Beginner airbrushing

[Khaos]

I'm wanting to add a new tool to my painting arsenal, something I've never used before which is an airbrush.

 

I want to start out with just using it for priming and for Zenith highlighting, priming because in the UK 90% of the year is too cold or wet outside to prime with spray cans and it's not something I want to do in my home, an airbrush will allow me to prime indoors without covering my whole house in toxic gases. Zenith highlighting is a new technique I'd like to learn to see how it would affect my paintjobs.

 

Obviously for starting out I don't want to spend £100's on an airbrush in case I decide it's not for me.

 

Would something like this do the jobs I want it for before I decide to move on to something more expensive for the more detailed work?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MQ475SB/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=gg4&linkId=089acbf23d7092228e3e7db7f44b1026&creativeASIN=B082QSN1HX&tag=airbrushasylu-20&creative=9325&camp=1789

[Firedrake Cordova]

I've not used one of those cordless airbrushes, so can't really comment, beyond saying that I've seen mixed reviews, although I think a couple of members have tried or use one similar to the one you've linked to.

 

I was given several pieces of advice when I was looking for an airbrush:

• Most airbrush issues are caused by the airbrush not being clean enough, so it's helpful if it's easy to clean
• Nozzles, needles, and seals are consumable items, so it's helpful if they're easily available
• If an airbrush has an Iwata-style threaded nozzle, you probably don't want to be removing it unless completely necessary as they can be fairly frail
• You'll probably keep the compressor for longer than the airbrush, so if you're going to splurge on one item, that's the one to do it on.

 

Don't know if that's any help or not  

Edited October 9 by Firedrake Cordova

[Khaos]

Thank you, that was really helpful

 

I've done a bit more digging and a YouTube channel called Squidmar have reccomended an airbush by Harder & Steenbeck which has a control dial on it which you can set for Priming/Basing/Highlighting etc and control how far back the trigger can go....it's slightly more expensive than the cordless one but I think it looks a good tool to help someone get started for under £100....and then as you say, invest in the compressor.

[Firedrake Cordova]

That would be the Ultra, which they re-designed in 2024 (so watch out for "new old stock" of the old one). H&S has a couple of videos on it - a short one and a long one.

 

I have an Evolution (the old model, not the 2024 redesign) and have been happy with it.  

Edited October 9 by Firedrake Cordova

[Khaos]

Thank you so much, You've been a great help

 

Here's to a good time adding a new tool to my painting portfolio :) 

[Firedrake Cordova]

No prob. This video is likely to be helpful to you (they're using Tamiya, but the same principle applies to other brand's paints):

 

[jaxom]

I recently got a Neat and Tidy airbrush 

https://www.neatandhandy.com/products/premium-airbrush-for-hobbies-crafts?srsltid=AfmBOopJhvrDZCs6E4tEgNAcmLldTJ1J5Cht4deki3CbOKMARRDm6o5r&currency=USD
It’s really easy to use and about as loud as an electric shaver. To paraphrase: you can’t adjust pressure but 95% of air brushers don’t anyway, it’s dirt cheap compared so great for dipping into airbrushing, and if you like it then you can spend more money on a better set up. I’ve been using Vince Venturella’s cleaning method and have had no equipment issues.

 

 

[sarabando]

i did a video on those portable airbrushes a while back. they are pretty poor :( but my cheap £80 airbrush compressor combo from amazon has been fantastic. 

[Bung]

19 hours ago, Khaos said:

Thank you, that was really helpful

 

I've done a bit more digging and a YouTube channel called Squidmar have reccomended an airbush by Harder & Steenbeck which has a control dial on it which you can set for Priming/Basing/Highlighting etc and control how far back the trigger can go....it's slightly more expensive than the cordless one but I think it looks a good tool to help someone get started for under £100....and then as you say, invest in the compressor.

 

You can get the old H&S Ultra for around 70€ which is a great starter Airbrush in my eyes.

You wont have to worry about Problems that arise due to cheap production.

Those cheap airbrushes can be hit or miss but i have seen people struggle more than being happy with them.

 

If you go for a compressor i recommend a Fengda AS 186 or one of its many copies.

Those are cheap, relieable, easy to repair and have a tank.

Tank is important for a more constant airflow.

I upgraded from the AS 186 sobe time ago, but i still keep it for out of house painting Sessions and if they others break down.

[Ryno]

I picked up one of the cordless ones earlier this year as I was getting back into the hobby. Saw mildly positive to neutral opinions on them for the most part. I found the battery life to not be anywhere even remotely close to their claims, I couldn't even prime 10 models on a full charge. The airbrush itself was cheap. I've used it twice, and after the second time I didn't even bother cleaning it out because it just wasn't worth it.

