Technique Toolbox: The Basics Of Airbrushing!
June 3, 2014 by elromanozo
For some website features, you will need a FREE account and for some others, you will need to join the Cult of Games.
Or if you have already joined the Cult of Games Log in now
What difference will having a FREE account make?
Setting up a Free account with OnTableTop unlocks a load of additional features and content (see below). You can then get involved with our Tabletop Gaming community, we are very helpful and keen to hear what you have to say. So Join Us Now!
Free Account Includes
- Creating your own project blogs.
- Rating and reviewing games using our innovative system.
- Commenting and ability to upvote.
- Posting in the forums.
- Unlocking of Achivments and collectin hobby xp
- Ability to add places like clubs and stores to our gaming database.
- Follow games, recommend games, use wishlist and mark what games you own.
- You will be able to add friends to your account.
What's the Cult of Games?
Once you have made a free account you can support the community by joing the Cult of Games. Joining the Cult allows you to use even more parts of the site and access to extra content. Check out some of the extra features below.
Cult of Games Membership Includes
- Reduced ads, for a better browsing experience (feature can be turned on or off in your profile).
- Access to The Cult of Games XLBS Sunday Show.
- Extra hobby videos about painting, terrain building etc.
- Exclusive interviews with the best game designers etc.
- Behind the scenes studio VLogs.
- Access to our live stream archives.
- Early access to our event tickets.
- Access to the CoG Greenroom.
- Access to the CoG Chamber of Commerce.
- Access the CoG Bazarr Trading Forum.
- Create and Edit Records for Games, Companies and Professionals.
Thought you only used airbrushes on vehicles – how wrong was I!
Another great video, I’m learning a lot from this series so thanks.
Woohoo!
I got an airbrush for my birthday, a couple of weeks ago – still haven’t managed to get it into action, this could be the kick up the backside that I need.
While you certainly can’t argue with Romain’s results, it seems that airbrushing would be best used with larger paint jobs (like he says) or vehicles (like @thescotsman says)? I mean with this figure, there was a lot of time spent on putting that protective tack on first, THEN Romain had to touch up with his brushes anyway. To be honest, I’d never even heard of anyone using air brushes on a miniature this small (big display pieces, sure). I’m sure it’s also awesome for larger pieces like terrain. 🙂 I dunno, just my 2p.
Personally I wouldn’t use anything besides an airbrush to prime a mini at this point. Vallejo Surface Primer has produced such consistent, smooth results that I have no desire to touch spray cans ever again.
It may seem a bit overkill, but the quality of a prime job can make or break the end result.
Well, as I said in the tutorial, I normally wouldn’t use an airbrush on a single miniature… I just did that for tutorial purposes. But if I had, say, a whole force to do for Infinity, or a regiment or some units, especially warjacks and the like, I’d use airbrushing to paint all the basic surfaces (in the case of this miniature, the tabard and the armor) before finishing with a brush. It’s also great for painting TAGs and the like, and they’re not as big as the 40k vehicles ! 🙂
There is a certain style that can only be achieved with an airbrush as part of the process. Certainly this is a big part of Angel’s own technique, when painting infinity Miniatures 🙂
Ah, but I bet I can do it with a carefully applied dry-brush ! I’ll even do it in a tutorial if you want… DZC or Dystopian Wars would be perfect for that.
Since I’ve started using an airbrush for priming and varnishing I haven’t looked back. I enjoy the extra control it gives me with the spray (I use a double-action) and it just gets too humid or cold where I live to trust sprays. I haven’t attempted to use it for painting yet but I’ll eventually get around to trying it out. I want to get better at my brush work first. Couple of suggstions/tips; A wooden toothpick also works very well to mix paints in the cup. Also, to reduce overspray when airbrushing a mini, airbrush it in a box… Read more »
Mixing paint in the cup with a toothpick is well and good, but with small quantities in the cup I didn’t want to risk touching the needle with anything hard (which, on an airbrush of this rather basic quality, not even double action, would have been a problem). I generally don’t recommend using anything hard when painting with less than half a cupful… So, I used a brush.
I know that Romain mentioned using masking liquids, think I’ve got a bottle of the Vallejo stuff on my desk somewhere, so I’d be really interested in seeing a video on them at some point soon.
At some point, I’m going to have to show more airbrush tips… but that’s probably not going to be in this series.
Interesting.. I’ve been thinking about getting an airbrush for a while now, mostly because of the growing number of miniatures I’ve trashed because of a bad undercoat with a spray can. My hobby time is too limited to waste a couple of hours stripping a botched undercoat – but more recently because it seems like a sensible way to tackle the large amount of Deadzone terrain I have. I’m not sure about using it on a miniature though other than for the primary colour for the base coat but I’m willing to give it a go. Heck, I even have… Read more »
You know, an airbrush is an interesting tool, but you do have to spend a lot of time prepping it, cleaning it in between colours, and afterwards once you’re finished… it takes some care. That’s why I only use it for big/long projects (or chain-painting and precision priming, when a spray can simply can’t get in all the recesses). It’s only a time-saver for the long stuff, not for single minis…
*peels off
Thanks guys for all the kind words ! I try my best ! 🙂
Great little video for getting started with airbrushes 🙂
My only recommendation would be to thin the paints with an airbrush thinner instead of water – don’t get me wrong, I’m no expert, I only started using one in january having been a modeller for 30yrs! All the background reading I did said don’t use water as it won’t flow properly through the airbrush – just my 1p advice 🙂
I know… I was torn… Airbrush thinner is interesting, but it’s not readily available, and if you use it everytime you run out pretty quickly. It can get expensive. I wanted to show people what could be done with a simple airbrush (single action, cheap, not made for professionals or anything) and readily available supplies (not even distilled water). I didn’t even have to thin the paints, but I wanted to show it anyway so you guys could see how it was done… This is the basics of the basics of the basics ! 🙂
It is more about consistency, you’ll want your paint to be thinned down to something similar to milk. Getting the paint and air pressure ratios just right takes time and practice. Since you have a glove on you can practice the paint on that before applying to your miniature.
