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Hey guys,

I am looking to start a Stygies VIII Admech List. Would investing in an Air Brush be worth my while, I have never used one and only ever pained by hand.

But there is a lot of silver and black in a Stygies themed Admech army the air brush is starting to look good.

But then there are more questions, compressors?, feed systems? (Gravity or not) and the likes of which I have no reference for modelling.

Any help would be appreciated.

It might seem like a big investment, but getting an airbrush can save you bags of time, especially with vehicles or lots of infantry since you can get at least two initial colours down before returning to the brush in no time at all.

Problem is there are so many options out there like Badger, personally we got a cheap one and a small £60 compressor (Though we upgraded to a 120PSI compressor just because we had one lying around after upgrading our equipment) and that worked just fine for us.

If you're going to actually starting painting fully with just an airbrush, then you're probably going to need to get a more expensive brush.

Getting an airbrush is a huge plus. Due to the size of the things we want to paint and the type of paint we want to primarily use (acrylics) the best choice is a dual-action, gravitiy feed airbrush. I like a 5ml cup on mine, but that's not for paint, it's for my finger while cleaning.

More important than the cup size is the needle/nozzle size. People are tempted to go for tiny sizes, such as 0.15 or 0.2mm. However, with acrylic paint pigment size, these are very prone to clogging. The recommendation I read in artwork airbrush books was acrylics 0.3mm minimum. Which explains why I tend to mostly use a 0.4mm needle/nozzle set. That is fine for Vallejo primer and true-mettalic paints (bigger pigments). If I have something rough, like a rescued metallic paint, I'll go to 0.6, but that is extreme.

You have the choice between cheap and branded. Buddies who decided to go cheap often bought branded afterwards. Not necessarily due to bad results using the cheap ebay airbrush, but due to things breaking while taking them apart for cleaning. I love that my H&S airbrush can be taken apart in moments without tools, but I'm certain other brands feature the same comfort and quality.

You can use basically any air pressure source, but ideally you'll have a compressor with more pressure than you want to spray at, with a tank and a bit of hose between it and your airbrush to take the wobble out. A moisture trap and pressure regulator (usually one unit) is essential to avoid your airbrush sneezing a blob of water onto your model as a nasty surprise and to ensure your working speed is right for what you are trying to do.

I started with a 0.35mm dual action gravity feed and I get occasional clogging. I later bought a 0.5mm dual action siphon feed for jobs with more paint (less clogging, but less control as well). With a siphon feed you'll need multiple bottles for cleaning the brush and switching colors, it's a bit more prep and cleaning than a gravity feed.

Speaking of cleaning, also get a cheap ultrasonic cleaner, as eventually you'll have to do a disassembly cleaning and probably have to soak the nozzle in cleaning solution to get the paint out, the ultrasonic makes this a breeze, and can be used to strip minis of paint as well.

Consider a 'quiet' compressor and make sure it comes with a regulator so you can adjust the pressure of the spray. You also need a moisture trap, as expanding air cools and any water in the air condenses and can get into the hose. I have a trap on my brush as well but that's mostly overkill, as I seldom see any trapped moisture in the brush end, just the compressor end.

As to brand, you really can't go wrong with any major brand (Iwata, Paasche, Badger), just keep in mind that if you mix brands that you'll have to get adapters for your hose/brushes. Off brand knock-offs are cheaper but a bit of a crapshoot and if you ever need replacement parts you'll probably be out of luck.

Thanks all,

 Supershandy wrote:
It might seem like a big investment, but getting an airbrush can save you bags of time, especially with vehicles or lots of infantry since you can get at least two initial colours down before returning to the brush in no time at all.

Problem is there are so many options out there like Badger, personally we got a cheap one and a small £60 compressor (Though we upgraded to a 120PSI compressor just because we had one lying around after upgrading our equipment) and that worked just fine for us.

If you're going to actually starting painting fully with just an airbrush, then you're probably going to need to get a more expensive brush.

That is great advice. How much time is a bag? (I'm looking for a rough ballpark for a simple cost benefit).

Cheers,

 Beersarius Drawl wrote:


That is great advice. How much time is a bag? (I'm looking for a rough ballpark for a simple cost benefit).

Okay, here's the deal with airbrushes. If you're doing 5-10 models at a time, an airbrush WON'T save you much time at all, because clearing out between paints and cleaning once you're done is pretty time consuming - not to mention if you have to clean out a clog. Also, sometimes you have to do masking off of areas, which is also time consuming prep work you could ignore if working with a brush.