When I have a bit of spare cash again, I'll likely pick up a good entry level compressor instead.

On a slightly unrelated note, I hadn't used an airbrush since I was in my late teens (a couple decades ago now), and that was one my father had from probably before I was born. It didn't have the dual action trigger the newer ones have, and honestly I really didn't like the new system. It makes my hands hurt trying to use it, it feels so unnatural. Much prefer just a 'button' with an adjustable nozzle instead. A lot easier to use, from a purely kinematics standpoint, in my opinion. Maybe my hands are just old.

[jaxom]

Hands down you get what you pay for, but it’s been working great for learning the ropes and I spent less than 40 £ on it. I’ve been using it for bases, priming, and zenithal base coats. Once I have more space I’ll upgrade, but for now it works for my limited hobby space.

 

Maybe I got lucky?

Edited October 13 by jaxom

[Bung]

13 hours ago, Ryno said:

On a slightly unrelated note, I hadn't used an airbrush since I was in my late teens (a couple decades ago now), and that was one my father had from probably before I was born. It didn't have the dual action trigger the newer ones have, and honestly I really didn't like the new system. It makes my hands hurt trying to use it, it feels so unnatural. Much prefer just a 'button' with an adjustable nozzle instead. A lot easier to use, from a purely kinematics standpoint, in my opinion. Maybe my hands are just old.

 

If the normal Design is uncomfortable for you, there are some pistol grip Style airbrushes like the Grex Tritium or similar from other brands like Iwata but thd tend to have bigger nozzles sizes and arent that good for Details.

 

http://www.grexusa.com/grexairbrush/tritium.php5

 

Disclaimer: i never used a Grex Airbrush as they arent really common in Europe.

 

[Rusted Boltgun]

My experience was similar to @jaxom, my version was from Amazon and is no longer available.

Get it set up right and it was pretty good for priming but I didn't try anything more adventurous.

My set up in my garage (which got demolished) meant I've gone back to brush priming for the moment - to get into airbrushing properly would now mean sorting out a booth for overspray and power to my new unit for a compressor.

My concern with the long term is things like o- ring replacement. If I lose a ring when stripping it down, that's probably the end of it.

 

To summarise, I would love a 'proper' airbrush and compressor but I'd need somewhere I could use it - which I don't have. The USB kit will have to do for me.

 

Edited October 13 by Rusted Boltgun

[Ryno]

9 hours ago, Bung said:

 

If the normal Design is uncomfortable for you, there are some pistol grip Style airbrushes like the Grex Tritium or similar from other brands like Iwata but thd tend to have bigger nozzles sizes and arent that good for Details.

 

http://www.grexusa.com/grexairbrush/tritium.php5

 

Disclaimer: i never used a Grex Airbrush as they arent really common in Europe.

 

Oh, cool, thanks! I'll have a dig into them and keep in mind when I'm in a position for an upgrade. Didn't know these were a thing :)

I'm not planning on going deep with airbrushing, just primer/base coating and maybe trying a mild zenithal at some point, but that's all I'm interested in using it for.

Edited October 13 by Ryno

[Moonstalker]

I went down this road recently.  I will try to distill and pass on what knowledge I gained from all my research.

 

Those little battery powered compressor kits are... fine, for just dipping your toe in.  Without an air tank the pressure you get out of it will vary, and so you're not going to get a totally steady stream of air out of it.  The advertised specs are usually optimistic.  But in terms of just getting some paint on a model and seeing if you like airbrushing, they will do that job.  Squidmar has done a few videos where they've picked units like that up from Temu and Amazon just to see them.  They work, but they aren't impressive, their durability is dubious, and if you want to keep airbrushing they're probably gonna be wasted money as nothing you really get from them is going to translate to a real setup.

 

The compressor everyone recommends is the "AS-186."  This compressor is chinese-made and available under a lot of different brands and model numbers, but it's really quite good for the job and decently priced.  This is the version of it that I bought.  You can get it with or without the tank, but as explained above, the tank has very practical uses in helping to ensure the air flow and pressure you have is as steady as possible, but it will also be nicer to work with as the compressor will run only intermittently to refill the tank instead of being on all the time you are using it.

 

Airbrushes have a huge range to choose from.  This model is recommended by the airbrushing reddit community as a cheap intro airbrush.  You can see their whole recommendation list here.  I would probably sooner buy this Hubest and an AS-186 than one of those battery powered compressor kits, as the compressor will be good for you for a long time and a cheap airbrush can be useful for some tasks (like spraying things you don't want to put through your nice airbrush).  I ended up going with this GSI Creos model myself.  It's basically an Iwata clone with decent quality and features for a decent price.

