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#1
11-18-2003, 05:07 PM
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Any airbrushers in here?
Hey!
About a year ago, a friend of mine gave me a ton of airbrushing equipment for free (small compressor, large compressor w/tank, 3 airbrushes, paint, frisket, etc.), and it wasn't until yesterday that I actually got around to trying it. I've never used an airbrush before, and this is what I came up with on my first try:  I feel like it came out very nicely. The black outline was done using a pen after I'd airbrushed the colors, and the white highlights were made using a white paint-pen. Anyways, I am looking for some online tutorials for airbrushing, and wondered if anyone in this forum had any good sites to share on the subject.
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#2
11-19-2003, 01:24 AM
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I work as a airbrush artist at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg VA. We mostly spray on textiles, such as tshirts, hats, mousepads, and such. I am begining to get into custom automotive painting on the side though. Is there a certain feild of airbrushing you were looking at getting into, illustrative, t-shirt, automotive? Some of the demands very from field to field is why I ask. As far as online tutorials go, they seem to be few and far between. For some reason airbrushing tech seems to be a well guarded secret. There are few books out there that aren't much good either. Most seem to be rather old and don't overly get into actual techniques. There are a couple of magazine on the subject which can be decent. Airbrush action is one and it seems to be devoted more towards automotive and Tshirt airbrushing while the other is Airbrush art + action which seems a little more towards the illustrative side. I also think that it may be originaly a german publication that is translated into english. These however again do not overly get into the basic principles of airbrushing. They do sell a lot of airbrush how to videos in the airbrush action magazine covering a large variety of uses for the airbrush which I haven't seen but appear to be rather informative and i have heard some good things about them through the grapevine. some of the basics of airbrushing that you might want to start focusing on are: Playing with different air pressures from the compressor. For a majority of things we do at the park we run at about 65 psi. This is somewhat high &ometimes for more detailed work I will turn it down to around 25 or so. So try different levels for different things and see what you like. Also, is your airbrush a single action or dual action? Single is that you just push down on the trigger and paint come out with no variance while dual action allows you to push down on the trigger for air and pull back to control paint flow. A dual action is prefered for anything past say model painting or so and is sometimes even prefered for that. It just gives a lot more control. Now, asuming you have a dual action one of the big strengths of an airbrush is the extreme variance of lines it allows. From very fine to nice and thick with a single pass. The ways to vary these lines are by vrying the amount of paint that is being sprayed(more paint thicker line) and by varying the distance of the airbrush to the object being sprayed( further away thicker line) So this is a big thing to experiment with. One thing that alot of people will not do unless told is to keep you finger down on the trigger. Keep air the air flowing even when your not pulling back for paint when your working on the surface. Constantly letting off the trigger creates this start stop kinda thing and you lose any "smoothness" your airbrushing will have. Once again I will reiterate how important line variance is. Having the same thickness of line through and image is boring and does not interest the eye. However having a good variance will make it stand out. One drill to help you with going thick to thin and the reverse is to practice tapered lines. I've also heard them refered to as "rat tails". They are done by starting air flow and and holding the airbrush 5-6"'s away from the surface and pulling back rather far on the trigger to start a good flow of paint and start letting the trigger go back forward reducing paint flow as you hand passes horizontaly, verticaly, or diagonaly and gets closer to the surface being painted.This should be a quick motion. You can also reverse these steps to do a thin to thick line. Well, there's plenty more stuff to tell but I let you tell me if you want more before I continue. Just email me [email protected] , im me elroyj25 , send me a private message from here, or just post a response here. As for the name you did. It's quite clean. Your fill in looks good alot of people tend to be blotchy at first. It'll take some practice but try and do all of it using only the airbrush (fill, outline, and highlights).I dont have much of my own stuff on my computer but here's a couple.
 
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#3
11-19-2003, 03:38 PM
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Re: Any airbrushers in here?
