Tutorial on Airbrushing

[akaranseth]

The first part of a tutorial on airbrushing for figurine is now available on my site. It covers mostly the material aspect. So everything you need to know before buying an airbrush and a few tips on how to maintain it. A second part on the application of paint should be available in the near future.

 

http://www.akaranseth.com/blog/tutorials/a...or-figurine.htm

 

Enjoy!

[Papakeno]

Awesome guide akaranseth! This really helped me get all my questions answered! Thank you :huh:

[Liath]

Didn't see this website before. Thanks mate, it will help me with my little airbrush set ! ;)

[T3mpl@r Crusade]

I am looking forward to this very much. I havent been able to get my hands on any army painter plate mail to base coat my grey knights, so I intend on using a cheap little air compressor I found on ebay (max pressure will be about 15psi).

 

If you could please please post your knowledge with working with citadel paints, expecially metallics for airbrushing that would be great. When I went to the local art store I picked an employees brain for some info. He said I might have a hard time with the low psi the compressor will put out for basecoating, especially with my boltgun metal.

 

So aside from thinning the paint to get it to flow, should I be using distilled water or purpose built acrylic airbrush paint medium (thinner)? I have conflicting suggestions from GW staff and the guy at the art store.

 

*on a side note:

 

I finally attempted airbrushing yesterday to apply the boltgun metal basecoat. I had success with 60/40 ratio of boltgun metal to acrylic polymer airbrushing medium. I used a fresh pot of boltgun metal and did not add water. I was able to apply a nice thin layer of boltgun metal that was able to dry quick enough to handle (although a full cure overnight should be used since it was still tacky 2 hours later)

 

I tried watering down a paint sample first when I air brushed, but you will realize that the particles of paint do not agree well with the water, and my air brushing looked like it had rained boltgun metal on the sample marine that I painted. It dried eventually, but was not a smooth consistent pattern after the fact.

 

If I had a higher psi (15) I could have basecoated my rhinos faster, but it was good to work slow and be able to reach all the cracks without paint overload. The airbrush/compressor combo I picked up off ebay (for those who are interested in starting) was one of the cheapest ones I could get and has proved reliable, although it is tough to clean, and I found out with boltgun that I'll have to clean it after every tank or squad, but not a big deal considering the time, quality and ease of use I experienced.

 

*another side note

did more spraying last night, grey knights are looking pretty good. had some complications though that I didnt experience the first time. Since this was the second time using the gun, and for a much longer period of time I ran into new problems. For a cheap kit youll experience these problems, maybe not with an expensive one.

 

CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN the bejesus out of you gun before you pack it up. I thought running some airgun cleaner through for a while clean it well enough but I was wrong. Trying to get started yesterday, the paint just wouldnt flow. Since I was dealing with a metallic, it will clog up much easier, that being said there was a nice deposit stuck in the gun blocking everything but the air. After a complete gun disassembly and thorough cleaning I was back in business, however I had to deal with additional clogs throughout my 5 hours of spraying.

 

For the gun I have, there are 2 pieces that thread onto the tip, after the disassembly I discovered that these were the things clogging everything up so badly. the one piece on the very end funnels the air through a small hole where the paint is picked up and give you the spray pattern. My biggest problem with this was when it started clogging on the inside, paint would dribble out and collect at the front of this piece, which had to be kept under control to allow anything, air and paint alike to come out.

 

The other piece had to be removed with a supplied wrench. As I don't know the technical name for it, ill describe what it does. through the center hole is where the paint is drawn through and where the needle sits. paint is drawn through the center when the needle pulls back and flows to its pointy tip. the holes around the outside channel the air flow, towards the outside of the tip and creates the spray pattern.

 

So what I discovered is that the second piece is the main clog culprit. I found that as I worked less and less paint would eventually come out, so I had to stop, clean, continue. A decent method of keeping yourself moving along is to have 2 tupperware containers (one filled with water) and a medicine application syringe (not one with a needle, it has a plastic end with about a 3mm diameter opening, the side has mm graduations which is helpful for drawing paint from the pots and polymer medium from the bottle in the correct ratio). I would draw water into the syringe, push it into the cavity where paint is drawn through (remove the paint pot or gravity feeder or side feeder whatever your using) and blast some water in with a good enough pressure to dislodge the deposits.

 

Do this once in a while to ensure the deposits don't get too bad. You should improve the performance of the gun, however I found I could never get it back to 100%. For me continuing on at 75% was good enough. The best thing to do though is to detach the two tip pieces and give them a good blast of water. without the needle in the water the deposits can come out easier.

[Jacinda]

CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN the bejesus out of you gun before you pack it up.

This is the best advice you could give anyone.

 

With the metallic GW paints, you have to realize that there are solid particles suspended in paint. You will need to thin the paint even more than with other colors. And clean more. Like every 15 minutes tops. More often is even better. I recently painted a few large pieces of terrain with a base coat of Tin Bits. I had good luck with 3 parts distilled water to 1 part Tin Bits. I am also running the airbrush at 30 psi which is more on the high end. But no matter how much you thin metallic paints, those solid flakes will not get any smaller.

[akaranseth]

Sorry for the late answer. The Citadels metallics are far from ideal for airbrushing. In addition to the color pigments you also have metallic pigments that tend to be bigger, more coarse than the color pigment. This had for result a separation of the paint while spraying giving you an uneven finish. The best metallic paints to use can usually be found at your local hobby supply store. I do not remember the name but they are alcohol based, come in small bottles and are really watery. No thinner is needed. They flow really well and are made especially for airbrushing.

 

Furthermore there always seems to be a metallic pigment left in your gun no matter how hard you try to clean it.