Confused about Iwata's various lines....

Malky and Dave G are spot on when it comes the iwata HP series I personally prefer side feeds so my go to airbrush is a side feed HP SB + it has the same set up as the HP B+ and preforms as good as my CM SB v2 but I like the CM just a bit better but not much and if I had to I could do with only the HP SB+
 
You also need to take into consideration the paint you use, some paints even specific to airbrush have heavier pigments and therefore may struggle through smaller nozzles even with lots of thinning, some brands use heavier pigments

This is a good point about pigment size. This is why there is Wicked “detail” paint, vs regular Wicked. The pigment is ground much finer, like is also the case with Createx Illustration Colors and others.

Atomization plays a roll as well. The finer the atomization, the more pigment particles in a concentrated area. Dots per inch. That’s how a Micron can achieve a crisp, dark, fine line.
 
This might sound contradictory to what myself and others have said but at the same time if your brush/paint combo feels like a hinderance it could be. You'll only know when/if you try one and you're like wow! this is sooo much easier.
I wouldn't go spending micron money right away but a hp-b something or equivalent could make life easier
 
Thanks a lot to all of you, for lending your expertise and sharing your experience. I will let you know once I upgraded my airbrush if there has been a real improvement right away. I may wait a bit with this step (maybe as long as by the end of this year) and see whether the potential of the sparmax has been truly fathomed or if I could push the envelope further.
 
Thanks a lot to all of you, for lending your expertise and sharing your experience. I will let you know once I upgraded my airbrush if there has been a real improvement right away. I may wait a bit with this step (maybe as long as by the end of this year) and see whether the potential of the sparmax has been truly fathomed or if I could push the envelope further.

Play around with reductions and make sure your current brush definitely clean, some of I us will clean them several times after use, I see in your sugnature you're using Golden paints, this could be the reason for your problems, I know from experiejce that golden can be finicky especially with darker colours and some greens, there is a chart somewhere on the Golden website detailing recommended nozzle size for certain colours, they recommend 0.3 for umber.

Let us know what brush you choose when the time comes:)
 
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I can only now echo what the others have said.
play around with your paints, change your reductions and pressure. Find that sweet spot that the brush likes. I have no experience with the Golden paints but from what Malky is saying your needle may be to small to accomodate the larger pigment size.

I know its frustrating but you really do need to learn both the brushes likes/dislikes and the nuances of your current paint.

I have Iwata Eclipse , High Performance and Custom Micron brushes and they all behave differently with the identical paint (Createx Illustration), reduction & pressure. It can take me 5 minutes to 'dial in' each brush to its sweet spot for the day, (which will change from day to day for me)
I have an H&S infinity that hates Createx !

Your Sparmax Sp-20X has the .2 needle should be capable of doing some decent fine lines when you get it dialed in with the right paint.
 
I can only now echo what the others have said.
play around with your paints, change your reductions and pressure. Find that sweet spot that the brush likes. I have no experience with the Golden paints but from what Malky is saying your needle may be to small to accomodate the larger pigment size.

I know its frustrating but you really do need to learn both the brushes likes/dislikes and the nuances of your current paint.

I have Iwata Eclipse , High Performance and Customlines and they all behave differently with the identical paint (Createx Illustration), reduction & pressure. I have an H&S infinity that hates Createx ! It can take me 5 minutes to 'dial in' each brush to its sweet spot for the day, (which will change from day to day for me)

Your Sparmax Sp-20X has the .2 needle should be capable of doing some decent fine lines when you get it dialed in with the right paint.

You, JackEb, and everybody else in this forum, convinced me that the onus is on me (or rather, the paint / reduction / pressure configuration). I admit I haven't spent a lot of time working on that - normally I use everything straight from the Golden High-Flow bottle. I will now embark on my reductionist journey in search of a finer line. Thanks to everybody!!!
 
