Basic Airbrushing TutorialThis tutorial will discuss the basics for airbrushing. Many of the basic has already been demonstrated in the primer tutorial. So this tutorial will focus on spraying color; for the purpose of following the build layers chart. Start with mixing the paint. A rough starting point of about 60% thinner to 40% paint is my typical start point. Depending on the final mixed consistency, I will either add more thinner or add more paint. The normal consistency I use is close to milk. It is best to test out the mixture through the airbrush. If you get sputtering, the mixture is too rich and you need more thinner. If you spray the mixture and it is not sticking very well to the surface and is generally very watery, the mixture is too thin and you need more paint in the mixture. The more you paint and mix, the more comfortable you will be with what works best for you. Please only use this as a rough guideline.
Below is a video showing my mixing technique. I use a medical glass eye dropper found at your local drug store. I like the glass as I use lacquer based paints and cleaning these dropper is easier. The droppers also provide fairly good measuring, this helps in mixing custom paint colors as well.
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Next up is spraying the part. The technique is similar to spraying primer, first spray on a light tacky coat, this will look like small dots on the surface, or a very light looking coat; this is normal. What is happening here is that this light coat is going to start sticking onto the surface and create a buffer zone for the following layers of paint. Once the tacky coat is on, you can go and spray heavier. If you start off heavy, the paint will just slide around and not stick onto the surface. Also notice that I am moving both the part and the airbrush, this is to keep the airbrush paint flow from concentrating on a single area for too long and creating puddles of paint.
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Below is the resulting picture for spraying on the base color coat:
Below is another example with a different part. The same process and techniques are used.
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And the corresponding painted part:
Base coat for Metallics
Below is a video of base coating parts for a metallic paint job. This follows the second build layer chart for painting metallics. After priming, the base coat has to be a gloss black. The potential in metallic paints are fully utilized over a gloss black base. For this example, I am using Finisher's Pure Black which is a lacquer based gloss black. As with spraying primer and paint, I am going to spray on a light tacky coat first, then spray heavier on top of the tacky layer.
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Once the gloss black base color has cured, the alclad metallic is sprayed. For this example, I'm using Alclad Steel. Alclad paints are lacquer based, so it is important to take that into account when choosing the proper base gloss black - ie if you use an acrylic, the alclad will eat it, and you are left with an interesting paint mess. The alclad paint is also prethinned, meaning there is no need to thin the paint further, and the stuff is simply poured into the airbrush and ready to paint right out of the bottle. Below is a video showing an internal frame piece painted with Alclad Steel:
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Airbrush Cleaning
The airbrush I am using is an Iwata HP-C. The design of the nozzle makes it very easy to clean my airbrush after each use. After spraying paints, I pour out the left over and then wipe the cup with a paper towel. Next, I pour some lacquer thinner (keen strip brand from my local hardware store). Turing the nozzle a couple of turns, this creates a block for liquid in the cup. Pressing down on the trigger to first get the air flow going, then pulling back on the trigger to release the liquid, the thinner is then cycled through the airbrush effectively flushing through it and cleaning the airbrush. The same technique can be used if you can create an airtight seal around the nozzle of the airbrush. Once the thinner has flushed through the airbrush for a couple of cycles, I spray the thinner out into a collecting jar (airbrush cleaning station).
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Once you get the hang of this technique, swapping out paints takes less than a minute.
April 8, 2008: Revamped this with a basic airbrushing tutorial, replacing the old tutorial. Updated videos and added a section for airbrush cleaning.