Paint flow question

[Alaskatazdvl]

Hi everyone,

I'm just wanting to clarify something for myself. I have been airbrushing for about 2 weeks and things have been going well. Now, however, I am starting to have some trouble. First things first, I am using a Master G22 Airbrush with an Airbrush Depot TC-20 compressor. I haven't had much trouble with the exercises using the transparent colors that come with my starter kit (Createx transparent red, yellow, blue, green and opaque white and black). What I am wanting to clarify is that I will need to thin my paint (to the consistency of milk if it isn't already) and also have to adjust the pressure on my comp with the different paints as well??? Is this about right. I've really noticed an issue trying to do the script loops exercise when I get down to the smaller loops.
I tried to thin it and tried adjusting the comp but just couldn't get it to work well. Every once and awhile it would work and I could get a nice thin line but the rest of the time I get frustrated. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[foreveryoung001]

The spider looking stuff means you could still have too much air pressure, your moving your brush to slow, or you're trying to lay to much paint down by pulling the trigger back to far... might be a combination of all three too. I would try pulling back less on your trigger to keep your paint flow down, and just pick up the pace of the loops a little bit. You don't need to be a speed demon, but try going just a little quicker and see if that helps.

 

[Alaskatazdvl]

Thanks for the suggestion I will give that a try.

 

[Stranger375]

Im with foreveryoung what he is sugesting. The loops are a very hard excercise to be true, and they gave me a hard time and still do .
When you have a very thinned out color, then mostly you just have to pull back a tiny bit on your airbrush when you are close to the surface for
smaller details. You really have to try out alot to find the settings that suit you.

 

[RebelAir]

You could also consider using a more absorbant material to practice on, if your surface is ultra smooth its a delicate line to pull clean lines, especially the smaller ones), but as mentioned above, diff paints and even diff colors within the same range will all spray slightly differently, pressure, speed of stroke and many other variations may come into play, it could also be the brush may need a good clean out as any muck in the end or needle tip and it will struggle to spray a clean line on a light trigger pull, which encourages you to try and pull back more on the trigger which overcomes the blockage and then causes a thicker line than desired..Also try to over reduce your paints if nothing else isn't working..GL

 

[Alaskatazdvl]

OK I think I finally got some things figured out. My first mistake was taking the word of a blog I read that Createx is not suppose to have to be thinned. LOL. Now I know. I ended up with my transparent red using 5 drops paint to 1 drop water and setting the psi to 25. So that seems to be working pretty good. Still learning lots . Something tells me airbrushing is something you are forever learning LOL. Thanks again for the suggestions.

 

[Squishy]

OK I think I finally got some things figured out. My first mistake was taking the word of a blog I read that Createx is not suppose to have to be thinned. LOL. Now I know. I ended up with my transparent red using 5 drops paint to 1 drop water and setting the psi to 25. So that seems to be working pretty good. Still learning lots . Something tells me airbrushing is something you are forever learning LOL. Thanks again for the suggestions.

You got that right! The learning never stops, so you are always challenging yourself, always surprising yourself, and always wanting to learn more, to keep challenging yourself ,surprising yourself etc etc. Anyway well done with sticking to the excercises, they really will pay off, and you will get a lot of issues resolved at this stage that will reap rewards later on.

 

[EDGECRUSHER]

I had/have problems often with spidering and it drives me up a wall because it usually happens when I'm start day dreaming and not paying attention. Oh I hate it! I heard the same thing about the regular Createx and I have bought a couple bottles because it's much more available on weekends when specialty shops are closed. I tend not to use it because I like spending my time painting not diagnosing. Even Wicked can be tricky to thin.

You'll find some days your AB just won't work well and you can spend hours dinking around trying to finger it out and other days you amaze yourself without a hitch. I don't know if it's the phases of the moon, ghosts torturing us, or just ever changing atmospheric conditions that make these things happen. All I know is what worked yesterday is not necessarily gonna work today and the sooner you accept that and learn to work around it (or wait for tomorrow ) the better. The good thing is your not alone. The bad thing is it's common.

BTW i found that when I was doing the spiral exercise I actually did worse when I concentrated on what I was doing. It's too much of a natural motion to be done manually, if that makes any sense? A consistent speed is the key IMO. Your speed will depend on your thinness, trigger action/air pressure, and distance from the substrate.