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Yeah, all 3 of my airbrushes are dual-action. One is a Crescendo, One is a Badger, and the other is some plastic POS. I've only been using the Badger at this point, and the documentation only recommended 25-50psi, and suggested 30psi as a good level. So what purpose would raising the psi all the way to 65 serve? Is it just faster to work with? I know what you mean about starting and stopping the air-flow creating a sort of bulge in the stream, but as of now, my needle is set so that even when I don't pull back on the action, paint comes out when the airflow is on. So, should I adjust the needle further forward so that this doesn't happen? What's the method you use to clean your airbrushes? Mainly I'm interested in knowing how you clean between colors. I've tried using soapy water which seemed to work okay, and then rinsed with clean water. I've also tried using paint-thinner and rinsing with clean water, but for some reason, the paint-thinner didn't seem to work as good??? What do you use to blow residual paint through the airbrush (like do you use a scrap piece of paper or a jar or something)? Anyways, just seems like I'm wasting so much time cleaning between colors, there's gotta be an easier way to do it.
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#4
11-19-2003, 08:31 PM
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Yeah, ya want to have the needle all the way forward. There should be no paint coming out until you pull back.
If your using acrylics, which I imagine you are, then soap and water will be fine for cleaning. For changing through colors you'll want to have a place for clearing the gun. One thing you can do is to take a empty gallon milk or water jug and cut a decent hole from the jug and fill it with a 1/4 of the way with water. This will let you spray into it and catch the overspray. Another thing thats good to do is to take off the back of the airbrush when you are working. this allows you to get to the needle much quicker. Is you brush gravity feed or bottle feed? If it's bottle feed than you'll want a bottle just filled with soap and water. After you've finshed a color and want to change then put on that bottle and start spraying into the jug with the trigger all the way back. you can the grab the needle chuck and yank back on it a few times to help clear it. This is also nice to do if you think the brush may be clogged. Once you've done that then just place the next color bottle on and spray it into the jug to make sure its just that color and you'll be good to go. If it's gravity feed then just pour soapy water into the cup and yank on the chuck like before. Just make sure to fully clean it after each use. I would say a pretty full break down and reassembly is good to do. Also I've heard that every now and then (not every time) its good to spray some wd-40 on the parts to keep them lubricated well. We're aren't allowed to do this because we're in a public place and there are some vapor laws or something. Wusses  Let me know if ya got any other questions or just wanna talk "shop".
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#5
11-19-2003, 09:15 PM
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Thanks for all your help so far.
When you say "yank back on the needle chuck", can you explain that a bit more? Obviously, you're talking about the back-end of the needle where it's tightened into position, but why pull on that? Wouldn't that be basically the same as just pulling the action back? Yeah, all my brushes are gravity feed. I took a jar and drilled some holes in the lid so that I could spray into it and have some ventillation so it wouldn't blow right back out of the jar, but the overspray comes right out of the holes anyway, so it's not very effective, so I will try the milk jug idea. Where shoud I cut the hole in it, and how big should the hole be? So should it have a hole and then I spray into the mouth of the jug, or spray through the hole? Leave the cap on or remove it? Sorry for all the questions, I'm really excited about airbrushing, and there's alot of projects I'd like to try, so any help would be appreciated. I've got a book about airbrushing that my friend gave me with all the equipment, it's by Judy Martin, and it's called "The Complete Guide to Airbrushing Techniques and Materials". It covers some of the basics, and shows alot of artwork, but not enough to really teach me how to do it. Thanks again. Mike
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#6
11-19-2003, 09:50 PM
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i have a pasche VSR-90 (gravity feed) airbrush.. and its very hard to use
I don't like the setup because there is no caps to the top feeding "tanks" so soemtimes i spill.... I also don't like how the needles are so brittle and sometimes sprays out to the side, or switches, or doesn't spray at all.... I do not think it was worth investing in an airbrush PERSONALLY its to big of a hassle  Im quite angry, but am unaware of what to do about it!
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#7
11-19-2003, 10:27 PM
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ci5ic- you'll probably want to leave the cap on and cut a decent sized hole in it and spray into that hole. you'll somewhat have to experiment with it, because I havent personally used this setup. We you some capped off PVC tubing for clearing our guns. this is another possibly for you to try. Airbrushing is rather messy and you'll always get some blowback.
