Newbie Gal !

D

doxiemadnessx4

Guest
Hi!! I am brand new to AB, I have posted a couple of things on the forum, but I failed to do the introduction part. What can I say, sometimes I do things bassackward.

I have been painting with Acrylic paints off and on for about 5 years, and I have just about every color under the sun for that. I was given an Aztek ab about 4 years ago along with an craftsman air compressor, and of course a hose. Which was a really faboulous gift, however I was clueless about anything to do with and air brush. 4 years ago there was bupkiss for instruction about AB anywhere. The aztek came with all these plastic tips, which I promptly clogged up with my version of "diluted" acrylic paints. Back in the box and on the shelf the ab went. A sad fate, yes, I know.....

Fastforward 4 years........

I use an airbrush at work for make up (not your usual job) and I bought one for my own make up at home. Then, I thought to myself, "Self, you are really liking this airbrush, and you really like to paint; why don't you try to paint WITH the ab!?"

So, I did a YouTube search about it, and found the Wonderful, (as if I had to say so), AirBrush Tutor, who turned me on to this forum.

Naturally, I HAD to try to give this a go! I went to the store and bought an Iwata Neo, as it was sold by itself. The Eclipse came with all these items I mostly had, So I decided to just start with the Neo. As I am practicing, I am finding that I'd like to acheive a much finer line. I do take the crown cap off of my Neo, but it's not really as fine as the line I invision. Do you think that I should have bought the Eclipse?

You may ask what paint I am using. I would reply "Acrylic". This may be met with horrored gasps. But please know that I have done alot of research since the days of the Aztek (rest it's little soul) I have been using an acrylic reducer, and I have thinned it to nearly 3 parts reducer to one part acrylic. I ran the mixture through a fine paint strainer before putting the color in my ab to paint. my compressor is set at about 27 - 28 psi. I've been somewhat kicking myself, and thinking, I should have just bought the Eclipse. So with that information, what do you think about my tiny lines?

I just couldn't see buying a whole bunch of ab paints with ALL THOSE FRICKIN' acrylic paints just sitting there taunting me!! :dejection: So, I thought I could at least use them to learn and then if one day, I want to do something for real, I could use ab paint to make it pop.

I am attaching my first try at ab. This is of course all free hand, as I haven't gotten the jist of stenciling yet. I am still working on it, I'll post more of it as I go along.

I am so glad that this forum is here, and I can pick your brains about whatever is going on in my airbrush world. I'm going to shut up now, I look forward to hearing back from you all! -Heather
 

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Welcome home Heather.
I have used Golden hairy brush paint for airbrushing, reduced it and ran through a filter to make sure no lumps found their way in. Nothing wrong with that
Lorenzo Sperlonga uses them all the time. Now if I only had his talent....LOL
So I look forward to seeing more of your work .
 
Hi and welcome aboard Heather :) . About your concerns that the Eclipse would do much finer details then the Neo does i can tell you that both brushes are about the same when it comes to fine lines.
Both airbrushes can do very fine lines even they use a 0.35mm needle nozzle setup, but it really takes practice and controll to get such fine lines. Try reducing your paint even more when you go for
super fine lines, and then pull back the trigger just a slightly bit. If you get spiderwebs your air pressure might be too high, or you also move the airbrush too slow, or you pull back a little too much on the
trigger. All in all there are several things that have to be worked out to get really fine details. I was also not able to get the fine lines in the beginning that i can do now, so just keep on practicing :)
 
Hi and welcome aboard Heather :) . About your concerns that the Eclipse would do much finer details then the Neo does i can tell you that both brushes are about the same when it comes to fine lines.
Both airbrushes can do very fine lines even they use a 0.35mm needle nozzle setup, but it really takes practice and controll to get such fine lines. Try reducing your paint even more when you go for
super fine lines, and then pull back the trigger just a slightly bit. If you get spiderwebs your air pressure might be too high, or you also move the airbrush too slow, or you pull back a little too much on the
trigger. All in all there are several things that have to be worked out to get really fine details. I was also not able to get the fine lines in the beginning that i can do now, so just keep on practicing :)

Hi! thanks for letting me me know about the comparison of the Eclipse vs. Neo. That puts my mind to rest. Now to just keep practicing technique. I have been getting spiderwebs. I did think that I should move a little faster with my lines. Easier said than done ! :unconscious: Do you reallu think MORE reduction!?! I always get concerned that more reducer makes the paint less opaque, less opaque means more application on a particular area, which makes it runny in that one spot, and I also got spiderwebs there because it was damp-ish. Oh, the trials and tribulations!

When you are doing super fine lines, what is a good PSI to set the compressor on?
 
Welcome home Heather.
I have used Golden hairy brush paint for airbrushing, reduced it and ran through a filter to make sure no lumps found their way in. Nothing wrong with that
Lorenzo Sperlonga uses them all the time. Now if I only had his talent....LOL
So I look forward to seeing more of your work .

Nice! Do you find any real difference in the acrylic vs. ab paints?
 
Hi Heather, welcome from Calgary. I've been AB for over a year and there's a lot knowledge on this forum which I've been soaking like a sponge. And there's quite a few comedians as well :)
 
Nice! Do you find any real difference in the acrylic vs. ab paints?

Well I will use Lorenzo's words on this. The acrylics have softer tones that most Airbrush paint do not. But personally I find it faster using paints already design for the airbrush.
I have used most of the water based paints made for the airbrush except Etac ( which I have heard great things about) and if I spray raw umber from golden and raw umber from Wicked , The golden paint is more transparent due to how the paint breaks down during reduction. So you have to built the color .
 
