Greetings from West Cork!!

Welcome to the forum Sarah. I agree with Squishy, if you find you like ABing, you should invest in a good brush. As my hubby says, you gotta have the right tools for the job at hand. That being said, yes, post up your practice sheets. We want to see them. Before you know it you'll be producing awesome works. :)
 
Thanks so much for the advice, Herb! Wasn't sure at all how to lubricate the airbrush or where to do it. I take it I avoid where the needle nut holds the needle in the handle area?
Yes you do try to avoid that area. Super lube you can let a little pass by.
Check out Don's page , He write great reviews on airbrush plus shares his knowledge on proper care of them
https://sites.google.com/site/donsairbrushtips/home
 
Squishy, I aim to buy some more reliable airbrushes once I get a bit more confident around cleaning them. I don't want to buy really good ones and damage them all bending needles or losing bits! My hands aren't too steady with tiny pieces so I need to practice stripping it down and rebuilding it before getting expensive airbrushes. I've been told Badger are good? What are the Veda ones like? They look like a mid-range kinda brush. Of course, I'd love someone to give me a present of an Iwata, but I'm pipe dreaming there!
 
Thanks guys. I am hoping to get a better airbrush when I get more confident at stripping them down without breaking or losing bits! Badger or Veda though?
 
welcome....but please post some skulls.....we are impatient people here ( me myself and I) lol.....
 
Ok, I'll try and load one. The bottom jaw and teeth need urgent corrective surgery but quite happy with the shading in the top half. I should have raised the paper when I got to the bottom, working at a funny angle doesn't suit steady hands. I know the paint should have been reduced more as I had little control between no paint and black as night black.
 

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Oh and I tapped my local motorcycle dealer today for some scrap parts and got a free fender!! It's matt black over red factory paint. Shall I strip off the matt black first before painting on it? I want to be able to wash off any practice images until I'm happy with something to top coat.
 
Ok, I'll try and load one. The bottom jaw and teeth need urgent corrective surgery but quite happy with the shading in the top half. I should have raised the paper when I got to the bottom, working at a funny angle doesn't suit steady hands. I know the paint should have been reduced more as I had little control between no paint and black as night black.
For one of your first pieces , Well done. Save it , Frame it . Why I know you are thinking it is made for the bin . But that is where you started. In a month or so paint the exact same skull reference and see what time and practice can do for you.then again in 6 month and lastly a year out.
I was told to do this when I first started out and I was surprised by how much I had improved in those time frames.
 
Welcome from USA.
We were all new to AB at some point, If I would of known the things I know now I would of mastered the AB long ago.
I didn't start off doing the dots or lines either, but self taught and didn't know what I was doing.
I highly recommend doing dots and lines and practice practice practice, the muscle memory and basics is very important :D
 
Do a little test on the fender. (say on the back or somewhere where it won't matter) Give a little area a scuff with some scotchbrite, if the black doesn't start to flake off, then try some paint (nothing fancy just put some on there), leave it for a day or so, then see how easy it is to get off. If the black flakes of or seems like it will come off without too much persuasion, then strip it off. If the paint looks like it has stayed on too well (usually a good thing, but not so much for you if you want to keep re-using as a canvas) then maybe try putting a coat of clear over it.

I am as clumsy as an Ox, and a real Calamity Jane, so I get what you're saying about not wanting to damage a more expensive brush. In my experience though, those chinese brushes damage so easily, I bent a needle on one I had just by wiping paint off it. I can't speak for all the brands as I haven't used them all, but I know the Iwata, even the lower end ones (not the neo as they are made for Iwata, not by Iwata) are made of much better quality and harder wearing materials. Unless you use one as a javelin in frustration at messing something up (I remember a member that did that lol) they are very hardwearing and long lasting. It can be frustrating to have to wait for parts, or you can spend quite a bit on having lots of spares around. Add it all up and you could just have had a better brush to begin with. I had the same needle and nozzle, for almost two years with a lot of use, and even with my ham fisted treatment only replaced them due to wear and tear. Just my 2 cents worth.

Badger is very popular, I prefer Iwata - just my preference for comfort of grip and reliability etc. But many people here love the Badger Krome. I believe it's a bit hard to get hold of one at the moment though.

The skull looks great by the way, definitely reduce the paint and air pressure more, then you can build up the colour slowly, and it will give more control too. Looks like you have some great fades going on there already.
 
Oh and I tapped my local motorcycle dealer today for some scrap parts and got a free fender!! It's matt black over red factory paint. Shall I strip off the matt black first before painting on it? I want to be able to wash off any practice images until I'm happy with something to top coat.
I have a couple of what I call test panels laying around , I strip them down to bare metal , Primed them , Based coated and the cleared them.
Then I can do what ever art work I want to see on a certain part and wash it away .I have a fuel (peanut)tank that half is black and the other is white so I can see how that effects the painting as well .
But you do want a clear coat covering the base coat , It will make it easier to wash off the waterbase paint. Note do not heat set it on the practice work or else it is harder to wash off.
 
Thanks for the advice for the fender. My fridge freezer is giving up and I'm getting a replacement compressor, condenser and radiator for it next week. Thinking I might salvage the nice quiet compressor and build my own version of an airbrush compressor from it as the cheap one I have (AS186 if you google it) gets red hot within half an hour. Thinking I can use the same tank as on my current one, just swap out the compressor? Anyone attempted this?

Am going to stick to paper this week and try and get the reducer/air pressure under control. Today's mix will be paint/reducer 1:3 and pressure at around thirty psi. The weather here is so changeable I can't get a handle on the humidity verses reducing volume. I know it makes a difference but today is dry so I'm going to start making notes of the weather, the mix and the psi to try and work out what makes a difference. I'm a science type of person so until I figure out how it works I'll try anything!
 
Thanks for the advice for the fender. My fridge freezer is giving up and I'm getting a replacement compressor, condenser and radiator for it next week. Thinking I might salvage the nice quiet compressor and build my own version of an airbrush compressor from it as the cheap one I have (AS186 if you google it) gets red hot within half an hour. Thinking I can use the same tank as on my current one, just swap out the compressor? Anyone attempted this?

Am going to stick to paper this week and try and get the reducer/air pressure under control. Today's mix will be paint/reducer 1:3 and pressure at around thirty psi. The weather here is so changeable I can't get a handle on the humidity verses reducing volume. I know it makes a difference but today is dry so I'm going to start making notes of the weather, the mix and the psi to try and work out what makes a difference. I'm a science type of person so until I figure out how it works I'll try anything!
Check out this thread by Ad fez http://www.airbrushforum.org/threads/fez-air.6634/
 
Ha ha haaaa, not so easy after all. I have no idea where all the cut-outs and pressure/temperature switches are in the one I already have so maybe I'll shelve the compressor for a later date!

On a bonus note, working on white paint/black paper today, see if it makes much difference. I think it's going to be infinitely harder.
 
your going to find the hard surface is way different that paper....
 
Thanks boneman, I had kinda gathered that. If I can get my uber cheap airbrush to actually work today I'll be sticking to black paper. I have some thick card type paper with a good finish, so I'm hoping it'll be less absorbent than copier paper that I have been using. damn airbrush is breaking my head just getting it cleaned properly. Looking forward to getting my bigger nozzled airbrush, this detail one is so damn hard to clean properly. It looks liek there's no paint on it anywhere, but I think it's maybe got a fleck in the body of the brush somewhere. Keeps blowing back into the gravity cup this morning. I'll strip it again and re-clean it :(
 
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