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If you have a clog the first step is to take a paper towel, put some airbrush cleaner on it and give the needle a wipe (it probably has paint in it which blocks the path of air around the needle). If that's not working then you empty your paint out, rinse it out with water then spray water and/or airbrush cleaner from the cup and through the front. If it's still clogged then you unscrew the back and take the needle out and look if there's paint on it and give it a wipe from back to front (to avoid potentially stabbing yourself and/or bending the needle going front to back) with a paper towel with airbrush cleaner on it. This should handle basically any minor clog and is also the basic way of cleaning your airbrush after a session. You don't need an ultrasonic cleaner unless you really gunked stuff up in there.
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Mar 22, 2022 05:47
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Aranan posted:I'm still a relative airbrush noob. I had my first clog (?) today where air was coming out, but none of the primer was. I stripped the brush down and tossed it in my ultrasonic cleaner for a few cycles with a dash of airbrush cleaner and hot water. No clue if that's the ideal cleaning solution, but it looks like it worked. I do what Vince Venturella says and do primer:thinner 3:1 or 4:1 at 20psi. Note that his thinner is actually a mix of thinner and flow improver! I'm still new to airbrushes, but I have watched his videos and have had good success so far: Big huge airbrush video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJcgf31v5RU Fast cleaning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEIJs1c4bsQ \/\/ Wow, that looks amazing Lumpy fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Mar 22, 2022 |
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Mar 22, 2022 13:18
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Cross-posting from the historicals thread. I painted up this Bolt Action scale Chi-Ha with short barreled Naval Gun
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Mar 22, 2022 13:19
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I don't have the video link handy, but on YouTube there's a dude that goes by Barbatos Rex that has a very extensive video about how to airbrush water-based acrylics, including acrylic primers, successfully. Water-based acrylics through an airbrush can be a bit more finicky compared to enamels/lacquers, or acrylics that use some kind of solvent instead of water (such as the Tamiya alcohol-based acrylics). They generally either need to be thinned (even ones that say they're "airbrush ready"); or else if they're unthinned, then they need to be sprayed at a higher PSI and potentially a larger needle might be needed as well (like a .3mm or even up to a .5mm needle and nozzle). And when it comes to thinning them, you have to be careful what type of thinners you use, depending on the paint (for example, Vallejo generally doesn't play well with an alcohol-based thinner). My general rule of thumb for primers is to spray unthinned but at a higher PSI. I think Stynylrez recommends something like 35 PSI or so. The various Vallejo Air and Army Painter Air paints I've tried unthinned have been pretty successful between 30-35 PSI as well. I've also been experimenting with airbrushing cheap craft paints/artists paints (like the ones you get in a tube) that I thin with windshield wiper fluid, and they also spray pretty well at that PSI. My understanding is that you'd use a lower PSI and thin your paints more if you want to use a smaller needle for fine detail work; for priming and basecoating a bigger needle and higher PSI should be fine. (E: this depends on the original thickness of your paint, of course; some paints like the cheap ones I mentioned absolutely have to be thinned, regardless of how high the PSI is, they're just too thick to spray otherwise.) Also, remember when airbrushing water-based acrylics to do several light passes at a distance, until the paint has "keyed" to itself, like at least four or five passes. Then the last couple of passes you can get in closer and go a little heavier. Sydney Bottocks fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 22, 2022 |
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Mar 22, 2022 19:20
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Sydney Bottocks posted:Also, remember when airbrushing water-based acrylics to do several light passes at a distance, until the paint has "keyed" to itself, like at least four or five passes. Then the last couple of passes you can get in closer and go a little heavier. Your whole post is very useful and I appreciate it, but to ask about this part specifically: When I see "spot highlights", or a spray on just one part (say, a kneepad on a Space marine), how would you hit those spots if you're spraying passes at a distance? I'm at the point a basic zenithal is in my skill level but fades and stuff are basically space magic
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Mar 22, 2022 22:48
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BaronVanAwesome posted:Your whole post is very useful and I appreciate it, but to ask about this part specifically: Short answer? You don't. Those small bits like the Space Marine kneepad would have to be done with a fine detail airbrush (like a .2mm needle and nozzle). At that point your main concern is getting the part painted without a bunch of overspray hitting surrounding areas. So unless you block the other areas off with masking tape (which is another possible way to do it), you would be focusing more on getting as close to the small detail object/area as possible. Brent from Goobertown Hobbies has a good example of how to do this in his "You Need an Airbrush" video, where he paints the talons, teeth, and even eyes (!) of a wargaming-scale dragon with an airbrush. The "light passes" method I'm referring to is more for basic priming and basecoating. One mistake I made a lot back in 2015 when I first started using airbrushes for minis, was just blasting acrylic paint onto them like it was from a spray can. And because I didn't do quick light passes, the paints and primers just beaded up and ran off and it took me way longer to get stuff primed and basecoated than it should've. Now I do quick, light passes, and use the airbrush to air dry the coats in between each one, and it's a literal joy to do now. 
