Wot!... a, 'Fish Tank', Water-Tank', Tank-Top ?? ... is there anything that you wont paint ?

Mark

Kiltie's oops I mean Highlanders especially those cheap little tartan dolls they sell to the tourists in Edinburgh "made in Hong Kong "

I'm starting to use an airbrush on some of my figures as well. I've never used one so I've got a lot of learning before I try it on any of the 'nice' figures. But yes, people even use airbrushes on 28mm figures... so just about anything is possible. I think that's more for base coating and basic shading, then they follow it up with a brush for detail work... but don't feel you can only use it on the 'big' figures. Like JasonB said, everything I've seen also says use a white primer if you're airbrushing.

Oh, and here's one tip I got that I thought was pretty neat. If you're just starting and want to work on your control use your airbrush on an old coloring book.

Oh, and here's one tip I got that I thought was pretty neat. If you're just starting and want to work on your control use your airbrush on an old coloring book.[/quote]
I have used in the past a piece of hardboard board painted white. When it is getting full I repaint it with household white emulsion and it's ready to again. I tried the paper idea but found for me it acts a bit like blotting paper and makes it very difficult to see the width of spray pattern and also with some colours it can 'Bleach' the colours giving a missleading idea of colour shade and densitey. Guess who found out the hard way.....

an airbrush is like any tool.I use mine for various different models,and effects etc.

I would have sworn I had replied in this topic, but apparently, I hadn't.

There's no reason not to use an airbrush for figures, and many good reasons have been given by our fellow Planeteers. I have just used mine for the first time on some figures, a pair of 1/20 resin figures from Scale 120 for Maschinen Krieger. It was an experiment, because I knew I had relatively larger areas to cover, and I wanted to see how evenly the paint would go on. The experiment worked pretty well, pretty much what I expected. Here's the first figure, Helen, a mercenary from the MaK 'verse:





For her pants, I used my Paasche VL to apply Tamiya acrylic Flat Khaki as the base color. Here's the other figure, Gertie, a pilot for the bad guys, the Strahl Demokratische Republik:





For her uniform breeches, I used Tamiya flat acrylic NATO Black. The scheme I'm applying is based on the old Prussian uniform colors, and NATO Black is my go-to color for black in scale. Regular black is too dark to start.

The exercise was instructional, and I can see expanding use of the airbrush for figure work. But I will think seriously about masking, even when applying the first color. On Gertie, the NATO Black oversprayed onto the bottom of her tunic, and it's darkening the Andrea Prussian Blue that I'm applying by hand, which effect you can see here:



It's such a pain to try to correct this, that I've thought about stripping the paint and starting over, before I go any further and waste any effort.

One more word about using an airbrush with figures--visit Cody Kwok's site, Cody's Coop, http://codyscoop.com/ Cody paints a lot of anime figures in larger scales, as well as mecha subjects. He makes use of his airbrush often, especially for base coats of color and for applying skin tones, which he follows up with hand-brushing of various media for shading. It should give you an idea of what's possible, with the airbrush.

Prost!
Brad

PS-If you have an old jar of Tamiya acrylic Flat Aluminum, say, 20 years old, no amount of thinning will let you airbrush it successfully. Ask me how I know (he said, as he field-stripped the Paasche and cleaned the parts with lacquer thinner).

Been there, done that

Coming in late...
I do mostly 54 and 75mm figs but have been concidering an airbrush for doing horses, especially lighter ones... greys and dunns.

Any thoughts on an inexpensive model with the cup resevoir on top (would that be a gravity fed type?)

Colin

I don't really think there is a cheap way round this Colin, by the time you have payed for the compressor as well, it's gonna cost a few bucks to say the least.
They are good for getting a nice even undercoat with humbrols and Tamiya paints ,once you get it into your head that there will be more time spent cleaning than painting and masking

The other thing is ! if you paint in oils it gives a very fine smooth MATT coat of paint for the base colour.

Good DVD for beginners is "Airbrush Painting Techniques " By Jeff Illsley ,lot's of tips and hints , but the Tank guys are the boys to watch.

Ron

i like to use my airbrush for undercoating and under colour for flesh and horses then put oil paint on top it gives a smoother finish especially on faces

I found the David Fisher 'Modelmania' series (now available on DVD) very good for instructing me on using an airbrush and giving me the courage to have a go. I use mine mainly for fleshtones on nude figures and for draperies (cloaks etc) where the soft tones are hard to get any other way.

I know in theory you can do fine detailed work with an airbrush but I've yet to master the technique. Then there's always the 'poor man's airbrush' - (also covered in the David Fisher videos) brushing on ground pastels and pigments and sealing afterwards - I've had some good results with that.

I think every tool/item that some or most of figure modelers have been using, such as toothpick, cotton swab, tissue, hair drier, has its own use. Through I myself haven't had the chance to try airbrush on miniature figures, I did watch some videos from Scale75 on YouTube which show that it is an effective and quick way to use airbrush to do the base coat and preliminary layers of light (using a lighter color and airbrush it from the top of the figure) and shadow (using a darker color and airbrush it from the bottom of the figure). Of course, after that, you still need to get back to your brush to take care of deeper shadows and make the highlight stand out and all the other details that airbrush can hardly assist on.

Thanks for all the replies one and all. Hopefully my hints to santa about figures might be heard so I can start!

Sorry for the long break since my last post, but as usual several things have done there best to stop any modelling! As at the moment I am getting over a Knee problem I have had since Christmas ( and no, there was no alcahol involved! ) I'm going to have some spare time at last as I no longer have to visit the torture chamber ( physio ) I'm ordeing some Tommy's war figues to try. So, i'll see how I get on and let you know later