16 insights: What I learned in my 5 years of airbrushing

OK, let's see how we go getting this back on some sort of stable footing.
@JBtest
@Wannaby
@2Diverse

in your short journey so far into the world of airbrushes / airbrushing, what have YOU learnt ??
 
Well, because of some input from you kind folk and equipment from 2Diverse, I'm setting up to actually start. The big confidence builder is I know between 2Diverse and here, if I ask first, I can avoid a lot of buy it and never use it cause it was the wrong thing in the 1st place.

I have read many posts and feel that although it might not be as pretty as it could be, never give up on a painting until it's done.

I also read somewhere some really good hints from somebody, somewhere....it will come to me....oh yeah! page one of this thread. Absolute gold for me. A great foundation to build on. -thanks Franc !

Then there's the 'what the heck am I doing wrong questions' that I can get answers to here - before throwing something out the window.
( Really helpful here since it's winter and the windows are closed.)

And that's just the short version.
 
JB Test said:
Well, because of some input from you kind folk and equipment from 2Diverse, I'm setting up to actually start. The big confidence builder is I know between 2Diverse and here, if I ask first, I can avoid a lot of buy it and never use it cause it was the wrong thing in the 1st place.

I have read many posts and feel that although it might not be as pretty as it could be, never give up on a painting until it's done.

I also read somewhere some really good hints from somebody, somewhere....it will come to me....oh yeah! page one of this thread. Absolute gold for me. A great foundation to build on. -thanks Franc !

Then there's the 'what the heck am I doing wrong questions' that I can get answers to here - before throwing something out the window.
( Really helpful here since it's winter and the windows are closed.)

And that's just the short version.
Click to expand...
yes there is ALWAYS that moment when you think you have ruined it all and wonder if you should keep going or should you 'do over'
I definitely need more practise in patience and trusting the process and practising how to correct problems, or better yet how to avoid them in the first instance !
If you are going to get into the habit of throwing airbrush darts can I suggest hunting eBay and finding some generic $5 brushes to practise with
 
There won't be an airbrushing fool here. The change I was hoping for will not happen. I'm contemplating my options.
 
Franc Kaiser said:
  1. Make the trigger release softer. It took me years to figure out that you don’t need to screw the adjustment screw of the spring housing / spring case until the max. The more screwed up it is, the more immediate the release of paint. The less you screw it on, the finer and smoother the release, and hence better control. See my first point… you don’t need so much paint anyway.
Click to expand...
This just saved me so much frustration. I have only been trying to learn the airbrush for a week or two. I was progressing in my exercises until I wasn't. This is exactly what my issue was. I mean, screws are intended to be screwed all the way in, right? I was doing this as I was reassembling my brush. Lesson learned, and it won't be forgotten. Thanks for taking the time to post this. It saved this newbie so much time trying to figure out what had changed and what I was doing wrong. These are all great tips; I will probably print this out and read through them often.
 
Mikey said:
This just saved me so much frustration. I have only been trying to learn the airbrush for a week or two. I was progressing in my exercises until I wasn't. This is exactly what my issue was. I mean, screws are intended to be screwed all the way in, right? I was doing this as I was reassembling my brush. Lesson learned, and it won't be forgotten. Thanks for taking the time to post this. It saved this newbie so much time trying to figure out what had changed and what I was doing wrong. These are all great tips; I will probably print this out and read through them often.
Click to expand...
Thanks Mikey, I am glad that you found my blurb helpful. There is certainly a fine line between screwed in and screwed up :)
 
Franc Kaiser said:
As of this month, I am entering my 5 year anniversary with this medium… yay! 😊 It has been a thrilling ride, my love for airbrushing has gotten deeper by the minute, and I don’t see an end of this love affair in sight yet. I thought that now would be a good time to reflect what I learned in all this time, and maybe this would be helpful for our dear airbrushing community to reflect on it as well.

