Airbrushing 101 - Part 2

In part two of Airbrushing 101 were going to continue looking at the Equipment involved more specifically the Air and how you get it to your airbrush.
Air
There are a few different tools to use for air to push the paint out of your airbrush while all end up being expensive I will explain what they are how they work and what it means for cost.

Canned Air - Exactly what it sounds like, this is a can of compressed air that you can connect to your airbrush. This starts out as a low investment at 6-10 bucks a can for the larger cans but over time this will add up quite quickly. This method also comes with the problem of pressure not being consistent. This is due to not just the can losing pressure but also because as the air comes out it causes the can to get extremely cold and thus the can loses internal pressure.

Compressor - This is a large subject and there are multiple things to consider when looking at compressors.

Tank vs. No Tank - A compressor without a tank is going to be running the entire time you use it constantly working to get the air flowing. This can be a bad thing it will cause the compressor to always be warm thus generating moisture more consistently. Also this constant working means that the machine is pulsing air opposed to streaming air. That constant pulse can show up on your work under the right (or wrong) conditions thus your paint flow wont be as consistent as it could be. There is a plus however, a compressor without a tank is generally quite less expensive. Having a Tank eliminates most of the problems you can have that I mentioned the airflow will be more consistent and because of less heat being generated there is less of a build up of moisture, which is an issue that we will tackle another time.Noise - This is a huge issue for some people and for others its not a big deal at all. This is really going to end up being a cost related problem. You can buy a large powerful compressor
from your local do it yourself store (Home Depot and the such) for cheaper than $100 and have far more power than you will ever need but if you live with anyone else or in an apartment they will be far too loud for that environment. As soon as you move to a quite style compressor you will probably double the price for something with far less power and with no tank or any extra bits but it will be use able in the home.

I will be ending with that for today, there are many other things to consider for everything we have covered so far and I plan on going into detail about each part.
Next up will be what to consider with paint.

First Commision Terrain - Part 1

This is part 1 in what will hopefully be a on going and as in depth as I can handle making it on painting of Forge World terrain. I will be starting with one large piece of ruin and two smaller pieces as well which were part of the Cityfight line of terrain that FW was doing previously. There will be more pieces to follow as all of this commission job is in trade for the compressor that I ordered last week.

When I got the terrain it had already been trimmed and most of the flashing had been removed. So with that I had little to remove from the pieces but they were quite dusty and had never been thoroughly cleaned to remove the release agent. So that was the real step number one...

Items Required:
Oven Cleaner
Gloves
Brush
Soap
Sink
A good outdoor location



I rinsed the terrain quickly to remove the dust that had built up on them and then let them dry. With the detail this took quite some time this was really a hold up quite a few times. When dry I took everything outside and sprayed the Ruins with a good coat of the oven cleaner which then I had to leave for two hours for it to do its job. I use oven cleaner because it is an amazing greaser which will break down the release agent that FW uses on its molds.

After the oven cleaner has gotten a chance to work its magic on the release agent it was time to pop on those gloves and scrub the pieces with some soapy water and our brush. After a good rinse and a few hours drying it was time to shake up a nice can of Grey primer and give it a good thin even coat of primer.



Next will be the painting. So as soon as I get in the Compressor which should be arriving tomorrow so we shall start the good part then.

Up the pressure.

While updates on this blog are quite infrequent and I often seem to give up on all the projects, I have not stopped painting or working on any of them. I have kept the camera right next to me as I slowly work on my miniatures and hop between projects, I will upload all of those pictures and add some posts to her to show what I have been working on in due time.
I have finally started working again with the airbrush and realized I really cant work with the compressor that I currently have it simply doesn't do the job. The pressure is too low for the paint I am trying to push through it, not to mention since it doesn't have a tank what pressure it does have is quite inconsistent. Due to this I am going to be doing some commission painting jobs, a friend of mine has a ton of Forge World terrain that he built but never actually painted. He suggested we work a deal out to get some of it painted and he can help with the purchase of a decent compressor. I figure if I'm going to get into this I may as well get a good one instead of a loud or just not good.