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I’m thinking of getting an airbrush as a time saver for basing and layers across large areas. And for vehicles. I would still want to to do detail etc with a brush. So a daily simple requirement
In that case do I need to spend a lot on an airbrush? And what about the compressor? Will one of the travel sized ones do? Some compressors look like car engines
Go for a starter kit, which will set you up with a brush, compressor and hose. You'll want to buy some cleaner too (either dedicated stuff, or a big bottle of IPA.
EBay Chinese kits cost about £80; a much better quality Harder and Steenbeck kit is about £200. Compressors in both are fairly portable-ish and quiet, but still a bit "industrial". A double-action brush with a gravity-feed cup, nozzle of 0.3, is a good starting point. Go for a compressor with a tank for smoother airflow - that will make your setup bigger unfortunately.
Go for a paint cup on top of the brush body - side cups are fiddly to clean, suction cups waste paint.
The cheap Chinese ones are quite variable in quality. I find that the silver ones clog up easily, where the red or gold ones you see on eBay now feel much nicer and more controllable.
You may want to learn about disassembly and cleaning on a £15 brush rather than a £200 Iwata. I did, and still use Chinese ones, but will step up soon.
Practice. Lots. Watch videos, try things out. Vince Venturella is good, Angel Giraldez has closeups that show you how to work the trigger with fine control.
Clean the damn thing properly during and after every session. Lots of videos out there. Keep a wet sponge or brush handy to wipe drying paint off the needle tip
Airbrushing is not faster, but different. Base coats go on quickly and smoothly; highlights take practice and have a different style from traditional brush painting.
Play around with both masking and stencils, and also freehand.
I think they're worth it even just for trouble-free matt varnishing, never mind all the colour sprays that you suddenly have at your command.
Facemask is a good idea, a spray booth may be useful too.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/03 10:41:16
Honestly hard to say. The brush is a basic one, and you get some decent extras like the moisture trap. I've never used a small compressor like that one though.
It may get you started and persuade you to slowly upgrade, but to start with you just want everything to work.
The negative reviews are not helpful. If you spray for 10 minutes like some of the 1-star reviews say they did, then the tip will be caked in paint.
So small compressors like that has basicly no airtank meaningit keeps on going and going. they are basicly just for female nails.
You need a proper tank that can hold a bit of air for consistent airflow.
I would not invest into anything more expensive then this for just a try.
Painting with AB is like the first time you used a hairbrush, you have no idea what you are doing and the first results will likely be bad.
You will allso need a painting booth, paint dust gets everywhere.
However, you need to understand that these low priced deals are of low quality, you may need to homefix the stuff short time after you get it. (like in the link above, this warning was at the bottom of the page:Kind remind: Please use the seal tape (Teflon tape) enwind on thread of regulator & filter, then install on the compressor (connect into the tank).The seal tape is side the compressor package. Otherwise it may leak air between tank and regulator)
AB in general is an expensive paint tool to use the more you spend the better quality, there is no way around that.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/07/03 16:08:49
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Go for a paint cup on top of the brush body - side cups are fiddly to clean, suction cups waste paint.
Siphon feeds are great for basecoating and priming, not so great for detail. If you use some extra paint bottles to pre-mix and store your excess for later, you can do detail work without wasting too much paint - but let's face it, airbrushes waste a lot more paint than using a brush, simply because any paint that doesn't hit the mini is wasted.
I own and use both siphon and gravity feed brushes to get the best of both worlds. I think it was a worthwhile investment to have both.
Ok guys I get it, if I’m gonna do it wait till I got the cash and get something that I’m not gonna want to replace in 3 months. Just like guitars. I think I’ll set a budget if around 200-250 and get it from a proper shop so I can at least send it back if it’s crap
To be honest, the kit that Frozendwarf linked to would be fine to try out. The compresser is the kind you'll want anyway, and the brush is at least a gravity feed, dual-action one, so it's going to be fundamentally the same as what you will be using if you like it and decide to get a more expensive one. Think of that £85 as being for the compressor and what will become a spare brush. I've got one that looks exactly the same as that (they all look exactly the same but sometimes have different brands, I'm not sure what's going on with that) and I've had it for a couple of years with no problems. Mine came with two cheap brushes - a gravity feed and a syphon feed. I have an Iwata Eclipse, but I still use the cheap Chinese gravity feed one, probably more than the Iwata, for things like priming.
I am of the opinion personally that those kind of sets are perfect for starting out, as you get a compresser that will do you fine as long as you're airbrushing, all the right cables and tubes, and you don't have to spend hundreds on a brush as well. If you like it, get a nice expensive brush later down the line. If you don't, you have something you can use for zenithal priming which, if you don't do it already, will have a huge impact on your painting.
