New at airbrushing

T

TheUnforggoten

Guest
Hello everyone I am new at airbrushing but have watched many videos. I will have about 1000 dollars to spend on the airbrushes and the paints as well as other stuff. I would like to do realistic paintings I know with a little time I will get there. I have so many questions about this hobby but first I would like to say that I will be doing big murals. I will start out doing the easer ones before I jump to the realistic paintings. My first question is this if I was to paint a pic 10ft x 10ft say of a face or a skull how far would a 2 oz bottle of airbrush go? Lets say its mono tone it has no shades or highlights. The next question is can I use paints that comes in tubes and mix with mediums so that they dont lose the bonding? Why I ask is that the murals are for free so I would like to know the cheaper way to go with paints.
 
Hey there, welcome from New Zealand. What part of the world are you in? You budget should get you well started. Assume about 1/3 of your set up costs for the brush, the other 2/3 on various bit and pieces. I set up for about $700NZ dollars with a good Iwata eclipse, a solid but budget end compressor (noisy...), paint, paper, erasers, scalpels, easel, hose, filter, fittings.

A 10 oz bottle should do it... they last forever. Would that be on paper? now, GET PROPER AIRBRUISH PAINT. Yes, you can put tube acrylics through an airbrush but then you can use a motorcycle to plough a field - just because you can doesn't mean you should. Don't skimp on paint! You can mix the mediums but through an airbrush the paints specific for the AB are a much finer pigment, hence their ability to cover well.

That should produce enough questions for you... :) Cheers Mark
 
Yup non airbrush specific paint will give you issues with flow and clogging nozzles. Airbrush pigments are ground much finer. Also decent airbrush paints such as Wicked are lightfast ( other brands may be too, you would have to research), meaning they don't fade, which could be a factor to consider for murals.
 
markjthomson I am from the USA I live in Atlanta I have friends who are members of a group called The LivingWalls they go around the world doing large murals. Only thing I would do on paper is colored pencils I will start on canvas with paints. I may be over doing it but I will get about 6-10 diff ABs one to prime out large areas and others to use for painting. What is the best AB to get for very fine lines what should I look for? I don't know how you/ other would feel if I posted what I am looking at buying as in AB and also the paints. Plus some of the pic I would like to start out painting.
The pic I like the most might be the hard one for most who paint.
 
welcome from Australia.
By all means post up what you are thinking of buying as well as your reference pic of your chosen artwork. we will guide where possible.
stick with airbrush specific paint and one that is light fast. spraying in a public place you would probably be better off with a waterbased paint such as the createx wicked range that Squishy has mentioned.
As far as a brush that will do very fine lines there are definitely some good choices but your budget wont stretch far, and would you really need hairline detail in a 10' x 10' picture ?
 
Welcome to the forum. Here's a question for you. Will you be painting your large murals on canvas or on walls? If you are going to be painting on canvas, you can use Golden High Flow paints reduced with water and Golden GAC100 or Golden Airbrush Medium. You'll find the Golden paints to be very high pigmented and you can reduce quite a bit.

If you are going to paint on walls and/or other structure surfaces, I would highly recommend the Createx Wicked. Again, you can reduce, reduce and reduce this paint. Like Squishy said, it has been designed to be used on cars which has to be lightfast. You can use the Wicked on most any surface.
 
You can post pics, that's fine :)

The ability to paint fine lines is often as much down to the painter as to the brush. With experience you can get hairlines out of .5 nozzles. At the size you hope to paint, how fine do you need to go?

Many people (with some exceptions, everyone has their favourites) would say the Iwata micron is the ideal detail brush with its .18 needle/nozzle. People can do murals on razor blades, and a guy here once painted a skull on a grain of rice. They can do finer than hairline with experience. I have done detail work the size of a penny with a .23 micron. So you can get pretty tight. On a large area that level of detail might get lost maybe? I guess the ref pic will help people advise better :)

Larger brushes are a good idea for priming etc. I don't know what compressor you plan to use but a mini hvlp which will have a fan pattern would give a more even coverage over a large area.
 
If doing large murals I'd suggest spray paint cans LOL..Do all your basing with spray paint or even old exterior house paint then just use the airbrush to give depth and oooomph..You have to consider on site power and other things potentially also like scaffolding etc etc and working at height with a compressor and airbrush in tow isn't always a good thing and your setup may need to be specific for that aspect..But really its a case of using the best option for the best option..Airbrushing a whole wall mural isnt a good option when a roller and tin of paint will do it in 1/100th of the time LOL. Using some mixed styles between graffiti and airbrush is a good way to go for murals, time does become your biggest factor as you really dont want one wall taking you 6 mnths :) Good luck
 
Back
Top