Airbrush paint and thinner

Hey guys,

Im in need of some serious color, and will be buying much of it soon. What paints, in your opinion, give the best results? Im also wondering, what kind of thinner your using? I kits starting to pile up and I need to get building lol. Im kinda new to airbrush, I've done some kits but havent really produced a good enough finish to really like it. I mastered the cans, got some 1st place cars with cans, but I want to move on to better finishes.

Any help is good help, Thanks!

When I had my last airbrush, I only used Tamiya acrillycs. These are easy to clean up with only using water and only water to thin the paint

I thought they gave a good finish but, I suppose enamels would give you a better finish

I was using HOK airbrush paint, but it was wicked thick no matter how much you thinned, and I dont think it liked the thinner I was using.

What ever kind of paint you use, make sure you get the proper thinner for it, ie., enamel paints work best with enamel paint thinner, but lacquer thinner can be used to make the paint dry faster, and it also levels the paint better than enamel thinner. With lacquer based paints use ONLY lacquer thinner, nothing else. Acrylics use water/alcohol or what ever chemical it is in "acrylic airbrush thinner/cleaner" and no petroleum based thinners will work with acrylics. Then there's the Polyurethane paints that you have to use the specified thinners as well due to the fact that most use the thinner to make the paint "KICK" in the drying process.

Most paint companies provide a thinner for their specific line of paint. using this as a starter thinner will work best, but then once you find out what it is, you can go to the local hardware store and buy it by the gallon (much cheaper this way) and you'll likely only need to buy one gallon every 3 years or so.

I personally have a gallon of acetone for cleaning my airbrushes, a gallon of lacquer thinner, gallon of mineral spirits, a gallon of isopropyl alcohol (for acrylics and stripping paint), and some other thinners that are used for the various types of paint I use.

Considering my limited experience I've had good luck with Testors enamel and Testors thinner(3:1 paint/thinner). I prime with Tamiya(pretty thin) out of the can but I like Floquil too because it's a little thicker.Both of these are very smooth. Have also usedTestors Metalizer as a primer with good results--it dries very quickly.

The best finish I have gotten was when decanting Tamiya from the can and sprayed it thru my airbrush; no thinner and it came out flawless. With my lack of experience I was very surprised!

Another thing that has helped a lot is that I bought a bunch of cheap kits(ebay) to practice on. But by far the best thing I have done is bought an airbrushing video by a guy named Donn Yost ...http://www.oldmansmodels.com/id77.htmlonn. I dont mind giving the guy a plug because my spraying went from a '1' to a '6' out of 10 immediately.I build entirely diff't genres from him but his finishes are honestly unbelievable. He uses laquer thinner with enamels.

I'm very much still in the learning stage of using the airbrush so dont take any of this as gospel but I hope it is of some help.

CB