Please mind that I am not teaching anybody or it should be understood as my way of indoctrinating anybody; it’s simply my own notes to myself, reflecting on what works for me and what helps me to push forward. The first and the last two tips I find essential.

  1. Less is more. The more I progress, the less paint I apply on the substrate. Previously I pumped all the ink in the chamber onto the substrate, no matter what. Now I probably get through the same painting with half or less volume of paint. I realized that it normally only requires one light pass to achieve what you want, not 3 or 4 repeated passes. It is important to apply constraint, and not simply plaster some area because you can. This will also help to mitigate the old problem of “going too dark”.

  1. Do the background first. When an object is in the foreground of a “complicated” background, then it may be easier to tackle the background first and leave the foreground object once the background is firmly established. I don’t always follow this rule, but it is one of the first questions I am asking myself when deciding how to paint something – background first or foreground first. Typically, if the background has lighter values than the foreground, it is safe to do the background first, as darker colors will cover the background in an easier way. If the background is dark and the foreground object is light, then I go the other way round, but then I make sure the foreground object is masked well before laying in the background.

  1. Give the paint time to breathe and dry. Acrylics is such a forgiving type of paint, and seemingly you can move on within minutes, adding further layers. I found that this is not always true. After blocking in a solid background, I tend to give it time to dry overnight. This way, it will be really dry and solid the next day and subsequent erasing into new layers will not drill into the first layer.

  1. Masking isn’t cheating. In my earlier years, I always considered the application of masking, friskets, stencils etc. as “cheating”. When doing fine art, many people have this attitude and they are very high-brow… they don’t want to be in the same mold as motorcycle pinstripers. That’s all false pride, really. Many contemporary artists (also, outside the airbrush realm) use masking tape and all kinds of tools to create hard lines, straight lines, and to avoid coverage of objects by color. Some people think it takes way too long to cut out a frisket or tape everything up as they want to paint, not do some pedestrian work first. You may get away with it when painting animals and organic objects, but so far I don’t see any other way to recreate the feel of technical objects without the use of some sort of taping or frisking tools. I still get the a subconscious feeling of guilt when removing the tape around a painted spaceship these days, but again, the artist’s biggest critic is himself.

  1. Avoiding overspray. When applying a stencil, I make sure it is right on the substrate. In the past I applied paper with some scotch tape underneath, but then the edges are still not all way down and risk overspray areas. The best way is of course some masking film or film frisket but I don’t have that tool. I am cutting out the object (a negative stencil) and cut little triangle holes around the object, which are then covered with tape. I do triangles because they’re easy to cut with the knife.

  1. Use white sparingly. Ok, so we all know the unwanted blueshift of an opaque color such as white over a darker area – there is a lot written here in this form about it, and how to mitigate it. Nevertheless, I love to use white, but I try to limit it as much as possible… less because of blueshift (which can be actually a desired cool effect) but because the painting gets inevitably grainy which each pass. The best option is to avoid white paint altogether by either not painting bright areas (leave them “blank”) or to use erasers to remove the paint from it. It is better to go “light to dark” in any case – this approach lends itself best to airbrushing.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for sharing it Franc 🙏, it has been a great help to me as a newbie¡ I will follow your advice if I am able to do it 😅¡
 
JuanRi said:
Thank you very much for sharing it Franc 🙏, it has been a great help to me as a newbie¡ I will follow your advice if I am able to do it 😅¡
Click to expand...
Thanks! This forum has been an enormous help for me to find my way with the airbrush, and I am sure it will be a key resource for you, too.
 
Franc,

I just read the whole thread since this started before I joined this forum. Very good points and really helpful. I for one, have been airbrushing scale models for 30 years, but the skillset is very different from what most of you guys do. Actually, I'm inspired and tempted to try and do a simple landscape painting myself. Not sure with what time but I'll try.

I would like to contribute with my own experience.