 

You will need accessories and consumables, so you need to factor that into your budget.  Depending on what you are spraying you may or may not need a spray booth with fume extractor to control overspray, atomized paint, and VOC hazards.  Since I will largely only be spraying acrylics, I opted for no booth and only PPE - a breath mask with appropriate filters (3M P100 60923).  Depending on what you buy, you may also need a hose to connect your compressor to the airbrush (the one that came with my airbrush is for connecting to canned air).  You may also want a quick-detach fitting for that hose so you can unhook it from your airbrush.  You will probably want something like this, as a combo for holding your airbrush when you're not using it + containing cleaning chemicals that you're spraying through it.  Airbrush cleaner is largely just iso alcohol, but you will want thinner and maybe flow improver.  Some people prefer to mix their paints in the airbrush cup itself, and backflow their airbrush to help mix it.  Others (like me) prefer to mix it outside the airbrush.  These little paint palettes can help with that.  Bonus is that you can dump it from the cup back into the palette for a quick color swap without having to throw out your paint.

[Evil Eye]

Something I'll throw out there; if you're gonna be doing a lot of airbrushing, I'd actually highly recommend Tamiya paints for airbrush application. Despite being acrylics (albeit solvent-based) they behave beautifully through an airbrush, with far less of the tip-dry or spiderwebbing/pooling problems of aqueous acrylics like Citadel. So if you want to use an airbrush to apply a basecoat for, for example, a Rhino, you'd actually be better finding (or mixing) a good colour-match with Tamiya to lay down the base colours. Also, they sell a "flat base" you can mix with gloss paints to turn them matte. They're not great for brush-painting but honestly, as far as airbrush goes I swear by them. Also their thinner works with their paints and regular aqueous acrylics.

[Firedrake Cordova]

On 10/12/2024 at 7:36 PM, Ryno said:

On a slightly unrelated note, I hadn't used an airbrush since I was in my late teens (a couple decades ago now), and that was one my father had from probably before I was born. It didn't have the dual action trigger the newer ones have, and honestly I really didn't like the new system

Double-action airbrushes aren't necessarily "new" (my dad has a De Vilbis one from the 1970s), but you can still get single-action airbrushes.  The Harder & Steenbeck Hansa Topline, or Badger 200 ranges might be worth looking at, if you're going down that route.

[Ryno]

9 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Double-action airbrushes aren't necessarily "new" (my dad has a De Vilbis one from the 1970s), but you can still get single-action airbrushes.  The Harder & Steenbeck Hansa Topline, or Badger 200 ranges might be worth looking at, if you're going down that route.

Good to know, thanks!

 

I actually gave my father a call yesterday and chatted a bit about his airbrushes. He's got three different ones, one of which being a dual action that I didn't even know he had. We always used his cheapest one, which was a plastic black bodied single action airbrush, and I quite liked it at the time (paint-contact bits were all metal, obv). It was easy to use, and easy to clean, and gave me great results for priming and base coating. We did a lot with it, from minis to car models to lexan slot car bodies. I knew he had another pricier one that was all chromed/polished, but I don't recall it ever getting used when I was young. His dual action I never even knew he had.

His hobby room is... extensive. :D

[Bung]

10 hours ago, Ryno said:

Good to know, thanks!

 

I actually gave my father a call yesterday and chatted a bit about his airbrushes. He's got three different ones, one of which being a dual action that I didn't even know he had. We always used his cheapest one, which was a plastic black bodied single action airbrush, and I quite liked it at the time (paint-contact bits were all metal, obv). It was easy to use, and easy to clean, and gave me great results for priming and base coating. We did a lot with it, from minis to car models to lexan slot car bodies. I knew he had another pricier one that was all chromed/polished, but I don't recall it ever getting used when I was young. His dual action I never even knew he had.

His hobby room is... extensive. :D

 

You dont give other people your most expensive airbrushes, especially not Kids for their first experiences. :D

 

I own an Iwata Custom Micron Takumi which is around ~550€ depending on Store etc.

I wouldnt even give that to the wife without her having a lot of airbrush experience.

[PHS]

Just picked up one of those cordless airbrushes for about £15 off eBay , doesn’t seem too bad but as others have said the battery life is appalling .

Only used it once so far and only for base coating and some simple shading , nothing fancy . This is what I’ve achieved with it , ok for a first attempt I think 

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

It seems to be doing a decent job so far