Airbrushing (possibly a stupid ??)

I have a airbrush however i seldom use it because i dont have the process down very well. I am curious, when you mix your paint and thinner do you mix only what you are intending on using right at that time? Or do you mix a fair amount of it for later use? I guess I am also wondering if thinned paint has a long shelf life if you do mix a jar of it? I think this is an issue that has held me back from airbrushing because I really dont want to waste a bunch of paint or mix small amounts of paint at a time. Any insight on this would be appreciated and sorry for the dumb question but i couldnt find any help from the search tool.

Mix only what you use.

So basically the only efficient way to do it is to get a lot of the parts ready for paint and do a lot at once if you can?

So basically the only efficient way to do it is to get a lot of the parts ready for paint and do a lot at once if you can?

Really depends on whether you can still enjoy the hobby if it starts to resemble an assembly line :) I can :)

What I do, like Jano11 suggests, is mix exactly what I need for the particular airbrushing session. The exception here is semigloss black that I actually a lot of but that's only because it's probably the most widely-used colour that can be found on virtually any model, so it does not have the time to go bad. Most of the time.

Just use a gravity feed airbrush with a small colour cup. You can mix minute quantities of paint and there is zero wastage at all. If you don't like mixing different paints up, then maybe airbrushing isn't for you. During the course of building a model, I will sometimes mix ten or more different colours in very small quantities. Once you get used to mixing, spraying, quick flushing the airbrush and mixing the next colour, it's no different than using a paintbrush and washing it out between colours.....

I mix and use at the time of airbrushing and this isn't a big deal. :)

I find that it is not an exact science, you have to go with flow and define your own method that works for you.

However, for custom colors, I did save them up to a couple of months. I had no issues using pre-mixed paint; I slightly added thinner to a level where it won't change the color shade and it went on okay...

Just use a gravity feed airbrush
That's the critical factor IMHO.

With a gravity cup, mixing and cleaning is not much different from brush painting really - once you get the hang of it.

Combine that with Vallejo acrylics in their dropper/dispenser bottles and wasted paint really IS comparable with brush painting :) Also, I always put any unused thinned paint back into the jar - it does no harm at all (quite the opposite in fact)

I have never used a bottom-jar airbrush but I can imagine that they are much more of a pain to use for airbrushing small doses of color.

I have never used a bottom-jar airbrush but I can imagine that they are much more of a pain to use for airbrushing small doses of color.

Exactly right. I used to use one and it's a real pain to keep filling the jar and cleaning it out after each colour....

Awesome, thanks for the input guys much appreciated

Thinned paint goes bad in about 2-4 weeks, depending on paint. Some sooner some later.

Thinned paint goes bad in about 2-4 weeks, depending on paint. Some sooner some later.

Mine doesn't :D

I think it depends on what you thin it with. A compatible thinner should not react with the paint. I've got jars of Tamiya paint that has been diluted with Tamiya thinners over 2 years ago and was still good when I used it yesterday on my Cayman ;)

But if you thin them with lacquer thinner (like so many of us do) then yes, they to turn into sludge.

But if you thin them with lacquer thinner (like so many of us do) then yes, they to turn into sludge.

Like I said, compatible :)

Putting square pegs into round holes has to have some drawbacks somewhere I suppose.

Not that I think longevity of thinned, leftover paint is such a huge benefit worth more than using your preferred thinner. My motto is "if it works for you, go for it!" :D

As habit, whenever i buy a new jar of Tamiya (X/XF) acrylic, I add a drop or two of their X-20A thinner. I've got a couple of these of colours that I don't use that often that are more than 2 years old with no noticable ill effect from adding their thinner.

I also have a jar of semi-gloss black (X-18) that I've over saturated with X-20A thinner that is perfectly fine.