How many brushes while working

[Keith Clement]

Hello, my wife is wanting to start airbrushing. Her end goal is proficiency in face painting, fingernails, tattoo's and T-Shirts. She is a good artist with conventional art brushes / paint and now wants to expand her abilities. We have researched air brushes and compressors however can find nothing on the number of brushes " Normally" used on a work station at the same time so an artist can avoid stopped to flush and clean the brush each time a different color palette is needed or different size needle is required. So when you are working, how many brushes do you have attached to your compressor at the same time to more conveniently use different colors? Example.... fingernails 2 brushes, Face painting 4 brushes, tattoos 2 brushes

This question also leads into category, compressors. Do you use a compressor with or without a tank reservoir.

Thanks in advance for your help. I am sure we will be asking different questions as time goes by.

 

[JackEb]

Welcome.
Good on you for checking before purchasing.
Yes a tank is advised, a 'manifold' can be used to connect multiple hoses to one air source, and you'd likely only be using one brush at a time. The other alternative is getting "quick disconnect" male fittings for each brush and the female counterpart for the hose.

 

[markjthomson]

Hi Keith, easy one first, with a tank is better. For body work you want low pressure. Too high and you'll tattoo the skin... oops...

There are also specialized paints. If doing it commercially, you could do it OK with one brush, changing colour is quick but for real efficiency, one brush per colour.

As to brushes, the other thing you can do is use a syphon feed with different pots of colour and one for flushing. Disadvantage of syphon is they tend to need higher pressures to work.

Don't fall for cheap beginners kits... nasty and frustrating. The Iwata eclipse is a great work horse and a good starter brush.

 

[Vince Driver]

I have no input on the number of brushes but as for a compressor, go with a tank. I am fairly new here and bought a cheap starter kit with a compressor without a tank. Saving for a tanked one now, way to agrevating. Moisture tends to be a problem. I am running 3 moisture traps and still have issues.

 

[AndreZA]

Sounds like productivity is the main target here. You can attach as many airbrushes as you have connections, there is no limit. Each colour can have it's own gun. You will need a good compressor as waiting every hour for 30 minutes for the small ones to cool down will hinder productivity. And as what's been said already, tattoos/body painting is low pressure but t-shirts are high pressure.

 

[Mr.Micron]

Most of the old school T-shirt shops had 3 airbrush set up at each station. One with Black only and two to switch colors out on. Some did have one set up for just white but very few of them did that .
Face painters that set up at a local store that use an airbrush only have one.
It mainly depends on where you plan on setting up shop .
If you know you are going to have live power at the location then I strongly suggest a compressor something like the Silent-air 50. It is super silent and can keep up with non stop spraying.
But she will also have to look into different paints , Face painting and tattoos take a totally different paint then you use on anything else.
Wicked /Wixked Detail will work well for everything else . May need a enamel clear coat for those finger nails (I have never done fingernails )

But location your working in and local laws is also what you have to know before starting this venture .
Some states require you to have a special certification before being able to do face painting on kids.
Just somethings to check into.
Oh and everyone here will tell you that you will never have enough airbrushes They are an addiction LOL

 

[Squishy]

Yes a tank is a must, and if you are wanting to do this in public places, then I'm assuming noise will be an issue so check out the decibels. Quiet means more expensive, but you wont get many little kids wanting to sit through the noise of a comp kicking and in if its too loud.

I just use one brush at a time ( but am not working commercially), but I have seen 10+ on the go at once. I think if you had too many colours though, you may get issues with paint settling, or starting to dry out of it sat too long and wasn't used much. Plus you need to think about cleaning and maintaining. Too many and it could be easy to skimp on this, and you need to be thorough or you will have issues.

Also it depends on the type of brush you buy. Siphon fed need higher pressure so could mean more over spray and possibly not superfine detail (which as you need to drive paint into material isn't usual for T's or wanted for skin anyway), but can be good for colour changes, as you can swap out the paint bottles, just flush between colours.

 

[Keith Clement]

THANK YOU everyone for all the help. About the number of brushes, productivity or being fast isn't as important as quality work. A point well taken about the ink remaining in the bowel too long and causing problems. We just were not sure if using more than one color at a time was normal. Using conventional paints, my wife often uses several colors and brushes at the same time for her canvas painting. Just didn't know if that style of painting transitioned over to the air brush style of painting. My wife is a casual artist. Nothing full time. In all honesty I think she enjoys the creating more than wanting to try and make a profit. We will get a compressor with a tank, just not sure how big for a beginner. Regardless of size, I won't buy junk, it will be a good unit. She will obviously start with low pressure and practicing using internet tutorial and exercises. I think once she of proficient, then we will get a 2nd brush and evaluate the size of the compressor tank at that time. I know in my heart if given a chance with decent equipment, she will end up doing some really creative things. She has the gift, I DO NOT. Again thank you for your thoughts and suggestions. We will stay in tough and yell for help when we get into trouble.

THREE OTHER QUESTIONS come to mind while I am writing......

1. Length of hose, 3ft ? 10ft ? What is practical ?
2. Paint. Is one brand better than the other for skin, nails, T-shirts.
3. If you could only have two brushes, what size needles would you want 2 & 4 ... 2 & 3.5 , 3 & 4 ?

PS. Once she starts practicing, guess who gets to be the guinea pig ?

 

[Jurien72]

Hi there! Welcome to the forum. I can at least answer one of your questions about how long of a hose to use. That is going to depend on how close to the compressor your wife is going to be. A 6 or 10 ft hose will probably be plenty if she is sitting close to the compressor. One trick that I use is I run a standard hose out of my compressor to my regulator/moisture trap, which is mounted right next to where I paint. The hose to my brush doesn't need to be very long. You definitely should get a regulator/moisture trap- they are very important for airbrushing and I don't think anyone has mentioned that yet.

The needle sizes you are going to need depend on the kinds of paints you are going to use, and also whether you want broad coverage or fine detail. I believe most Iwata brushes only come with one or two needle sizes. My Harder & Steenbeck brush has 4 sizes available. Hope this helps!

 

[JackEb]

THREE OTHER QUESTIONS come to mind while I am writing......

1. Length of hose, 3ft ? 10ft ? What is practical ?
2. Paint. Is one brand better than the other for skin, nails, T-shirts.
3. If you could only have two brushes, what size needles would you want 2 & 4 ... 2 & 3.5 , 3 & 4 ?

PS. Once she starts practicing, guess who gets to be the guinea pig ?

@Jurien72 has answered the hose question,
For skin you will need airbrush specific body paint. Coast airbrush has a section on their website dedicated to bodypaint so that will give you an idea as to brands. I'm not 100% sure what would be used on nails, but I'm happy to do some research.
As for what brushes you'll need a small tip if you want the detail for nails (a more experienced user can get fine lines with a 'larger' tip
Depending on what brand of brush you settle on there may be the option of different needle sizes but keep in mind that you replace the needle and cap to do so. You then need to safely store the removed cap and needle so it doesn't get damaged or go walkabout.
Iwata have .18, .23, .35 & .50 needles I'd likely choose the .50 for broad coverage and a .23 for the finer work like nails.

Tshirts will benefit from both sizes and require textile paint, higher psi (50ish) and the tshirts needs prepping before painting and heat setting (for most paints) when complete

Hope that helps a little