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Mar 22, 2022 23:37
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w00tmonger posted:Is what I'm seeing just the pigment settling? Id think that with mixer balls and my vortex mixer id be able to avoid most of it. Most likely and ya the vortex and mixer balls definitely help when you want to shake them up but won't do much when the paint sits for long periods of time, as you know. Anyway, try sitting a few of them upright and see if it makes a difference?
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Mar 23, 2022 00:28
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Sydney Bottocks posted:blasting acrylic paint onto them like it was from a spray can ... Have you been watching me paint?
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Mar 23, 2022 01:09
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For partial figures that are in a vehicle ( storm speeder), can I get away with just painting them instead of priming? I just want to get the model finished, and then go back to the hell that is the Valkyrie. With the Valkyrie I can’t attach one of the crew to the door gun and I still don’t know how that thing fits (and damaged part of the tab on the gun, but luckily with the handle it’s fine). I’m just going to put the handles on both of them, so I don’t need to worry about it. It also stinks that it’s hard to find any sort of build video about this, except for one dude who did a longform stream, but doesn’t have a good camera angle… and also kept talking about how much he hates his father and family and it was depressing. I’m also wondering if I should just prime it on the sprew. Oh does anyone have any suggestions for how to make the interior of the home look decent but not spend tons of time doing each individual button and wire in a particular way. I’m thinking just pick what looks cool and not worry about things matching up or being uniform. It’s just kind of a frustrating build, because I feel like I have to do a ton of painting before I can even build it. It’s almost tempted to go with the idea, that someone here or the 40K suggested, about just sealing up the doors and panel in the back and not worry about it.
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Mar 23, 2022 01:26
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 Gotta figure out how to make some of these silver spots on the metal to look more like bullet holes
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Mar 23, 2022 06:51
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GreenBuckanneer posted:
just enlarge the picture
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Mar 23, 2022 07:25
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BaronVanAwesome posted:just enlarge the picture I don't understand
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Mar 23, 2022 16:47
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A 227 x 237 photo is not large enough to offer you advice because the parts you're asking about are perhaps three pixels wide at most.
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Mar 23, 2022 16:53
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grassy gnoll posted:A 227 x 237 photo is not large enough to offer you advice because the parts you're asking about are perhaps three pixels wide at most. Oh, sometimes the imgur upload in the awful app fails like that and I missed it 
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Mar 23, 2022 16:57
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Mutant Headcrab posted:I always liked the old Crab Power Claw the best. Looks snippy! I don’t know how practical it would be, but the shape serves the model well!
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Mar 23, 2022 16:57
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GreenBuckanneer posted:Oh, sometimes the imgur upload in the awful app fails like that and I missed it The middle of your silver spot bullet holes should be black or a dark color to provide depth to the illusion of a hole and/or you can drill some holes into the armor and hobby knife the edges and then paint something that has natural dimensions instead of faking it on a flat surface. The painted or real holes do not need to be perfect circles because you can have rounds impacting at angles also.
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Mar 23, 2022 17:37
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Bullets that deflect or fail to penetrate might also strip paint in streaks.
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Mar 23, 2022 17:57
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If I use cheap Apple Barrel matte acrylic paint on a model, am I going to make myself hate painting? I want to get into the hobby, but the price is too prohibitive. I get second hand official miniatures and possibly looking at 3D printed models so I'm trying to cut costs anywhere I can to make it reasonable. Not sure if I should start with the cheap stuff or wait to hit the lottery. I guess my main question is: Where is it ok to cut costs in this hobby when it comes to painting?