Pulling back on the chuck opens it up more than just pulling back on the trigger, so it really helps with clearing out the brush. I believe I've thumbed through the book you spoke of and like you said it's not to helpful on the actual technique of it all. And don't worry about the questions. I enjoy talking about it and I know it's rather hard to get a lot of the answers. So feel free to ask as much as you like. I certainly don't know everything. I've only been airbrushing for about six months, but due to the high volume of work I do, and the fact that I'm supervisor of my airbrush stand I think I've come to understand alot of things about the whole process. Like I said before, if you have AOL instant messenger you can talk to me on it in real time if you like. Im on as elroyj25 Integra14- Airbrushing isn't the easiest media to get used to but it has it's advantages. I don't do all my artwork using a airbrush by any means but it just works well for some stuff. It's of course good for clothing, if you doing wall murals, and it's of course the first choice for custom automotive painting which I believe is becoming rather popular again. I usually use a Paasche VL bottle feed airbrush, simply because it allows for a larger volume of paint at my disposal which I need for working at a theme park. We can see a couple hundred orders a day sometimes. It's also somewhat of a "workhorse" airbrush as it can be worked rather hard and still paint well. Alot of the gravity feed airbrushes are for more detail orientated work and can be much more tempermental. their needles and cones are much more easily damaged. I use them, but it's when I need alot of detail in my work. For t shirts and license plates the #3 tip and cone on the VL is fine for this stuff. But alot of it just boils down to being rather careful with the brush and keeping it clean. Keep the questions coming guys. Im enjoying them.
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#8
11-20-2003, 01:36 PM
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So what's the real difference between gravity feed and bottle feed? Can a gravity-feed brush be used for bottle feed? I thought that the only difference was that you either use the gravity feed cups or the bottles, and I thought they were interchangeable (but that the bottles were more expensive since you would need several of them if you are working with multiple colors.
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#9
11-20-2003, 04:45 PM
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Perhaps I should use the terms top feed and bottom feed. Does you brush look like this
 or like this  Given it'll probably vary in a apperance some, but the top one is a top feed airbrush and the bottom is a bottom feed. If it's like the top one then you can't use a bottle with it. If it's like the bottom one I assume your just using a paint cup with it. If thats the case then a bottle can be used. I suppose it's cheaper to not buy bottles and just use a paint cup but if your using a decent volume of paint and switching colors somewhat frequently it becomes a rather large hassle. The bottle aren't really too expensive. There are both glass and plastic ones. We used glass ones with metal tops, just because thats what our company sent us. They were ok. I didn't much care for the metal tops. they tended to come apart after a while. I've heard that they have plastic tops for these and that they work better. But in any case they're not very expensive and you probably wouldn't need too many of them.
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#10
11-20-2003, 06:58 PM
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Yeah, mine is a bottom feed, so I may invest in a couple bottles so that I can have soapy water, clean water, and paint thinner right handy.
Just got done with a little project I made for my girlfriend... Took me about 4 hours from sketching to completion. I may go back and add some black outlines to it. Man, that Frisket was difficult to work with when I was trying to shade the flower-pot inside, but I think it came out pretty decently for my second airbrushing project. 
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#11
11-20-2003, 07:22 PM
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That looks really nice. I haven't worked with frisket yet. The majority of stuff I do is all freehand. I'd say that if your using acrylics, there'd be no real need for paint thinner. Acrylics water based so that and some soap should do it.
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#12
11-20-2003, 08:18 PM
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Re: Any airbrushers in here?
Quote:
I plan on doing a wide variety of projects and on multiple different material surfaces like plastic, metal, paper, fabric, whatever. My next project is going to be to airbrush a funky sun design on a metal cigarette case that I have. So, I'm kinda curious as to what kind of paint to use. Obviously, I wouldn't want to use watercolors because I doubt they would bond to the metal very well. Is there some sort of prep I can do to the surface of the metal so that the paint bonds better? I thought about sanding the case with some fine-grit sand paper, but I don't want to loose the shine on it. Is there some sort of primer I could use instead, or some kind of material that I can use with the airbrush that will "sandblast" the masked area? I know that you mostly work with textiles and such, but thought you might have some ideas. I was looking through the documentation that came with my air-brush and it mentioned something called "Bond All" which is supposed to be used to extend paint (like it's added to the paint so that you have more paint, but doesn't thin the color at all), and it said something about it improving the adhesion properties of the paint as well. Maybe this would be something I could use as a primer of sorts? I tried to do a little free-hand in that picture I made above like adding the center-lines to some of the leaves, but it was really hard to do without either getting too much paint, or being way off the mark. Of course, if I had an easel or something so I didn't have to hold the paper with one hand and airbrush with the other, it might be a little easier. I've been wanting to do something that's entirely freehand, but I need to get myself some black paint... Ooh... actually, I just realized that I have some black acrylic paint, but it's in a tube, and I think it's pretty thick... can I use that by mixing in some water to thin it out a bit?
