Hello everyone!

Joe A

Joe A

Needle-chuck Ninja
I have been using this forum for research for a few weeks now and thought I'd join the community.

A little bit about myself, I'm from Texas and work in the civil construction field but my passion is in Industrial Design. I've been an artist for close to 30 years (not professionally) and just recently decided to try my hand at airbrushing.

When I graduated from high school way back in 19throwitaway, I was given a Paasche VL kit as a gift. I didn't have a compressor at the time so I put it away and forgot about it when I went off to college. Right around the holidays this past year, I was visiting with family when I came across the kit again. It hadn't been touched. So I went straight out and picked up a Porter Cable pancake compressor to play around with it.

After playing around with craft paints and practicing on eggshells and ceramic figures, I decided I enjoyed it enough to invest a little more. I've had my Iwata Eclipse for about three weeks now and I love it.

I purchased a primary Wicked Color set from the local HL with my 40% off coupon so I'm building up a tiny collection of supplies.

I intend on using my airbrush for fine art painting and maybe a couple of custom controllers my brother has laying around. I'm about as green as they come when it comes to airbrushing but I think I could contribute with my design background and put something back in to the community for all the help this forum has been to me getting started. If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read this. I look forward to getting to know as many of you as possible.


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Welcome home Joe , You have to love the 40% coupons from Hobby Lobby :D
You have found a great place to learn and have fun doing it .
 
Welcome from Australia.
Glad you stopped lurking and decided to join in. Looks like your set to go. Enjoy :) you know where we are when you get stuck.
 
Another welcome from the Uk Joe. I also have an eclipse and use Wicked, its a great combo. If you're anything like me pretty soon everything you look at starts to become a possible canvas lol. The good thing about Wicked is it can be used on most things.
 
Squishy said:
Another welcome from the Uk Joe. I also have an eclipse and use Wicked, its a great combo. If you're anything like me pretty soon everything you look at starts to become a possible canvas lol. The good thing about Wicked is it can be used on most things.
Click to expand...

That's exactly right! I asked my sister to donate any old figures or toys my nephew doesn't play with anymore to practice on. I've been itching to get started with the new paints but I only have time on the weekends and last weekend it was dreary and wet here in my part of Texas. As of now I have to AB outdoors but I'm planning some space for an indoor setup. [emoji1360]


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Bit of advice with the paint. If you haven't already, get the high performance reducer (labelled either w500 or 4012). Wicked does nor reduce well with water. The versatility and great colour comes at a small price in that is pigment heavy, meaning it will need more reduction than you might think. Depending on what effect you're going for, coverage, psi, weather etc will affect your ratio, but I suggest at least at least 1 drop of paint to 3 reducer, and adjust from there (a couple of the detail paint colours may not need this)
Make sure they are well shaken, or half way through the bottle will become too concentrated.
The reducer is a great cleaner so no need for extra products, and spraying a few drops through neat between colours keeps colours clean, and at the end of a session keeps the nozzle clean for next time (provided your ratios have been good and the nozzle hasn't got clogged).
It doesn't take more than a few drops, but with that and reduction you will use 5 times more than paint. Buying the bigger bottles work out way cheaper in the long run.
 
Squishy said:
Bit of advice with the paint. If you haven't already, get the high performance reducer (labelled either w500 or 4012). Wicked does nor reduce well with water. The versatility and great colour comes at a small price in that is pigment heavy, meaning it will need more reduction than you might think. Depending on what effect you're going for, coverage, psi, weather etc will affect your ratio, but I suggest at least at least 1 drop of paint to 3 reducer, and adjust from there (a couple of the detail paint colours may not need this)
Make sure they are well shaken, or half way through the bottle will become too concentrated.
The reducer is a great cleaner so no need for extra products, and spraying a few drops through neat between colours keeps colours clean, and at the end of a session keeps the nozzle clean for next time (provided your ratios have been good and the nozzle hasn't got clogged).
It doesn't take more than a few drops, but with that and reduction you will use 5 times more than paint. Buying the bigger bottles work out way cheaper in the long run.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice! I'm already doing all of this so it makes me feel good to get the reinforcement on my process. I actually ordered 2 16oz bottles of the high performance reducer before I got the wicked color. I had been using that and Liquitex Airbrush Medium to reduce the craft paint instead of water. I have never personally liked the results of using water to reduce acrylics, even when I painted on canvas with brush.

That being said, I can get the Iwata Medea airbrush cleaner in 32oz for about $10-$13 USD which is cheaper than the reducer. That's what I've been using to clean up after using the craft paints. Do you think this will be sufficient enough for cleaning up wicked colors? I'd appreciate hearing your experience. Thanks


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Honestly I've never used the Iwata airbrush cleaner, the reducer works so I haven't bothered getting another product :D If it works and its cheaper then its all good. If you find its not quite doing the trick you can always use a couple of drops of reducer for a final flush.
 
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