Jfc someone bought me an airbrush for X-Mas

TOGSolid

I had only just started some basic model brush painting and by basic I mean half my experiment box got oversprayed with primer and the few I started on looked like ass and I have zero brush control or even a general sense of wtf I'm doing. So, you can imagine me internally going "uh oh" when I was gifted a Master Airbrush Professional 3 starter airbrush kit and their collapsible Spray Hood for X-Mas and I have zero clue where tf to start. I'm waiting on a foldy table to show up for the setup so I got a few days to get info so any help y'all can provide is greatly appreciated.

First off, I'm just gonna assume the included paints are gonna be trash garbage for painting Battletech minis (and in general) and am curious what's actually recommended for a newbie. I've heard vallejo paints are more or less ready to go out of the dropper but their oranges and reds in their brush paints have been super shitty for me so idk.

I did get a stand/cleaning pot for flushing the paint out of the spray guns already but am not sure what other accessories are a good idea to get.

Also if y'all know of a good video series to watch to get going that'd be amazing.

Tips/tricks/things to know before I start will be super helpful too!

Thanks y'all

Heffling

The real trick to airbrushing minis is getting your thinning ratio down properly. I would pick up some Airbrush Thinner or look up how to mix your own from stuff like flow improver and matte medium. The pump you have is the most common in mini-scale airbrushing. I've had basically the same unit with an air tank for over a decade and the only thing that's failed on it so far was the regulator, which was easy to replace.

You have good starter airbrushes in 0.3 mm for base coating and 0.2 mm for fine work. If you plan on doing a lot of airbrushing, get masking tape. You will use it tons.

I also highly recommend picking up some Vallejo Surface Primer. You may have to thin it slightly, but it is one of the best airbrushable primers available.

Asher

Airbrushes are super cool and fun! But they sure do have a learning curve. For a while using an airbrush will be less effective than just painting things normally.

A few tips:
1: Clean in after every use. And I meanevery use. Even if you are thinking of coming back to it, clean it out anyway. Windex/Window cleaner is actually really good for both thinning paints and cleaning out the internals. Basically try not to let any paint try in the internals, jsut fill the hopper up with window cleaner or water and blow that through and that will keep the brush from clogging hopefully.

2: It will clog anyway. Every couple of sessions, or as soon as you feel like paint isn't going through, do a full break down and clean out. Get yourself some pipe cleaners or a proper cleaning kit and jsut clean out the internals. If its still fucked, remove all the rubber seals and let it sit in acetone for an hour or so, then give it a thorough clean. The nozzle is the most likely culprit for clogs and the little gold pokey tool in the kit I linked is for poking in there to clean it out.

3: Practice on paper before you try anything on minis. It will help you get for a feel of how much paint and and how much air you want to put through at any one time. I'd suggest starting with the single action brush in the kit as it only controls the amount of air you are getting, while the dual action controls air AND paint and the same time and is therefor much harder to control.

4: Paint. Vallejo has a great range of airbrush ready paints which mostly are good to go out of the bottle. You might need to thin them a little anyway. The common suggestion of what to aim for is the consistency of skim milk. Try an test spray on paper and if it forms "Spider legs" it's too thin. If it feels like its not coming out consistently its too thick. Getting your eye in for the right consistency is a hard skill to learn and takes time. I've been airbrushing for about 10 years off and on and I still get it wrong a lot.

5: Practice. The best way of learning is doing. Sacrifice a model to the airbrush gods and just go HAM on it. You can always strip the paint off later! Airbrushes apply very thin coats of paint so its easy to get off.

I really like Angel Giraldez's Airbrush Tutorials, but there are many many to choose from on Youtube. Jsut have a look around and you'll find one that's helpful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLbKRzKaQy4&ab_channel=AngelGiraldeZ

Finally, come and Hang out with us in the painting thread in CF we can answer pretty much anything you care to know about miniatures painting in general and airbrushing in particular.

Good luck!

Gabriel_Pitt

Air brushes are pretty easy to use. I keep my compressor set between 20 and 30 PSI depending on what I'm doing. You know your pressure is too high and/or you have over thinned your paints if the paint is spider webbing on the surface when you're spraying it. Decreasing how much paint you're dispensing, lowering the air pressure, or using slightly thicker paint can correct all of that.

