Getting Started with Airbrushing Part 3. Paint.

Paint

Right then I've talked about airbrushes and compressors, next we need to think about our paint options, where we're going to paint and other bits and pieces we could use to make our airbrushing easier and fun. Here I will talk about paint

Now we really can use any of the paints we already use when we paint by hand.

 GW  paints can work in your airbrush but do need to be thinned. The problem I have found with GW paints is the pot and getting the paint from the pot into the airbrush. It's messy and a pain in the bum. I have seen some tip paint from the GW pots straight into the airbrush, add water (50/50) mix with a brush and start painting. Didn't work for me. If you insist on using GW paints I would buy some of these

You can add the paint into these dropper bottles, add your thinner (water or even a proper airbrush thinner) mix it in the bottle and the squirt your paint into your airbrush. Mess free and ready to go. You can even make enough to last some time and if your mixing your own colours this is a great way to do that too. I bought mine off of eBay and they are very cheap.

But there are 2 brands of paint I really like for airbrushing. Vallejo Model Air and Minitaire by Badger. Both are ready to go straight into your airbrush and don't require any thinning. They also come in dropper style bottles which is an even bigger bonus.

The Vallejo model air
This is really geared towards the scale modeller. The colours reflect this and so if your looking for bright purples or really vivid colours you won't find them in this range. Realism is what you get with this range of paints. I would think for an Imperial Guard player they would be fantastic. Some space marine chapters like Raptors or any of the black armoured chapters could be painted with this range very well. I should also add that if your looking for metallic airbrush paints, these are the very best. Very fine paint. Here's a chart of the colours available

Badgers Minitaire paints.
This range is quite new and again come in dropper bottles. I think I discovered them around march time and they are really very good. Geared more towards the fantasy / sci if market this is where you will find some very bold colours. The names are really fun too. Bloodstained mud as an example. I really enjoy these paints and they fill a gap Vallejo's model air paints can't. Bright yellows, purples, reds and blues. Really any colour you could need is here. I don't rate their metallics though. The Vallejo ones are far better. But generally these are the paints I use primarily and the Vallejo model air paints are my back up paints.
Minitaire also do "Ghost" paints and these are a bit different than standard paint. Ghost paints are also referred to as "Candy" paints. We don't use these in the normal way for painting models and I will cover these in a later post as they really deserve their own section.
Here's the Minitaire chart

So that's paint, if your thinking of using GW paints then you will need to thin them, people say "consistency of milk" but I found that rather confusing. I found 50/50 is usually good enough as long as your paint hasn't begun to dry out. Don't mess about with old paint though, you will curse yourself silly after you clog your airbrush up and have to strip and clean it.

Last but not least we need primer. If you have an airbrush, why bother with expensive cans of paint, Vallejo airbrush primer is fantastic, I use white, black and grey. It's about £10 a bottle on eBay and I have managed to prime 4000 pts of Necrons and 2000 pts of eldar without going halfway though the bottle.

I repeat what I said before though, if your priming with an airbrush, up your psi a bit (30 is what I use) and remember you don't have to absolutely flood the model with the primer, a light coat is good enough for your paint to adhere to.

Any questions on paint don't be afraid to ask here on here.

I will cover our painting area next and some safety tips we should all follow.