It is good to experiment, but get familiar and comfortable with your equipment. I see way too often somebody getting a particular airbrush, get disappointing results the first time without even practicing and then buying another one. That is not limited to this topic. I'm also a photographer and the same applies to some people always buying the latest and greatest cameras. The only good thing about these folks is that sometimes I get a good deal on barely used equipment. I'll take those old cameras and old airbrushes from you to dispose properly as a free service. Thank you!:)

Same point as before, but with paint. There are many choices out there. Have fun experimenting but you need to master your medium. In my case I use primarily automotive lacquers and oil based enamels. Mastering them includes the all important PPE Personal Protection Equipment. Respirator is a must but that's another topic in itself. In short, Don't be stupid.

In the case of painting 3D objects like scale models:
Only when you current step is so good that you think you can probably skip the next step, then you are ready for the next step. DO NOT think the next step will fix the shortcomings of the previous one.
Let's take the example of a scale model car where you want a shiny paint job. I see way too often people doing a mediocre job in surface prep, primer and color coat, only to flood the model in clear thinking it will look great. Quite the contrary. When your surface prep is as good as it can be, then you move to primer. Work that primer. Do and re-do whatever times it takes to get it right. Don't think because you will cover it it is not important.
When the primer is as perfect as it can possibly be, move to color coats. Same thing, work them. Re-do as needed. And when you honestly think "Geez, this looks so good I can get away without clear!" Then you are ready for clear.

Same applies to flat finishes like armor or aircraft. Don't assume that because it is not shiny, it can have a lousy paint job.

I can spend hours on this topic. Hope this makes sense and thanks for having me here!

Thanks,
Ismael
 
tatocorvette said:
Franc,

I just read the whole thread since this started before I joined this forum. Very good points and really helpful. I for one, have been airbrushing scale models for 30 years, but the skillset is very different from what most of you guys do. Actually, I'm inspired and tempted to try and do a simple landscape painting myself. Not sure with what time but I'll try.

I would like to contribute with my own experience.

It is good to experiment, but get familiar and comfortable with your equipment. I see way too often somebody getting a particular airbrush, get disappointing results the first time without even practicing and then buying another one. That is not limited to this topic. I'm also a photographer and the same applies to some people always buying the latest and greatest cameras. The only good thing about these folks is that sometimes I get a good deal on barely used equipment. I'll take those old cameras and old airbrushes from you to dispose properly as a free service. Thank you!:)

Same point as before, but with paint. There are many choices out there. Have fun experimenting but you need to master your medium. In my case I use primarily automotive lacquers and oil based enamels. Mastering them includes the all important PPE Personal Protection Equipment. Respirator is a must but that's another topic in itself. In short, Don't be stupid.

In the case of painting 3D objects like scale models:
Only when you current step is so good that you think you can probably skip the next step, then you are ready for the next step. DO NOT think the next step will fix the shortcomings of the previous one.
Let's take the example of a scale model car where you want a shiny paint job. I see way too often people doing a mediocre job in surface prep, primer and color coat, only to flood the model in clear thinking it will look great. Quite the contrary. When your surface prep is as good as it can be, then you move to primer. Work that primer. Do and re-do whatever times it takes to get it right. Don't think because you will cover it it is not important.
When the primer is as perfect as it can possibly be, move to color coats. Same thing, work them. Re-do as needed. And when you honestly think "Geez, this looks so good I can get away without clear!" Then you are ready for clear.

Same applies to flat finishes like armor or aircraft. Don't assume that because it is not shiny, it can have a lousy paint job.

I can spend hours on this topic. Hope this makes sense and thanks for having me here!

Thanks,
Ismael
Click to expand...
Thanks Ismael! Fully agree that by just buying an airbrush, the results won't be magical. It takes much more than that. As in any craft, it takes a lot of practice. Working on 3D shaped surfaces has certainly its own large set of challenges, and I never dared to go there.
 
Franc Kaiser said:
  1. Buffering is very effective. For a long time I primarily worked with transparent colors. This is nice, and can result in great outcomes. However, I started to add on one drop of white or grey to the transparent color, which has the great advantage of being more opaque and especially shifting the values into a more realistic realm. The new problem it creates is that darker areas can’t be simply over-sprayed and may need to be cleaned up later on.