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Mar 23, 2022 18:43
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Roshambo posted:If I use cheap Apple Barrel matte acrylic paint on a model, am I going to make myself hate painting? I want to get into the hobby, but the price is too prohibitive. I get second hand official miniatures and possibly looking at 3D printed models so I'm trying to cut costs anywhere I can to make it reasonable. Not sure if I should start with the cheap stuff or wait to hit the lottery. Its possible, but kind of a pain in the arse to make it look reasonable. Bases, terrain, that sort of thing, craft paints are fine, but actual miniatures... Thinning them to the right consistance that you dont lose detail is tough and would be doubly so for a beginner who doesnt know the consistency they should be shooting for. Every now and then a video with some hobby youtuber or other painting figures with craft paints crosses my recommendations, but its worth bearing in mind; They are doing it because its an unusual thing to do (which gets clicks) and also they are doing painting videos for a living so have an absolute shitload of experience with mini painting. I'll cheap out on brushes all day every day and paint terrain with house paint tester pots and cheapo craft paint and undercoat everything with pound shop car primer, but when it comes to actual mini paints... Now, with that said, if your alternative is not painting, then gently caress it, give it a shot. Seek out some of those videos I mentioned and see if there is any useful information. If it looks awful you can always strip it back later, and it will at least give you some experience and let you know if this is a hobby you would enjoy that it would be worth investing some money in down the road. No point spending any money if it turns out you hate it! I would say that you might need fewer paints than you maybe think, depending on what you are wanting to paint, and also you can save a little bit by shopping around online and/or being brand agnostic with your paint collection which you can build up as and when you need a colour/have the money. SiKboy fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Mar 23, 2022 |
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Mar 23, 2022 19:01
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Craft paints are not recommended for mini painting, the pigments are too coarse and the finish will likely be uneven. If you just want to get some practice or are desperate to get something on the table go for it, but don't set your expectations very high. If you're just starting out and looking to save money, I would suggest only buying a few basic colors and then mixing them to make your other shades. Start with a good Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, Orange Purple/Magenta, Black, White, Brown, and silver. Vallejo Game Color is a good choice, a bottle is around $3 each so that set will cost about $30. (or just buy the vallejo starter set for a few dollars more to get a full 16 color set) Mixing paints is really easy, put a couple of drops of your lighter color onto a pallet (something waterproof, like a plastic container can be used for a super cheap pallet) and then place a drop of your darker color next to it and use your brush to slowly bring them together to get the intermediate shade you want. WIth a bit of practice you can get just about any color of the rainbow by mixing your core 10 colors, it's a super useful skill even if you have every color of paint from every line available to you. 10 colors, some spray primer, a decent golden taklon synthetic watercolor brush in size 1 or 2 and a coffee cup of clean water and there's nothing you can't paint. Total cost ~$50
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Mar 23, 2022 19:04
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I started off with craft paints, dollar store minis and cheap brushes from Walmart. They need to be thinned quite a bit and can be inconsistent from color to color, but it's not an awful way to start without spending too much money. You won't be winning any awards with that setup, but you'll probably be able to figure out if the hobby is for you for under $20. I say go for it!
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Mar 23, 2022 19:10
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I'll also chime in to say that if you have a local independent art supply store (unlikely but) they may sell lightly used supplies and might be worth a gander. ed: there is a store local to me that does this
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Mar 23, 2022 19:13
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Roshambo posted:If I use cheap Apple Barrel matte acrylic paint on a model, am I going to make myself hate painting? I want to get into the hobby, but the price is too prohibitive. I get second hand official miniatures and possibly looking at 3D printed models so I'm trying to cut costs anywhere I can to make it reasonable. Not sure if I should start with the cheap stuff or wait to hit the lottery. You can paint with craft paints, Goobertown Hobbies did a video on it recently. If you like the hobby and see yourself continuing, investing in miniature paints is a good idea (I'd probably suggest starting with a skin tone and a good quality black/gray/white). But if you're just starting out, craft paints work fine. You won't wind up with perfect blends or anything, but it's doable. I actually still use a couple of craft paints for my bases because I find the chalkiness of the paint a benefit for painting rocks. Just remember you'll want to thin craft paints with water and do multiple coats. This is a skill you'll need/want to use with mini paints too, so getting the hang of it with craft paint first is fine.
