Sunday, July 08, 2012

From the Desk: Airbrush Update

Another weekend down, and unfortunately it hasn't been as productive as I was hoping for. Before I get to the meat of my post (an update on my airbrush experience), just a couple quick notes. First, I rounded out my collection of Secret Weapon washes. I've found them to be an invaluable part of my painting arsenal. I sometimes use them straight for painting rather than washing, just because they are already pre-thinned to a level that is not that far off from what I would thin to anyway. Second is that despite not being close to fully painted on Gators yet, I bought a couple more models for my force. It was sort of a bit of retail therapy, given the chaos that has been going on in other parts of my life. Anyway, on to the important part.

I managed to break out the airbrush again over the weekend as a part of working on, what is for now, a secret project. That will get revealed in a couple more days. However, during this airbrushing exercise I was using my P3 paints instead of the VMA ones. Overall they worked fine, but it was challenging to get the right thinning. Everything was going fine at first. Then while secret project was drying, I swapped to start base coating the Throne of Everblight, and disaster. A chunk of paint got lodged and I had to disassemble the entire airbrush to clean it. And I mean the entire thing. That led me to think about airbrushing in general.

What I like about this airbrush is 1) it was cheap, and 2) it's good initial practice with double action. What I don't like, well, that's a long list, but the highlights are 1) it's not gravity fed, 2) it's a monstrous pain in the ass to clean, 3) it's not exactly the most finely tuned instrument.

With all this in mind, I've initiated a countdown. Once I have used this airbrush a total of 10 times (and I'm at 4 now), I'll indulge myself in buying a better one. I also need to find a better system for getting it set up and in a usable state than hauling everything downstairs, setting it up, and then hauling it back upstairs once I'm done.

2 comments:

Jay Adan said...

What are you thinking in terms of replacement? I just replaced my Iwata Eclipse after 17 years. I decided to go with a Grex Tritium - which should arrive in the mail this week. Looking forward to gravity feed and not worrying about rubber bushings. Oh, and the pistol grip should be a nice change.

Scott said...

Right now I'm leaning towards the Harder & Steenbeck “Infinity Two-in-One”. I've seen it used in person by someone who has a pretty fair amount of airbrush experience. I'll definitely check out the Grex Tritium though. Any other recommendations out there?