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Hey all I am new to the hobby and have been watching next level painting and spiky bites. My question is Airbrush flow improver the same thing? I know for acrylic paint you can use water but i have heard for some paint like metallics you do not want to use water.

Honestly id also like to know this. Is thinner and flow aid/improver the same thing

Hi,

Not sure if they're chemically the same product, but in airbrushing both may be used for same purpose - thinning paint, increased paint flow and decreased surface tension.

The usual way of using flow improver is to have it mixed with water.
I've been using Liquitex Flow Aid and the recommended ratio is to use 1 part flow aid to 10 parts of water --> this mix will act as your thinning agent.

With airbrush thinner you can, in most cases, use it straight out of bottle.

- Johannes

Not necessarily. Different jobs, different composition.

Flow improvers work by breaking surface tension, allowing paint to flow and level more easily. That's their job. You can make your own flow improver with a tiny amount of dishwashing soap in water - this is sometimes referred to as 'wet water'.

Airbrush thinner is usually an appropriate medium, sometimes with flow improver (to help paint get atomised - turned into the smallest possible droplets), along with a drying retardant (to make sure those droplets don't dry out in flight) and sometimes with additional binder (the clear stuff that holds paint together) to help prevent pigment getting rubbed off when applied very thinly.

In the context of Vallejo products I think they're very similar but not quite the same. They have the same smell (glycol maybe?) to them but the airbrush thinner seems to be a bit stronger in that it has a bit more bite to it.

dokuganryu wrote:
Hey all I am new to the hobby and have been watching next level painting and spiky bites. My question is Airbrush flow improver the same thing? I know for acrylic paint you can use water but i have heard for some paint like metallics you do not want to use water.

No Vallejo flow improver and thinner are not the same. Flow improver makes the paint dry slower, the thinner does the opposite.

If you like Next Level Painting he literally just did a video about this if you want to check it out.