Airbrushes save you time in two following ways:

1.) Effects that would be extremely tedious by brush can be quick and easy via airbrush - like color transitions or zenithal lighting.
2.) If you're painting large amounts of minis, the amount of time cleaning the brush becomes smaller in proportion, so you save time overall.

For example, over Christmas I painted 1000 points of Eldar in a week's time - about 30 hours of painting. All of the priming, basecoating and color transitions were done with an airbrush. A couple hours at the airbrush booth got me this far:
.

Another hour or so got the color transitions done to basically this point, though there was some post-cleanup of the grey after I put the airbrush away:

So to put it in perspective, in the 3-4 hours of airbrushing this took me, I maybe could have done just the basecoating and color transitions on just the Wraithlord with a hairy paint brush. I still had about 26 hours of painting ahead of me to finish, none of it involved an airbrush.

And this doesn't cover the learning curve you'll have to deal with as a first time airbrush user, where you have to figure out the right dilution of paints, thinners and flow improvers, the right air pressures...it takes a while. Totally worth it, but at first it'll feel like you're not saving any time.

If you want to read more of my experiences with airbrushing, see my various P&M blogs in my signature. I started with Salamanders https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/716871.page, did some Tau, then Knights of Gryphonne and some Admech and then the Eldar, though I've also done some Tzneetch horrors I haven't blogged about on Dakka (pics in my Flickr page, including some in progress pics).

For doing Admech, I have some general advice. For your Rangers/Vanguard, paint the legs separately so you can get inside the coat, it saves heaps of effort. If you don't mind sub-assemblies, leaving the backpack off for painting will make life easier as well, as painting around those dangly cables is a bit of a pain.

 John Prins wrote:

 Beersarius Drawl wrote:


That is great advice. How much time is a bag? (I'm looking for a rough ballpark for a simple cost benefit).

Okay, here's the deal with airbrushes. If you're doing 5-10 models at a time, an airbrush WON'T save you much time at all, because clearing out between paints and cleaning once you're done is pretty time consuming - not to mention if you have to clean out a clog. Also, sometimes you have to do masking off of areas, which is also time consuming prep work you could ignore if working with a brush.

Airbrushes save you time in two following ways:

1.) Effects that would be extremely tedious by brush can be quick and easy via airbrush - like color transitions or zenithal lighting.
2.) If you're painting large amounts of minis, the amount of time cleaning the brush becomes smaller in proportion, so you save time overall.

For example, over Christmas I painted 1000 points of Eldar in a week's time - about 30 hours of painting. All of the priming, basecoating and color transitions were done with an airbrush. A couple hours at the airbrush booth got me this far:
.

Another hour or so got the color transitions done to basically this point, though there was some post-cleanup of the grey after I put the airbrush away:

So to put it in perspective, in the 3-4 hours of airbrushing this took me, I maybe could have done just the basecoating and color transitions on just the Wraithlord with a hairy paint brush. I still had about 26 hours of painting ahead of me to finish, none of it involved an airbrush.

And this doesn't cover the learning curve you'll have to deal with as a first time airbrush user, where you have to figure out the right dilution of paints, thinners and flow improvers, the right air pressures...it takes a while. Totally worth it, but at first it'll feel like you're not saving any time.

If you want to read more of my experiences with airbrushing, see my various P&M blogs in my signature. I started with Salamanders https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/716871.page, did some Tau, then Knights of Gryphonne and some Admech and then the Eldar, though I've also done some Tzneetch horrors I haven't blogged about on Dakka (pics in my Flickr page, including some in progress pics).

For doing Admech, I have some general advice. For your Rangers/Vanguard, paint the legs separately so you can get inside the coat, it saves heaps of effort. If you don't mind sub-assemblies, leaving the backpack off for painting will make life easier as well, as painting around those dangly cables is a bit of a pain.

Thanks man, This is awesome.

I checked out your Eldar bolg impressive if that was done in only 30 hrs. I plan to have a scroll through your salamanders one as well.

I think I will invest in an air brush, as after my Stygies list, I'm looking at Salamanders or Guard (Steel Legion) for my second army (If Imperium) & World Eaters or Death Guard (If bad guys)

So I think for my planned list and any second list I choose the air brush will come in handy.

thanks again.

Seconded, airbrush isn't really a time saving tool, unless you're doing lots of vehicles, and even then, it's not that much time. It's more a tool for effects, and should be viewed as such.