Part 19: Upping my painting skills, gone pro with a airbrush!?

As a test I’m writing in English because I like to share my story to a bigger audience (no hard feelings ;)). The only sad thing is I’m not that good language wise (dutch hates me aswell), but will try doing my best not to say to much stupid stuff 😛

Painting is still one of my favorite parts of the hobby. Adding color to your miniatures (or scenery) really let it all come to life. Playing with more color on your table simply gives a huge improvement on the overall experience. To bad I’m so slow at it and can’t seem to focus for that many hours.

I started looking into airbrushing and eventually bought one. And can say, I’m still a huge noob using it and it’s testing my skills to a new limit. Then again, I do like the result, it’s much more clean from using a (good wet) brush. So will need to push on!

Airbrush VS paintbrush

To skip to the result, there is no ‘versus’ to be made for what I can say. Both compliment each other. I’m lacking Airbrush skills of course so maybe some people get it to replace there paintbrush more and more but doing a real miniature finish will be by using your paintbrush for sure. Totaly depands on the surface and details. For example you can shade and highlight your Space Marines armor with the airbrush. (not edge highlighting, but more natural highlighting and blending) Adding the eye’s I won’t even try with the airbrush 😛 No I mean, doing stuff like the metal parts on your guns or some black details or whatever, doing the shoulderplate’s trim a different color. I for sure go back to my paintbrush which also makes it kinda harder to clear up small mistakes though.

For example, you have a super thight armor done with nice shades, base and highlight overlapping each other, the airbrush super blend! Very fast and nice with the airbrush (still need to learn to do it better myself, but I know it can be done). When you mess up afterwards with your paintbrush doing some details it’s kinda hard to redo the super nice/clean overlapping with a brush and you can’t go back to using the airbrush to fix that tiny spot you just ******* up your miniature with…

So yeah, no comparing the two, it for sure is complimenting each other.

Is working with a Airbrush faster?

What my experience is that I won’t be using the Airbrush doing just one miniature at a time. No, a Airbrush is faster and as a hobby tool way more about getting stuff done. Filling your airbrush cup with just that tiny drop of paint what you would do other wise on your wetpallet wouldn’t give a good paint-air-flow going (not for me atleast). So you want to do more then one. So batch painting stuff (or atleast larger models) seems smart and the way to go.

Another factor on this time consuming question, is about cleaning the thing. You have to be very carefull with the device, or atleast the nozzle, cup and some other small parts your using again and again when airbrushing. This mean after every session you have to take atleast a few minutes cleaning time. How I do this and what I use I’ll show later on this post.

Buying my first airbrush!

So, I was keen on starting to use a airbrush. I did watch a few vids on how to use and painting tutorials where the simply used one without really explaining the how or why, just to see what kind of results the where bringing to the table. Also I noticed that on some painter channels they did some speed painting vids and always used the airbrush as a means to speed things up. So mainly I convinced myself this boy needed a new hobby-tool in his hobby-room. 🙂

My budget was not that big and I know I just needed to start with a simple starting airbrush kit. Nothing fancy for me because everything can grow on you right. I asked around and googled brands from different sellers, youtube streamers etc. and found myself a simple, but I guess renowned brand called Fengda. Very low prices to midrange stuff but saw good quality shops also selling it and guessed if they sell it, alteast it should be a little bit decent right.

The rest was pretty simple, they sell a couple of complete kits containing the airbrush, compressor and hose and found the Fengda FD-186K. Just around 125,- euro’s and more then complete for the noob starter I’am.

I did discuss with my dear friend Marijn what he is using next to this complete kit and made a little longer shoppinglist eventually.