As others have said, at first you won't be able to do it, because it's a very different skill to hairybrush painting and actually really bloody difficult. If you've dropped £250 and are getting frustrated, that's going to be painful. Even worse if you make some kind of beginner error that damages the airbrush and you have to replace a bent needle or something. My first few (dozen) sessions with the airbrush were an exercise in frustration. I spent more time fiddling with paint consistencies, unclogging various orifices (on the airbrush) and wondering why nothing I did went right. Whatever you decide, it's going to be a pain at first, but it's worth sticking with. When it clicks, it's a very worthwhile tool.
I'm just an airbrushing beginner but some of my thoughts on this:
Maybe better to get a 0.5mm nozzle brush than a 0.3mm one. This will make using acrylic paints easier (AFAIK 0.3mm brushes are meant for inks, not acrylic paints) and clogging wont be such a flustercluck.
Also, immediately invest in a big bottle of flow improver. This will greatly reduce the cursed tipdry.
What will come as a surprise to you is just how much time you will be spending cleaning the airbrush. Get used to it early on, its an inevitable annoyance with airbrushing. Most of the tutorial videos never emphasize this enough.
I started with a neo for iwata starter kit which came with a tiny electrc compressor. Its a good kit otherwise, except for the 0.35mm nozzle size the neo iwata brush comes with. You can buy a 0.5mm nozzle/needle replacement for it from certain retailers, but maybe its better to go for a 0.5mm nozzle straight away. I do like the compressor though, its very silent and small (easy to store). I have since upgrade my brush to an iwata revolution 0.5mm
In case you do end up getting an airbrush, this video was a lifesaver for me in my troubleshootings whenever things didnt work. It explains the whole inner workings of an airbrush, among with common troubleshooting.
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2020/07/04 19:36:51
"The larger point though, is that as players, we have more control over what the game looks and feels like than most of us are willing to use in order to solve our own problems"
I started with a neo for iwata starter kit which came with a tiny electrc compressor. Its a good kit otherwise, except for the 0.35mm nozzle size the neo iwata brush comes with. You can buy a 0.5mm nozzle/needle replacement for it from certain retailers, but maybe its better to go for a 0.5mm nozzle straight away. I do like the compressor though, its very silent and small (easy to store). I have since upgrade my brush to an iwata revolution 0.5mm
I have a couple of Neo airbrushes - they were the first ones that I moved onto after the cheap semi-disposable things that you get in kits.
After a while, I decided that it would be useful to convert one to 0.5mm, too. The cost of a new needle, end cap and especially the ludicrously expensive, tiny nozzle wasn't far off the cost of a whole new Neo itself!
Still, 0.5mm is a good idea, I'm assuming that priming and basecoating are the initial skills that you'll want to develop - might as well make it easier.
This is really helpful thank you. It’s good to hear from a beginners perspective and that the smaller compressors work. Space is at a premium for me. And I agree in all the videos I have watched cleaning is barely mentioned, the impression I got was that you could spray up from primer to base and a few layers relatively quickly but if you have to clean it between colours and cleaning ain’t quick then maybe not.
To be honest one of the main things I wanted it for is vehicles is I recent painted a rhino with a paint brush and jeesus it was boring and took ages. Maybe I’ll go back to my idea of having a large stock of colour spray cans
Cleaning aint mentioned becouse it is just something you must do, but yea, you do that more then you paint.
You must clean between all colour changes, if you do not you will get dirty colours, aka new colour mixed with the new. and you never ever use the same AB for metallic paint and non metallics, you basicly will never get all of the metallic flakes cleaned properly away, and you dont want metal flakes in your basic blue, red or skin tone, now do you.
There is however a different type of spraybrush that hit the marked a year ago or so, called sparmax flyer, intended for quick swapping of colours, but since it only comes with a 0.4mm nozzle and is single action(air moves constantly at a set preasure true the tool, you only regulate how mutch colour you apply with the trigger), it is for miniatures only ment for primer/basecoating, nothing else. price is in the mid range, possibly above if you add in a compressor, but it might be clouser to your needs.
I suggest starting on a midrange airbrush like the harder & Steinbeck evolution. Starting on a beginners airbrush might discourage you from learning how to use it. Bad airbrushes are frustrating and time consuming. If you want something to learn on, go midrange so you can learn without frustration
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I've had more issues with my Neo in 12 months than I have with my Iwata HP-C in 20 years. I bought the Neo for dirt cheap as a second AB for base coating terrain and whatnot. I burn through a needle every 2 months and a nozzle every 6.
I've replaced the needle 4 times in my Iwata and the nozzle twice in 20 years.
My next AB is probably an Iwata eclipse with the .15mm nozzle.
The Sparmax flyer looks pretty good, at least for me and what I want to do. More reliable than a cheap imported airbrush at the same price and then if I fancy it I can buy a decent airbrush to have a go.
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