This is interesting as I'll be buy a new brush soon too, I started out with the paashe VL and have a BCS, had the nozzle soaking so I got the VL out for a ride, so big and bulky compared to the iwata, but people did some amazing work with those back in the day, it's all the more impressive considering what they had to work with back then.
I've heard of the sweet spot - "tuning in" with your airbrushing and I think I finally found it on my bcs, I want to pull back ever so slightly and have paint come out but I found it takes a little more feel to it, now I'm starting to get the hang of reverse daggers, and practice trying to see how fine a line I can get out of a .5 nozzle, I'll probably do a gradual upgrade maybe go to a .3 nozzle, think I'm digging the SB plus for my next gun, I use cups for the bcs so I think side feed might suit me, kind of funny as a painter I've seldom used a gravity feed spray gun.
 
You're talking about the white right??? lollollol Nothing worse than having those dry dots flying off the tip of your needle:cry::laugh:
That’s a big headache every time I use white. It slows down painting quite a bit (every second or third spray, I have to “empty” the tip with a blast , or I will have white spots all over the painting). Again, I am not sure if this is intrinsic for the Sparmax, or if it is a normal issue for all ABs when using White Golden Highflow.
 
That’s a big headache every time I use white. It slows down painting quite a bit (every second or third spray, I have to “empty” the tip with a blast , or I will have white spots all over the painting). Again, I am not sure if this is intrinsic for the Sparmax, or if it is a normal issue for all ABs when using White Golden Highflow.
about every brand of paint ive tried does that to some degree with white
 
White is infamous for tip dry, some brands more than others.
Give the brush a good clean, then try another colour,
Or if you can pick up a small bottle of another reputable airbrush paint.

What brands do you have available to you nearby ?
 
White is infamous for tip dry, some brands more than others.
Give the brush a good clean, then try another colour,
Or if you can pick up a small bottle of another reputable airbrush paint.

What brands do you have available to you nearby ?

Thanks a lot for your concern, JackEb. I don’t have a physical store or dealer nearby, but I also haven’t really looked. I purchase online, from Taobao (Alibaba’s B/C2C site). I can get nearly everything there including import products. It’s just a matter of price. I initially went with Golden Highflow as they appeared to have a decent palette and were available - online - easily.
 
Thanks a lot for your concern, JackEb. I don’t have a physical store or dealer nearby, but I also haven’t really looked. I purchase online, from Taobao (Alibaba’s B/C2C site). I can get nearly everything there including import products. It’s just a matter of price. I initially went with Golden Highflow as they appeared to have a decent palette and were available - online - easily.

You'll find just about every airbrush white will be far harder to work with than any other colours in the same range, I personally have little patience with the whites so I normally will only use white for mixing other colours along with the primaries, I will usually rely on the white of my substrate by either keeping it clean or erasing/scratching back to it, on the odd occasion I might use masking fluid but just for awkward things like tiny highlights in eyes and such, I may if needed use white at the end of a project to emphasise dull or out of focus highlights, but a fear of "blue shift" which depresses me is another reason I avoid using white, for this reason I also avoid using black and will complete a whole painting in a dark umber colour and either use black or darken the umber further with blue at the end depending on which is more suited to the project I'm working on.

I don't know if there is any truth in it but I have heard that the old Golden airbrush colours white works better than the High flow ones, but again I would prefer to avoid it as I do rather than spend money to find out.

Have a look to see if you can find either E'tac paints or iwata's media Com-Art paints, if I could find single bottles of Com-Art here I would be using those myself.
 
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...normally I use everything straight from the Golden High-Flow bottle.

Oh, that is definitely a good chunk of the problem right there. I use Golden HF with a .35 setup in my Eclipse, and I'd never use the stuff unthinned. I've tried it, and it wasn't pretty or fun. I'm usually reluctant to go below a 1/3 paint/reducer mix, and usually get best atomization at around 1/5 (though this does result in pretty thin layering).

The only paint I've ever tried that actually could be used straight out of the bottle w/ no reduction was liquid watercolor. I've occasionally seen other people claim they do this w/ the same paints and brushes I use, but based on my experiences I think they're telling fish stories (that, or they have what I would consider Piigpen hygiene level standards for atomization quality and clog frequency).
 
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