For the best start you’ll also need…

• Cleaning you can easily do with a Sonic cleaner (when you are a bit lazy like me) I just bought one that seemed fitting my wallet and looked nice. Grundig is a German name so should be good 😀
• Vallejo Surface Primer Grey, Black or white. I bought Grey because of my Marines have white plates so didn’t want to have a way to dark primer. Black and white I’ll buy another time…
• Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner, you defently need this one! Keep it running smooth. I clean with the Snoic cleaner and then add a bit of this stuff to run it as a last piece of cleaning. Also I tend to use it inbetween colors a bit aswell.
• Airbrush Cleaner set. It’s a stupid thing, and you just use it to spray out the remainder paint if you have something left and/or spray your cleaner and stuff into. So nothing fancy, but it’s super handy for the job. Also my Airbrush is now always on my table and it has a nice handle keeping the nozzle dust free and ready to go! Looks kinda pro to on my sweet hobby table 😛

So I didn’t buy a few other stuff you see going around. One thing for example is the Vallejo Airbrush Thinner. I’m not using it till now because I just use simple (and very cheap) distilled water. Does the job just fine and also good for your Wetpallet.

Also I just use some carton packaging for a backdrop instead of some fancy airspray booth. I’m thinking of making one myself now instead of the carton, but still woudn’t be much more then that. Sucking the air away looks dope and yes, guess it’s more healty and all, but for now, this just seems fine to me. (do have a window open to be honest)

And of course some protection. I’m using one glove, you know you can buy everywhere now since the Corona pandamic… and I wear a mask, also just a regular one you would where in stores now a days. Nothing fancy so far but looking at this airfilter mask to maybe buy soon.

In the Sonic cleaner I started using window cleaner but it’s somewhat expensive. Now I switched to regualar cleaning stuff you buy for 1 or 2 liters for a few cents and it does the job just fine.

So what was my first painting experience with my new Airbrush toy?

Man, getting even the flow going was some hassle.

Setting up was pretty easy though, you just put in the electra cable of the compressor, the hose has a easy fit connection to the compressor and airbrush itself and your kinda ready to go.

I looked and asked about the pressure needed for minirature painting and it was in between 20 and 40 psi. The pull-turn-push button on the compressor needed a tutorial vid to get to know how it worked but then it was easy enhough to set the pressure to 20 and keep it steady. The higher the pressure, the finer your result I heard, something to remember…

So I got some miniatures (old Warhammer Quest 1995 boxset does the job!) that I would never paint otherwise and set of priming them.

First on a piece of paper. Feeling the flow a bit and where I would hit a surface, feeling the angle and distance a bit aswell. And then I hit my first plastic. Things went fine for a while till I noticed the paint wasn’t flowing so much anymore. Got back to my paper and yes, mostly air was running but no primer paint. The cup was still pretty full and so issue number one was born.

Eventually I’m now learning how thik your paint needs to be, making really sure the Airbrush is clean and I don’t start spraying without thinning down even the primer with disstiled water. I can say, every bottle of paint is different but better have it a little more thinned down then not flowing would be my advize for now.

So, I started using color. Damm, then I learned, airbrushing isn’t for the sweet little details I thought where also possible (or atleast my skill really, really needs to be leveled with my hopes and dreams). What happens is the airbrush is always a little dot, but not that little as the most tiny details you would like. Pushing the switch just a little makes a little dot, also ajusting the valve at the back end helps on this, but I never managed to do the sweet little miniature details so far.

Must say, this experience did make me wonder a bit if I just overspend on buying a airbrush and all the rest for just primer and basing… So I contacted my buddy again and asked his experiences. After a little chat I now believe I really need to push on and learning what will work for me and not. It’s as I said, Airbrush is complimenting the Paintbrush and vise versa.

After some more practice runs and specialy I started doing paper runs. Pratice making straight lines, dots, cicles and dots on dots on dots etc etc. I felt I was ready for my Marines. Atleast enhough to start my first batch of priming and basing. I knew I would be skipping detailing for now and just focussing on this.

Here are the results after I also added black with my paintbrush.

To compare with a finished Space Marine that I fully painted with a paintbrush a few months back first thing you can notice that the armor color is different. I try’d doing a shade first and then came back with the normal base color getting a more natural shading done. Worked not as good as I have hoped and learned I really need to push the colors into haveing more contrast, deeper shaded colors and brighter then the base color for a sence of highlight. Next time I sure try to push this more.