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Mar 23, 2022 19:21
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Marshal Prolapse posted:For partial figures that are in a vehicle ( storm speeder), can I get away with just painting them instead of priming? I just want to get the model finished, and then go back to the hell that is the Valkyrie. I definitely wish I had sealed up my Valkyrie instead of putting a ton of work into the interior and door gunners. You can hardly see the gunners from any angle when the wings are on and overhanging them let alone any of the inside. +1 to the idea of not bothering and doing something fun instead!
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Mar 23, 2022 19:31
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I appreciate the variety of advice given is response to my original question. I guess I can't really go wrong as long as the end result is me painting.Bucnasti posted:If you're just starting out and looking to save money, I would suggest only buying a few basic colors and then mixing them to make your other shades. Does it matter that the finish type is listed as gloss for the starter kit? A friend of mine said to use matte specifically for 40k miniatures.
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Mar 23, 2022 19:42
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One of my players and my roommate both mostly paint minis with craft paint and their results are amazing. Somehow. I think they may be wizards.
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Mar 23, 2022 20:33
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Craft paints are awesome but you need to prime white.
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Mar 23, 2022 20:45
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Oh hey, a discussion about painting minis with craft paints!  Over the years I've used both craft paints and "hobby" paints (Vallejo, GW, Army Painter, etc), and so I can say without fear of contradiction that there is no one single range where every single paint works perfectly 100% of the time. And that includes craft paints. I've had craft paints that worked perfectly fine out of the bottle with just a little thinning. I've had hobby paints that were terrible from the moment they were opened. There's no need to limit yourself to just one range, unless you are following a particular paint guide that uses specific paints or something like that. And craft paints are certainly cheap enough that they're worth experimenting with. If you don't like them, you're out a couple of bucks at most. Craft paints are really good for terrain (seriously, don't waste your expensive hobby paints on your terrain features; spend a few bucks and get a bunch of black, gray, and brown craft paints for your terrain, along with a few other colors to pick out details as desired). They're also really good for basing, and I tend to have at least three or four craft paints in different shades of gray for use in painting a dungeon floor, for example. I would even go so far as to recommend them for basecoating, especially if you're doing a big army that's primarily a main color like a Space Marine army; find a shade that's close to the shade you want, basecoat away, pick out details, wash and highlight as needed, and you're done all having spent about half (or less) the cost of the much smaller hobby paint bottle. You can even thin them down and airbrush 'em! Just get some plastic dropper bottles, some sort of agitators to put in them, some craft paints and a jug of windshield washer fluid. Do a mix of 60% washer fluid to 40% craft paint, mix it up, and you have some cheap airbrush-ready paint. One thing I want to experiment with now I have a decent airbrush compressor setup, is to take some of the lighter-colored satin and gloss finish craft paints and airbrush them over a figure, to see how well they work as an undercoat for Contrast and Speedpaint paints (at least, once I get my hands on some of the latter paints). Contrast (and Speedpaints too, from what I've seen) need a satin or glossy finish to work well, and there's a ton of satin and glossy craft paints out there to experiment with. Well, that's my two cents, thanks for listening 
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Mar 23, 2022 20:46
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I've had great success shooting craft paints thinned with medium and dH2O.
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Mar 23, 2022 21:10
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Zihuatanejo posted:I definitely wish I had sealed up my Valkyrie instead of putting a ton of work into the interior and door gunners. You can hardly see the gunners from any angle when the wings are on and overhanging them let alone any of the inside. +1 to the idea of not bothering and doing something fun instead! You can put a Valkyrie together so that you can lift the top of the roof off and look inside for display. I did it for mine but my painting skills aren't really up to much so it wasn't worth it.
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Mar 23, 2022 23:06
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I need a quick refresher, what's a good ratio of paint to water for base coats? 1:5? 1:10?
