Thanks to Phil over at PitYak Studios selling me a second hand compressor and a gentleman on TradeMe selling cheap Chinese ‘Super Air Gun’ brand airbrushes I am now the proud owner of a $200nz airbrush setup.
I haven’t tried it out yet but hope to do so this weekend. After some test sprays the first serious experiment will simply be base coating the remaining four Crescent Root Studio 28mm Middle Eastern buildings I have left to paint.
I doubt the brush is capable of fine detail (it only cost $95nz after all) but I’m hoping it’ll considerably speed up laying down the base coats of colour on terrain, vehicles and figures. The instructions are full of amusing Engrish too which is an extra bonus.
On the advice of this page I’ve also picked up some cheapo car windscreen fluid for diluting and Windex for cleaning up afterwards. Phil as well as various gaming mates also recommend ‘Floetrol’ which is a DIY acrylic paint extender. I’ll see how I go with windscreen fluid to start with and maybe grab some Floetrol next time I’m at Bunnings.
Give the Resene acrylics a go by all means but I suspect that they have a low pigment content compared to model paints and use their ~PVA base to add thickness and make up for the lack of pigment. By the time you have thinned it enough to flow through the needle it may lack the strenght to colour your terrain.
Tamiya paints on the other hand have pigment to burn and are designed for spraying. I’ve never had a bad spray with them even with my dodgy old Humbrol spray brush. They go quite a way also due to this.
Cheers
Lo m8,
with respect to your “I doubt the brush is capable of fine detail”:
I own a badger 100G brush which looks a lot like your brush; I recently bought a new needle and nozzle for my airbrush going from ‘medium’ to ‘fine’. On my nozzles an “M” or “F” indicate needle/nozzle combo on the brush indicate medium or fine.
So by finding another needle/nozzle combo you might be able to do that lovely german camo sprays on your FoW german vehicles?!
The new needle made all the difference for me (i use a badger 50-0401 fine needle with a badger 50-0161 fine head assembly now)
cheers
Toylord
Is the brush double action or single action? Double action brushes, that is brushes where airflow and paintflow are regulated separately, are much easier to control and lay out a much more even flow of paint.
A high pigment paint is absolutely essential for airbrushing. I’ve seen good results with both Vallejo and Tamyia. Adding a little retarder when thinning is important as it prevents the problem of paint partially drying en route to the target, resulting in a kind of orange peel stucco look.
When you have the chance I reccomend having both a fine and a medium needle.
Thanks for the tips everybody! It’s a no-name brand airbrush but it is double action. I’m not sure about getting replacement needle/nozzles for it (because it’s no-name) but will investigate that for sure.
Good point on the Resene paints too Kim. Since I’ll have to seriously dilute them to get them through the brush. Hmmmm. I’m pretty sure I can find fairly close Tamiya colour match to the base coat I’m using for the buildings and a little colour variety wouldn’t hurt anyway!
I’m constantly amazed by the level of geekery evident on the internet (in a good way). See you thought you’d plumbed the depths Stu and now you’ve awoken a whole inner circle of airbrush geeks =)
I myself have been delving into horology, and am learning the finer points of early Japanese automatic watch movements.
Fired it up in the weekend and sprayed some diluted Tamiya paint through it. Unforunately my touch isn’t quite fine enough yet…blowing too much air and not enough paint basically.