For anyone struggling to find airbrush thinner, if you are using Vallejo (or reaper) paints, you can think it with vallejo airbrush cleaner and it works perfectly well.
that is ‘thin’ it, obviously. curse my typing!
I did.
Very informative, I’ve recently started using an airbrush and your little tips especially about clogging will be very useful.
Warm colors tend to dry out faster (white, red, yellow, orange) and for those adding a slow dry additive will help. Also be sure to add a drop of water in before adding in your paint and that will help not having thicker paint shooting out first. Lastly you can always increase the air pressure to blow out the clog, but do this on a sheet of paper and not your mini.
Romain, do you have a gallery or anything of your work somewhere on the interwebs? I’ve been drawn back into interest in the hobby after a three year hiatus, largely because watching your wonderful videos has opened my eyes to how much more I could get out of it. But I’d love to be able to see some of the paint jobs you’ve done which you consider your favourites/best, the tutorial videos seem like a tease of what you can do.
Sadly, I don’t have an online gallery besides Beasts of War (in Minirama) ! Thanks for the vote of confidence, though.
If you’re looking for inspirational work, go to Coolminiornot… I can also recommend a few artists.
Wow, there’s some amazing stuff on there, thanks dude.
Great tutorial as always; I’ve been eyeballing an airbrush for awhile, may pick one up next pay check.
@chillreaper Simply paint over any areas you wish to protect and allow to dry. Best for small/ curved areas where masking tape is difficult to apply. Remove with small tweezers and/or wooden toothpicks in tight spaces and careful rubbing on larger areas.
Top tip – give the area to be masked a minimum of 24 hours to fully cure (I leave them 48hrs or more), otherwise it will peel off all the paint layers underneath when removed. I had to learn the the hard way!
Great tip, spud ! 🙂
Interesting tutorial as always. Thanks or taking the time to show us.
@oriskany – The are some great miniature artists who do use airbrushing on their minis to achieve certain effects and to paint up units. For example the artist ‘Volomir’ from http://volomir.blogspot.com/ paints his units of High Elves using airbrush techniques and achieves amazing results. Not something I would do, but there you go.
Personally I like to base coat and camouflage my Dystopian Wars units with an airbrush as it saves time and renders better results.
Thanks again Romain for the excellent tutorials.
i prefer to use white spirit or i beleive in america its called isopropal alchahol to thin the paint as it evaporates very quicky on the miniature and doesnt pool like water thined paint
A bit smelly and toxic, though… I can’t recommend anything that volatile, especially projected through pulsated air. One should at least wear a mask…
I ‘ been experimenting with some of the Anarchy models “mini” templates , hexes currently, for my Alelh and Combined Army stuff. they were featured on BOW a while back and have had some good results even on small minis. Unending to try the flames out on Pentesilea’s bike. Had a play with some of the mini camo to but not sure I’d use it on figures but prob good for Dopzone or similar. However some designs are suitable for 15mm scale tanks so thinking of giving it a go for some Aradna models and see how I get on.
Personally would love to see some airbrush terrain painting tutorials. Would really like to get my Infinity terrain looking good!
Best people I’ve seen with an airbrush on 40k models are awesomepaintjob and ichibanpainting
Yes, Lester Bursley is a master ! 🙂
Lester Bursley was my main source when i started using the airbrush. Now do not get me wrong here but i think that you do make your job harder than necesary, first you are way to close to the model, when airbrushing you should never see the paint pooling like in this video, get the airbrush further away and the coats well be even better and no waiting for it to dry between the different shades of blue. thinning with water should be fine, but it very much depends on the paint and the manufacturer. cleaning in between paints, when… Read more »
Crackin’ vid Romain as usual.
On the thinning topic, I have found to break the surface tension of the water with a minute speck of detergent often helps the flow of paint, can also be used when not airbrushing.
Great stuff Romain!
It’s cool to see that you can get great results even with very simple airbrushing tools. I’ve only ever used mine for priming, as I don’t often do large scale projects, vehicles or even squads of figures. Having seen this technique however, I might have to make the leap for my next batch of cultists for Strange Aeons!
Hello, I am a new backstage subscriber, I like a lot of what is going on here even if I don’t find my specific games all that often. I was excited to see this airbrushing video as I like to airbrush but since I am self taught I have gaps in my technique I am trying to clean up. I have to say though, I found this video not useful. For the record I want it to be useful, I really like some of the ideas behind these videos. Please take my critique as suggestions to make more videos. Use… Read more »
LOL… continuing on from my mistake! *Use an airbrush that is double action with a compressor that you can talk about air pressure. *Mix paints outside of the cup, give mixing ratio suggestions. *Talk about spraying at angles versus straight on to give lighting effects. *Don’t test the paint on the mini just use a vertical surface. *Edit and shorten down the length of the video. Not everyone has a .2 mm airbrush, however a .35 mm needle airbrush is very serviceable to work in confined areas at low pressure so that a lot of the prep work can be… Read more »