Airbrush reccomendations?

Looking at getting an airbrush and wondering what kind you folks might reccomend.

I was specifically looking at some bundles on Amazon. Anyone have any experience with this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Master-Airbrus...s=airbrush+kit

Or possibly this higher end one:

http://www.amazon.com/IWATA-Eclipse-...a+airbrush+kit

I do want to use these for model painting, not just basing or terrain. I'm trying to crank out models for my tabletop armies faster so I have more time for commissions and contest work.

I hate createx paints. I used these from warstore and they have worked for me.

http://www.thewarstore.com/BadgerAirbrush.html

Is that the brand of airbrush you use too?

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Originally Posted by GentleBen

Is that the brand of airbrush you use too?

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Ben,

Talk to Billy or Jim. They have a wealth of knowledge.

Main thing you want to look for is dual-action and gravity-fed. After that, Badgers and Pasches are good, Grex is good. Iwata is good but a bitch to replace parts if something breaks. I use an Iwata CM Eclipse. It's nice, but there are nearly microscopic parts in it that can wear down over the years and cost an arm and a leg to replace.

I have 2 Pasches and JW won a high end Badger at Adepti-Con a few years ago. The Badger is superior.

Thanks for responding everyone. I went with this Badger because as of this writing its on a lightning deal at fifty bucks.

http://www.amazon.com/Badger-Air-Bru...adger+airbrush

That's a damn good deal and cheap enough that if I decide I really like this airbrushing thing and decide to buy a more expensive brush, I won't feel like I wasted too much cash.

Thats a good Badger. I have been plenty satisfied with my Badger Krome. If I ever replaced it, it might be with a Patriot. I also use an ancient Badger 150 for most of my priming and coating. I like to change out the air-cap for one without the prongs. You'll need to be careful as nothing is left to protect the needle end - use your storage cap when not painting, or place the airbrush into your stand by the back end.

Some advice. Get some good airbrush paint made for minis. I have had much luck with the Vallejo model air, and I just received my Game Air paints, which I will be cracking into soon. You can mix down regular mini paints, but every single paint is different and it take a while to get comfortable with the variable results. IMO the Badger paints are crap. The transparent line are worse that the opaques.

If you are going to buy a compressor....and you should....get one with a tank. Skip the tank-less ones! If you are using a badger airbrush, Badger makes a hose with an inline filter - I recommend this as well.

Learn to make your own thinner. You will use a ton of it and it will get expensive. Its easy. I can get into that later if you want. I use a method very similar to this. The ingredients are alcohol, flow aid, drying retarder, and water. Get 90%+ alcohol. W&N and Liquitex both make a flow aid (surfactant). And everybody under the sun makes a liquid drying retarder (make sure you get a liquid one, most are).

Get yourself some good tools for cleaning and maintenance. This includes, a couple of irrigation bottles (one for thinner, one for alcohol/cleaner), a tip cleaner, a set of miniature bottle-brushes. A decent respirator mask - I got mine at Home-Depot. Something to hold your airbrush while its not in hand - I use an airbrush cleaning station. Lots of paper towels, some toothpicks, and some cotton swabs (Tamiya makes some smaller denser ones that come in real handy).

Couple other things. Some 3M masking tape (blue) and one or two sizes of Tamiya masking tape (Hobby town sells it), and some liquid mask - I think Vallejo's is best It comes in three bottle sizes, but you wont need much. Humbrol and a few other make some as well. The thinner stuff is better than the thicker stuff on figures. You can see Angel Giraldez using it in some of these pics.

EDIT: NOW WITH LINKS!

Yes to all above.

I have been looking forward to trying masking putty, here: http://www.pk-pro.de/index.php?a=5068

You can squish it thin to get a hard edge or round it for a softer airbrushed edge. Looks like it will be faster than tape. http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/20...ck-slayer.html

Can somebody save this thread. Please

I've added links to everything. Hope that helps.

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Originally Posted by RealGenius

I have been looking forward to trying masking putty, here: http://www.pk-pro.de/index.php?a=5068

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Have you ordered some yet? I would like to order some, but shipping is crazy. I wonder if it is better than just using silly putty.

Making this thread a sticky since this comes up a lot and billy added such great resources.

Thank you

There's also https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6NxHXwOWn94

So I'm not dead. I'll post all my AB stuff up later. First I have a full set of the Minitaire AB paints and they're great. For thinner I use Liquitex AB Medium. It's the best stuff out there and it has a lot of great utility to it. Finally I can't recommend Badger's Stynylrz Primers enough.

I do a lot of airbrushing myself. I've found the Iwata HP-C to be more than you need to do anything Wargaming related. Its probably scale model grade. If you're going a large amount of airbrushing or have a limited color pallet you might think about the HP-CS which is a bottom feed siphon airbrush, you can effectively mix up large batches of paint and do significant portions of you army at the same time. The HP-CS is great for vehicles for this reason. The Badger 105 is another brush worth looking at. Its on par with the Iwata, the parts are cheaper and easily obtained online.

Ryan