnish. I applied it about two hours after airbrushing. I did shake the Vallejo paint really vigourosly with an agitator dropped into the bottle. The Badger paint was shaken, but maybe not enough. That may be something I should try out ...

Another difference in the method was that the Badger paint was applied over Vallejo Black primer and the Vallejo paint was applied over Vallejo Grey primer. So maybe the primers have different properties? But the black primer shouldn't be _that_ bad!

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Like I've said in other threads, varnish is not a necessity. It has become one of those things that is said so often that everyone just accepts it as true.

Maybe not necessary, but it can definitely be helpful, especially on models that you can't mount in a way to avoid touching while painting and/or when you don't want to wait 3 days for the paint to cure.

Varnishing over paint that hasn't cured won't protect it.

It definitely does to some extent. If you spray an acrylic paint and handle it a few hours later I guarantee you'll be more likely to rub the paint off vs if you'd sprayed the acrylic paint then hit it with a varnish immediately. Sometimes when I want to toughen up a coat of paint as soon as I finish spraying it I'll just empty the airbrush, rinse it out and put the varnish straight through. It may not be ideal, but it most definitely helps strengthen things (though at the cost of adding more material so softening details, depends whether you care about that, I don't really care on my table top minis, I do care on my display shelf ones).

Most acrylic paints are fully dry within twenty-four hours.

Nah, acrylic paints slowly get harder over the course of days if not weeks. If the bottle says touch dry in 5 minutes, fully dry in 12 hours, sure as eggs it'll still be slowly getting more resilient over the next couple of days.

I've found with VMA paints specifically if I handle them a day later I'm likely to rub the paint off but if I wait a week or so they're much more resilient. Of course the ideal situation is that you simply mount them in a way you don't have to handle them until after they're finished.

One of the first things I learned when I started using paints and adhesives at work, the drying times they give you are rarely (if ever) to 100% strength, probably more like 70-80%.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Baneslayer wrote:
I used Vallejo Matt Varnish. I applied it about two hours after airbrushing. I did shake the Vallejo paint really vigourosly with an agitator dropped into the bottle. The Badger paint was shaken, but maybe not enough. That may be something I should try out ...

Another difference in the method was that the Badger paint was applied over Vallejo Black primer and the Vallejo paint was applied over Vallejo Grey primer. So maybe the primers have different properties? But the black primer shouldn't be _that_ bad!

Well, 2 hours isn't a lot of time. I don't know whether the Vallejo matte has any decent strength solvent in it, but if it does then it doesn't surprise me if it strips it after only 2 hours letting it cure.

Different primers can definitely have different adhesion properties. Hell, the same primer sprayed on 2 different days can have different adhesion properties (things like spraying distance, pressure and temperature can affect how grainy the primer surface comes out). But I normally wouldn't expect a huge difference.

An obvious conclusion after all this experimenting is that my technique favours Vallejo's paint. Maybe I'm the one making the Badger paint fraglie, but the result from the Vallejo paint was definitly much better.

Now I just have to find a nice dark gray color from Vallejo's range to use for my Space Wolves

Maybe I'm going a little too basic with this, but how well did you mix/shake the paint before going at it? I've found that you can afford to not shake vallejo sometimes, but other brands seriously suffer if not properly shaken.

*EDIT* I've found this especially true with metallics or lighter colours.

 Zaku212 wrote:
Maybe I'm going a little too basic with this, but how well did you mix/shake the paint before going at it? I've found that you can afford to not shake vallejo sometimes, but other brands seriously suffer if not properly shaken.

*EDIT* I've found this especially true with metallics or lighter colours.

Since I'm a newbie at airbrushing, all advice is welcome no matter how basic!
I have an electric paint stirrer. Maybe I should use it before my next experiment. I wasn't very thorough when shaking the bottles the last time I painted!

Baneslayer wrote:

 Zaku212 wrote:
Maybe I'm going a little too basic with this, but how well did you mix/shake the paint before going at it? I've found that you can afford to not shake vallejo sometimes, but other brands seriously suffer if not properly shaken.

*EDIT* I've found this especially true with metallics or lighter colours.

Since I'm a newbie at airbrushing, all advice is welcome no matter how basic!
I have an electric paint stirrer. Maybe I should use it before my next experiment. I wasn't very thorough when shaking the bottles the last time I painted!

Add an agitator to help it mix properly.

Just make sure its non-reactive (like a glass bead). You don't want to lose a pot of paint because a 'stainless steel' agitator didn't live up to its name.