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Mar 24, 2022 00:05
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Zihuatanejo posted:I definitely wish I had sealed up my Valkyrie instead of putting a ton of work into the interior and door gunners. You can hardly see the gunners from any angle when the wings are on and overhanging them let alone any of the inside. +1 to the idea of not bothering and doing something fun instead! Thank you. I’m going to go with that option. I really want to get to the fun part and start building the main part of the model.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:09
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CapnAndy posted:I need a quick refresher, what's a good ratio of paint to water for base coats? 1:5? 1:10? It depends on the paint down to the brand, and even the particular colour. But for brushing on with miniature paints, 1:1 is about right. The general advice is mix a bit of water on a palette until you get a skim milk consistency. It's really then a matter of experiment and preference.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:50
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Beffer posted:It depends on the paint down to the brand, and even the particular colour. But for brushing on with miniature paints, 1:1 is about right.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:52
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"Two thin coats" is a rule of thumb to the point of being a cliche but ultimately you want paint that goes on that doesn't leave any visible brush strokes.
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Mar 24, 2022 02:09
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This is a fun little retrospective: here's one of my first minis, painted in August 2020 And then here's a Konrad Curze that I finished up just minutes ago:   SUPER happy with it. And it's wonderful to look back and see how much I've grown as a painter in a year and a half or so.
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Mar 24, 2022 04:26
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Roshambo posted:I appreciate the variety of advice given is response to my original question. I guess I can't really go wrong as long as the end result is me painting. The Vallejo game color works very well and seems to be more of a matte than gloss, so I think that portion of the Amazon info is wrong. I would say the black can seem a little too satin for me sometimes, but it I don't think it is gloss. The Vallejo Game color line is the direct competition with GWs paints, hence the weird names. They will work well for you, and the bottle dropper design makes mixing a lot easier.
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Mar 24, 2022 05:53
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Welp I did it, after a few weeks of thinking about it I pulled the trigger on buying a set of Artis Opus Series S brushes (and forgot to apply a 10% email discount to boot). Hopefully I don't get a bad roll of the dice and end up with low-end/high-cost brushes because of kolinksy sables. Count Thrashula posted:This is a fun little retrospective: here's one of my first minis, painted in August 2020 It's awesome how much you can progress in just a short amount of time with practice. Nicely done. Where's that Curze model from? AndyElusive fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 18:26
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Sydney Bottocks posted:Craft paints are really good for terrain (seriously, don't waste your expensive hobby paints on your terrain features; spend a few bucks and get a bunch of black, gray, and brown craft paints for your terrain, along with a few other colors to pick out details as desired). They're also really good for basing, and I tend to have at least three or four craft paints in different shades of gray for use in painting a dungeon floor, for example. I've found that latex house paints - the sample sizes you get from Home Depot or Lowes - work beautifully for terrain; they're cheap, flexible, water down nicely with paint and airbrush without too much difficulty. When I tried to cut craft paint with Windex to airbrush it, I kept getting massive clogs because, I think, craft paint has some kind of additive in it that makes it dry quickly, which causes jams in airbrushes. I believe that Home Depot only does satin finish for its sample paints, but you can easily knock off the shine by using a matte sealant. Another useful thing about using craft paint is that you can paint an index card with a GW / Vallejo paint and have them color-match it. If you want an 8 oz tub of Zandri Dust with a slight shine, that's entirely possible.
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Mar 24, 2022 21:46
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Roshambo posted:I get second hand official miniatures and possibly looking at 3D printed models so I'm trying to cut costs anywhere I can to make it reasonable. Another fun thing to do is grab the $1 disney/pixar/he-man type mini's from the dollar store. They take primer just fine and have some detail, and with a hobby knife you can cut them up and customize them. The dollar tree near me also sells a lot of other cheap hobby stuff- hobby knife blades for $1, crayola model magic that after it hardens you can just coat in a little super glue and paint over, (some, size 2 is the smallest i've seen) brushes, paints, other stuff you can use to practice on or whatever. Ollie's for cheap spray primers. https://www.dollartree.com/monsters-inc-mini-fig/303239 https://www.dollartree.com/mattel-micro-collection-masters-the-universe-mini-figurines/328550 Look how fun those look to chop up and paint and what not.
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Mar 25, 2022 00:01
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