Hi! thanks for letting me me know about the comparison of the Eclipse vs. Neo. That puts my mind to rest. Now to just keep practicing technique. I have been getting spiderwebs. I did think that I should move a little faster with my lines. Easier said than done ! :unconscious: Do you reallu think MORE reduction!?! I always get concerned that more reducer makes the paint less opaque, less opaque means more application on a particular area, which makes it runny in that one spot, and I also got spiderwebs there because it was damp-ish. Oh, the trials and tribulations!

When you are doing super fine lines, what is a good PSI to set the compressor on?

I pretty often just use like 10psi for detail work, but with the Neo you might need a little more since i found out it wont let as much air through then some other airbrushes.
If you already get lots of spiderwebs then maybe do not reduce your paint even more. But when i often do very fine details then i use a very reduced color like 1 drop color
to 8 drops of water or reducer. But that also always depends on your colors already, i do use airbrush colors though. And yes you are correct that a very reduced paint gets
more transparent and you will have to use more layers to get a coverage. But this can also be of advantage, that way you can build up textures to your painting and it wont look
as flat. Also if it is very transparent and you just pull back very slightly, you can correct your offset pretty good if you were aiming not spot on where you wanted without seeing
much of that in the end.
 
You all are awesome! Thanks for the advice so far! I am sure I am going to need more as I go along!
 
Well I will use Lorenzo's words on this. The acrylics have softer tones that most Airbrush paint do not. But personally I find it faster using paints already design for the airbrush.
I have used most of the water based paints made for the airbrush except Etac ( which I have heard great things about) and if I spray raw umber from golden and raw umber from Wicked , The golden paint is more transparent due to how the paint breaks down during reduction. So you have to built the color .

Maybe I just need to be more patient. When painting with acrylic and a regular paintbrush, you can complete a painting in a pretty decent time frame, maybe 8 - 12 hours. I guess I can't get a real time frame on airbrushed work, because everything that I have seen done has been in youtube format, and I know its compressed, and sped up to get it online. What I'm getting at is, I am probably making my paint too dark in the first place to get the work completed. You all are saying to spray it on SUPER thin, and LOTS of layering which = more time (which is not a problem, just need to get my time frame right).

Also, Mr. Micron, for my future reference, what do you think about your Micron airbrush? I hear it's practicallly the Holy Grail of Airbrushes. What say you?
 
Well u didn't leave anything for us to ask what help do u need? Lol your doing great and it will only get better with practice welcome on board.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2
 
Nice effort on your first works. Theres absolutly nothing wrong with using your acrylics, perhaps even consider utilizing a mixed media style, use both brush and airbrush as it can create some awesome pieces and theres no rules about using the airbrush only..Once you become proficient on the gun you can blast those times out of the water, most of my pics take 1-2 hours to achieve, 3-4 hours if its a color or a bit more complicated but no doubt if you go a more realism style you can put 30+ hrs into a single piece..But as long as your enjoying it, time really isn't a factor but personally I do find the airbrush does allow good results in a very short painting timeframe..GL and enjoy the journey
 
Maybe I just need to be more patient. When painting with acrylic and a regular paintbrush, you can complete a painting in a pretty decent time frame, maybe 8 - 12 hours. I guess I can't get a real time frame on airbrushed work, because everything that I have seen done has been in youtube format, and I know its compressed, and sped up to get it online. What I'm getting at is, I am probably making my paint too dark in the first place to get the work completed. You all are saying to spray it on SUPER thin, and LOTS of layering which = more time (which is not a problem, just need to get my time frame right).

Also, Mr. Micron, for my future reference, what do you think about your Micron airbrush? I hear it's practicallly the Holy Grail of Airbrushes. What say you?

I love my Micron, I use the .23 set up the most but love having both the .23 and the .18 set up.
as far as time spent painting , it all depends on how fast you can pick up on using the airbrush.

I spent about an hour and a half painting this one up..IMG_0060.jpg

But have about 5 hours in this one..IMG_0065.jpg
 
What an introduction! it's lovely to meet you Heather:) look forward to seeing how you progress with the acrylics.. have had a few people ask if they can be used..
 
Welcome to the forum Heather!! Glad you found the forum, some nice work on your first attempt!! Look forward to seeing more in the future!!


Josh
 
What I'm getting at is, I am probably making my paint too dark in the first place to get the work completed. You all are saying to spray it on SUPER thin, and LOTS of layering which = more time

Funny how sometimes we manage to answer our own questions when we ask them 'out loud' :)
You've got your answer right there! Super thin and lots of layers, the thin layers dry super quick and by building up the layers you actually manage better fades
Hey, I'm no expert at this, but I do know that I work by the theory 'less is more' - and it works for me. think about how you apply nail polish or makeup - you don't plaster on one thick layer
Please don't be insulted by that statement, I'm a girl (despite being called 'one of the guys' :) ) as a bonus, if, like me, your hair dryer is gathering dust in a cupboard, it comes in handy for heat setting some paints,

LOL, after all that, I forgot to say WELCOME :)
 
Well u didn't leave anything for us to ask what help do u need? Lol your doing great and it will only get better with practice welcome on board.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

Hello!! I just asked a couple of questions about what type of airbrush and the paint really, it was in my first wordy post. I appreciate feeling so welcome!! I look forward to picking your brains as I go along!
 
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