Less is more - unless you're just laying down a solid color base coat in a couple of passes, you're not putting out spray paint levels of paint. Start with the .3mm brush to get a feel for how the double action control works. I really have no recommendations for the syphon bottle brush, not when you have two gravity fed double actions.

Get a piece of tile, or a plastic styrene sheet, or something non porous to practice on, because paper/cardboard absorbs very different than non-pourous model surfaces.

Athenor

I keep thinking I should start by practicing on plastic spoons. I need to get my vent hood back from my brother, but I keep encouraging him to paint and he hasn't picked up his own yet.

Heffling

To test your paint before applying it to a model, test a piece of the sprue the kit came with.. It's made of the same material and process in the same manner, so is a good analog for what you want to paint. Plastic spoons are a great item to test on, as they are made from plastics similar to those that modelers use, and are great tests to learn natural lighting effects.

Darkewolfe

There is great advice and I just want to add to what a few have said: Air Brushing minis is not hard! Your priming and base coating are gonna be SO GOOD. Just spray some paper and random shit for awhile to get the hang of flow control but it really is very easy with a bit of fiddling!

Heffling

Lester Bursley has really good videos on airbrushing miniatures for more experienced painters. One big thing to learn is that you will never paint a mini with just the airbrush, it's great for adding layers and transitions but you will always need a paint brush for detail work. He disappeared around 3 years ago, so I'm not sure what's up with him.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vYyCks8CDWZBHz-qtZhbA

honovere

Little side note from my limited experience and knowledge. Different colours in the same range can still behave very differently in an airbrush. This is mostly an issue with whites though which generally tend to clog up way, way faster than other colours.

Heffling

honovere wrote: »

Little side note from my limited experience and knowledge. Different colours in the same range can still behave very differently in an airbrush. This is mostly an issue with whites though which generally tend to clog up way, way faster than other colours.

The secret to painting whites is, depending on your primer, to first put down one or more intermediate layers of gray. Like, if you start black, cover it with dark grey, then light grey, then white. If you start with grey primer, do light grey then white.

MegaMan001

Heffling wrote: »

honovere wrote: »

Little side note from my limited experience and knowledge. Different colours in the same range can still behave very differently in an airbrush. This is mostly an issue with whites though which generally tend to clog up way, way faster than other colours.

The secret to painting whites is, depending on your primer, to first put down one or more intermediate layers of gray. Like, if you start black, cover it with dark grey, then light grey, then white. If you start with grey primer, do light grey then white.

Painting brighter colors and white is why after years I switched to priming my models in gray and not black.

TOGSolid

Hokay, I finally got all the stuff in needed to give this a shot tomorrow. Thankfully another friendo got me an RX-78-2 Gunpla kit to sacrifice upon the altar of the airbrush which I'll gladly annihilate with zero fucks given.
Hopefully this goes ok and doesn't make me die on the inside o_o I'll be sure to double check y'alls posts beforehand, thanks so much!

Also does anyone have a link to a sold separately tank for my compressor? I've been trying to find one and may not be using the right keywords or something. It's a little weird this thing didn't come with a receiver and I'm 100% ok with modding one in. I work on waaaay bigger compressors professionally so piping in a little baby tank is nbd.

MegaMan001

TOGSolid wrote: »

Hokay, I finally got all the stuff in needed to give this a shot tomorrow. Thankfully another friendo got me an RX-78-2 Gunpla kit to sacrifice upon the altar of the airbrush which I'll gladly annihilate with zero fucks given.
Hopefully this goes ok and doesn't make me die on the inside o_o I'll be sure to double check y'alls posts beforehand, thanks so much!

Also does anyone have a link to a sold separately tank for my compressor? I've been trying to find one and may not be using the right keywords or something. It's a little weird this thing didn't come with a receiver and I'm 100% ok with modding one in. I work on waaaay bigger compressors professionally so piping in a little baby tank is nbd.

https://www.hobbylobby.com/search/?text=Compressor

I have an Iwata compressor that still works like fifteen years later. The customer service was great too.

I bought it from Hobby Lobby because they almost always have a 40%Off one item in the store coupon active at all time.