Next I started using my paint brush again. Adding the blacks, white, gold etc. Following most of my paint scheme I posted in my Part 9: 5 man Space Marines Squad Miniatuur schilderen aanvalsplan! blog post.

And there I learned making the mistakes on the airbrush parts will be something I have to face. Mainly because I didn’t like the intensity of the shade I added my old mix of wash in the cracks of the miniature. But wash always spills when you try to do it fast paced. Fixing that meant going over with the base color on the neat Airbrush plates and so I eventually needed to do a layer of paint brush paint on everything… gone was my base color…

See the compare after adding those shades and redoing the armor plates, it’s back to beeing dull again.

So far my Airbrush painting experiences. For now I’m mainly focused on priming Which I think is time well spent. You have a more natural base with little shade already, don’t need to cover it 100% right. Then next time I try to do the base color so I don’t need to shade with wash anymore. Hoping the miniature will look more dope after that. I do think I will be doing edge highlighting for that heavy metal look I have going, but not sure yet, depands on what I will reach with the Airbrush.

Also next I’ll be using it on some scenery. Have some stuff I like to build and ofcourse then it’s time for painting the big stuff. See if I truely become buddy’s with this hobby-toy of mine.

Cleaning and maintanance

Coming back a bit on the cleaning and maintance part of the compare and how to it is something you just need to acknownledge you will be spending time doing so or if not, better not go for Airbrush at all if you ask me.

So Maintanance I already have a experience with that one. After two sessions of happy-spaying and cleaning afterwards I try’d assembling the Airbrush itself back togheter. But the tip of the nozzle didn’t go back into place. Eventually I found out it had broken off within the tip itself. So there we where, back to having nothing.

I inmidently decided to buy myself a new set of these and better get myself some different sizes aswell. Still went for the cheapest set I could find of a 0.05, 0.03 and 0.02 needle and nozzle set. Use a very tiny screwdriver to get te broken remainder out of the tip and all was well again.

Lesson, don’t screw stuff on to hard or it will break! hahahaha

I guess, it’s because I have this cheap version what they call a Airbrush. But still, there are tons of small parts and from now on I try to be more carefull with everything I touch. It’s good as long as you don’t use it like a hammer tool right.

Second, the cleaning. I described already I’m using a Sonic Cleaner. Now a little step by step to make it more easy.

1. Spray out all the paint into to cup. Add some Distilled water and keep on spaying a bit longer.
2. Stop the machine, it’s going to be hot so watch out you don’t burn yourself. Do leave the air in the machine for now.
3. First I make sure the paint cup is all ready cleaned with just a paper towel.
4. Unscrew the airbrush from the hoze so the air stay’s in the compressor.
5. Open up the full airbrush, every part you can find. I made a image of mine to show it just beneath this list.
6. I add the cleaning fluid to my Sonic Cleaner and trow in the pieces I marked with the cleaning symbol in my photo. After a few miniutes it will be done.
7. Inspect the parts, rub of any left access with a towel, it will come of directly.
8. Put it togheter again and add a bit of Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner in the paint cup. Spay it out in your pot.
9. Then I let the raiming air out of the compressor trough the compressor it self. Under the glass valve I push the nipple up and all air will be gone in a few seconds.

So that sums up my first taste of Airbrush goodness. I sure keep on working with it and keep learning. Eventually I’m not giving up on the idea I will be able to do smaller detail stuff aswell. Then again, accepted I needed to clean my brushes from time to time too so both have there ups and downs and will be used accodingly.

One more pro-tip I forgot about and learned trough my buddy Marijn is thinning the paint directly into your cup. Just put your thumb on the front, let the air flow and push the switch a bit toward you as if you where spaying paint. You will see the air run back into the cup and mixing (bubbles!) all your paint and Distilled water 🙂 Works just fine for me.

Hope you enjoyed this read and keep save still!

Also leave a comment about your experiences and tell me if my English sucks to much or I should continue writing like this (and maybe like a miracle improve my gain…)

Till my next post, guess about new gaming experiences I have had the last few weeks playing Space Marine Ultramarines 4 times in a short time. We, for the first time, faced our nemasis, the filty ORKS!!!!

Cheers, Roland