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Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin






Got my son an airbrush for Christmas. Can anyone recommend a nice starter paint set?
Ideally based on ease of use and choice of color.
He’s gonna be painting gundam.

Thanks!
   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







Vallejo have their Mecha range designed for gundam style models. Their advertising bumph has various statements about it bonding really well with all kinds of surfaces, so that might make it easier to use I guess

https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/category/hobby/mecha-color-en/

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/11 23:19:20


Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
   
Made in gb
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



UK - Warwickshire

Most acrylic hobby paints can be thinned easily to work well in an airbrush. So you dont necessarily need to get all new airbrush specific paints. Even when you do many of those need a little adjustment to spray optimally anyway and so still need thinning often.
Vallejo airbrush thinner works well in my experience.

If he already has a paint collection that he is familiar with? It could be better to use those with some thinner.
Acrylic inks run very well through most airbrushes. Liquitex have a nice range. Although the colour pallet is more fine artist than mini painter.

'Ain't nothing crazy about me but my brain. Right brain? Riight! No not you right brain! Right left brain? Right!... Okay then lets do this!! 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin






thanks both. he has no paints yet and no experience with anything so hes an open book

maybe ill just look for an acrylic starter from somewhere?

whats thinner for?
i figure it being acrylic water is your thinner?
   
Made in gb
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



UK - Warwickshire

Starting from scratch I might recommend vallejo, they do quite a few paint set boxes and a lot of individual colours that should be useful.

With regards to thinner, Water can thin your acrylics but only to a certain point before ruining the paint films strength and adhesion.
Theres a sciency chemistry reason for that~ to do with how the polymer chains of the acrylic medium form during the drying process.
A propper thinner helps to combat this and lets you get good results at lower viscosities.

For airbrushing, thinning is important, you want the paint to flow through the airbrush without clogging the nozzle, the thinner it is, the easier that is.
Most guides and videos out there will suggest to aim for the viscosity of skimmed milk. Which is to say quite thin, but leaving a thin trace of itself on the walls of a cup as you slosh it around a bit.
To get to this point with water alone, will often drastically reduce the colours intensity and its adhesion to the surface ~ meaning it will scratch off easily, and have weak colour coverage.
Using a purpose designed thinner will let you get to this viscosity with less dilution of the paint, giving better all around results.
Well worth it if being honest.


'Ain't nothing crazy about me but my brain. Right brain? Riight! No not you right brain! Right left brain? Right!... Okay then lets do this!! 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin






Never thought of it hairy but that makes sense. If you water it down to get to the right consistency you basically have water at that point. Thanks a bunch
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Will your son also use the paints with a brush? If not you might as well just buy paints made for airbrush.

But if he is going to use the paints in airbrush and with a normal brush I’d look at green stuff world. They are my favourite brand and they do really amazing special effects paints that are made ready for use in an airbrush.
   
Made in us
Daemonic Dreadnought





Eye of Terror

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
Never thought of it hairy but that makes sense. If you water it down to get to the right consistency you basically have water at that point. Thanks a bunch


A few tips:

- Get a bottle of Tamiya X-20. Better than water for thinning paint.

- Get a bottle of Liquitex Flow Aid. This will cut down on dry tip.

- AV also makes a great thinner. I just like Tamiya better.

- You can get some great tips for mixing paint on the Next Level Painting YouTube channel.

   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





There's a lot of approaches you could take.

I find while it's totally possible to thin regular hairy brush paints down to airbrushing consistency, it's just a lot easier to start with a paint that's designed for airbrushing and a thinner that is also designed for airbrushing.

In terms of acrylics, I've found Tamiya's paints the best acrylics to airbrush, but they're alcohol based which means fumes might be more of a concern. Vallejo's air ranges are good but I've had some bad bottles in my time with them. Enamels are actually the easiest to spray IMO, but fumes are a real problem and slow dry times is a bit of a pain.

Consistency and pressure is important, but I've never liked rules like "make it like milk and use X PSI". You have to find the right pressure and consistency for what you're doing and it just takes practice and knowing the signs (in terms of spray pattern and behaviour) of being too thin, too thick, too low PSI or too high PSI.

Also learn to clean your airbrush properly and use a lubricant like Badger's "Needle Juice".

I haven't tried it myself, but some folk have mentioned artists inks are good for airbrushing.

There's a lot of good tutorials on youtube. I do like Marco Frisoni...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FninJVxExlY

   
Made in gb
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



UK - Warwickshire

Lubricant is a good shout,
Its fine grade silicon based lubricant that you want. Which I presume is what badger use for theirs. Theres others.. all will do a good job.

Although this isnt strictly necessary to use the airbrush, it will keep the trigger action smoother for longer and help reduce needle tip dry (which is something that will always happen with spraying acrylics).

The inks being good, is true fact.
https://www.liquitex.com/us/products/professional/colors/acrylic-ink/
these are one of the more prevelant brands out there for them, should be available in most art supply stores. In USA I think Dick Blicks will most likely carry them.
Another art store choice is Golden High Flow Fluid Acrylics. Havent actually tried these myself, but hear nothing but good things about them. And Golden being a well known and long established paint manufacturer (the founder of golden is credited with inventing acrylic emulsion paint in the first place...so they know what theyre doing)

Badger also have a line of airbrush paints called minitaire, although I never tried them personally and cant speak to them.

Even with many application specific paint options to look at, I would still recommend getting a more 'regular' paint range that works well with a brush too and learning to thin them.
As even with airbrushing, theres always things that call for a paintbrush too. Airbrush isnt the answer to every job, but is a great answer to an awful lot of them.
Having paints suitable for both jobs and being able to adjust them to suit is clearly a benefit to the wallet.




'Ain't nothing crazy about me but my brain. Right brain? Riight! No not you right brain! Right left brain? Right!... Okay then lets do this!! 
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





HairySticks wrote:
Even with many application specific paint options to look at, I would still recommend getting a more 'regular' paint range that works well with a brush too and learning to thin them.
As even with airbrushing, theres always things that call for a paintbrush too. Airbrush isnt the answer to every job, but is a great answer to an awful lot of them.
Having paints suitable for both jobs and being able to adjust them to suit is clearly a benefit to the wallet.


I don't necessarily disagree that you should try and airbrush with regular paints and it's better to build up a collection of regular paints over a collection of airbrush paints.

I just think from the perspective of initially learning, it helps to have some airbrush-specific paints to give you a bit of a leg up. There's a lot of competing variables when airbrushing so when you're learning, unless you're being taught in a classroom, I think it helps to have a starting point.

Even if you just buy a couple of pots to get a handle on the many variables you need to control, when you jump over to regular paint you'll have a better idea of what you need to do in order to get them to airbrush nicely.

On top of that, some regular paints just suck for airbrushing, and if you encounter them while you're still initially learning you may not be able to figure out why you're getting bad results. Much of GW's base range for example, you can airbrush it but doing any sort of detail work is difficult. Some of the more opaque and matte finish Vallejo paints in the model colour range are similarly difficult to airbrush. Some paints might like to dry very quickly so may be helped by a retarder on top of a thinner when airbrushing which is an extra complication you don't need when you're initially learning. Paints that are designed to be very matte when painted by hand can become grainy easily or even cloudy when airbrushed and so may like different things mixed in to improve their behaviour. Airbrush specific paints tend to be on the more glossy to satin side because it's less likely to lead to a grainy finish.

It goes the other way too, there's no reason you can't hairy-brush paint with an "air" range of paint, I often do that, they just won't be very suitable for putting down opaque coats, but for layering and detail work they often work fine.


This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/11/14 08:03:40


 
   
 
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