  1. Use black sparingly. Black is an easy color because it solves all the details you didn’t want to work on, but the outcome may be very flat. I rarely use real black – I found the Golden Color black to be create a strange shift. Instead use other colors – several passes will make them darker anyway. If some black or really dark values are needed, I use a mix of medium with black ink, but again very sparingly.

  1. Reality is not a comic strip. Don’t paint black outlines to any object. I was often tempted to do it because of the lines of sketch to accentuate the outline. In reality, no objects have black outlines as you would see them in a comic.

  1. Study the color values. If I want to recreate a certain color value, I zoom into the reference picture (on an ipad or laptop) until I see large pixels only. That pixel shows me the color in a box, so to speak, and it is often surprisingly different from what I thought it should be. For example, I started to use blue or yellow more although I didn’t notice is to be initially. A lot of this goes against our intuition, but sometimes there is blue in there for a cooler value.

  1. Air on, trigger back. I don’t know how many splatters I created by not following the ancient rule of pressing down first and only then pulling back. I was (and probably am) very erratic in the handling of the airbrush, and guilty of violating the first rule of airbrushing. Lots of tip dry / sprinkles of substrate problem can be solved with this rule right away.

  1. Make the trigger release softer. It took me years to figure out that you don’t need to screw the adjustment screw of the spring housing / spring case until the max. The more screwed up it is, the more immediate the release of paint. The less you screw it on, the finer and smoother the release, and hence better control. See my first point… you don’t need so much paint anyway.

  1. Increase pressure for larger areas. With more experience, the further away the airbrush tends to be from substrate; lightly coating something from a fair distance. Depending on the color mix and compressor / mac-valve settings, you need to increase pressure otherwise the droplets dry mid-way before hitting the substrate, creating an unwanted grainy effect.

  1. It’s ok to use other tools. I am not a die-hard airbrusher – other tools such as traditional brushes, pens and so on have their merits, and why not throw them into the mix if it help to get something done in a more convenient way. I still have more control over a traditional brush when working on details than using the heavy airbrush. I use felt pens and a ruler for some lines and contours on technical objects. If you create a cool painting, nobody will disqualify your outcome because you didn’t use the airbrush for everything… those who do so are idiots, in my opinion.

  1. It always looks awkward until it’s done. There were so many paintings I wanted to abort 10 minutes, 1 hour, and 10 hours into it, because they didn’t have the right feel or did simply underwhelm my expectations. We’re all primed and conditioned by watching Youtube videos where each stroke and step looks amazing. Good for them, but the reality is different for most of us. Many paintings look rather ghastly before things come together in the end. This requires discipline and, especially, confidence that the end-result will pay off. You have to keep believing in your approach and build up the scenery slowly. You can only judge if it works once you have actually completed it – aborting midway will not teach you anything. Also: If I would give up mid-way because of some mistake made then I would never have finished any painting.

  1. Don’t rush it but enjoy the process. I am speaking from the comfort zone of not having any imposed deadline on a painting… except for my own mental one and the lack of patience to seeing cool stuff emerge in front of my eyes. It is so important to slow things down, and to take a step back, to reminisce how something looks and what could be done next. An effective way for me to work is to curb my own enthusiasm and to mentally agree with myself that I want to focus on a very small step today only and get that one right in the next 2 hours… typically a small step or item that is not very ambitious to tackle in the first place. I found doing that makes the step a great success always, and before I know it I have done completed much more afterwards within shortest time. That’s then again the right time to take a step back and go into a Zen mode. I believe we’re not airbrushing for the final result, but for the love of doing the work. If I want to have a result right away, I would do a digital painting (or, these days, an AI prompt). It’s not about the result, it’s about the journey.

Please let me know your comments!
Click to expand...
"Dont rush it"
It's like you're watching me...
Seriously though, all of this is spot on.
 
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