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#13
11-20-2003, 11:14 PM
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If the paints say they are for fabrics than they are most likely acrylics. Acrylics are really nice and universal. You really only need to get into urethanes if your doing automotive work. We do hundereds of metal license plates, in fact it's probably or biggest seller next to t-shirts and we still use acrylics for those. We spray and light coat of Opaque white on the surface area thats being painted. We use Createx's airbrush acrylic paints and the white is slightly "chalkier" which acts as a primer coat and allows for better adhesion with the other colors. I think this white consistency probably holds true for other brands of paint, I just know for sure about Createx. They're one of if not the most popular for airbrush acrylics. Using this method should prevent you from needing to use the bondall product but it might be interesting to try. Be careful when painting on metal surfaces. Even with the base coat it has a much higher possibility of the paint "spidering" out. It just doesn't absorb the paint as well as paper or fabric does. Lower air pressure here helps. Also, a big help is to use a hair dryer and dry the surface after each color. You'll also want to give any metal and possibly plastic surface a good few coats of clear afterwards. I'm sure that you can thin out the paint you have in the tube, but I'm not entirely sure how. It may just be easier to go to the store and pick up some black for airbrushes. This usually is one of the most used colors so I'm sure you'll need it sooner or later.
Freehand work takes time and lots of practice. If you intend to start doing things freehand I'd really start practing with that. Using friskets all the time will get you into the habit of using them and will blunt your learning curve. It's like they say that it's easier to learn on a manual transmission car first then later. Start with the hardest and work to the easier. Friskets are needed for alot of things because it keeps the surface area cleaner. So, Im not saying not to use them just start practicing with freehand stuff. One thing that works well is to buy the cheapest white bed sheet you can find and practice on that. Start with a light color like flourescent pink or something and fill the entire sheet then switch to a darker color like blue and cover the sheet again then switch to black and do it again. That gives you lots of area to work with. Just practice line work. Try those tappered lines I spoke of and you can also try and do lines of connected cursive lower case L's. Start at the bottom and go up and around just as you would normally write. What you want to do though is keep the upper strokes thin by low paint feed and close to the surface and on the down stroke you'll want to have a thick line by more paint feed and futher from the surface. You want to do this in a smooth action and you want them to connect so don't start and stop between each letter. They take a little while to get the hang of but they are very helpful. Another thing I've heard and believe is that you should start with cursive lettering before getting into pictures. It's easily one of the hardest things to get right with airbrushing and when you get it down it has given you the ability to control your lines in a smooth way. So even if lettering isnt your focus with the brush it can be really helpful. Just a last thought, a good reason for freehand practice is that even in images that you will use a lot of frisket you still need freehand work to keep it from looking "stenciled". It softens up the image and keeps it from looking quite so cut and pasted. I actually try and keep my artists from using any stencils on they're work because it gives that feel. Though like I said friskets do have their place and as I get more and more into automotive artwork the more and more I'll be using them.
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#14
11-23-2003, 08:46 PM
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Well, I tried to do a bunch of free-hand stuff the other day, but it turned out horribly. More practice will be necessary. I found it difficult to control the paint flow.
Then, today, I was tearing apart the airbrush to do some cleaning and noticed that whoever owned this airbrush before me had a part in backwards. it's the curved plate that sits behind the action that actually pushes the spring-loaded needle-holder back. So, the curved part was facing the wrong direction, and so you'd have to pull back the action almost half of the way before the needle would even start to move. Once I figured that out, it was alot easier to work with. Started messing around with one of the other air-brushes also, another Crescendo, but it looks like I'm going to need some replacement parts before I really start to use it.
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#15
11-24-2003, 10:03 AM
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Yeah, practice is definately the key. It'll take a while so don't get discourage. Having the airbrush put together correctly should help though
 . One thing you can try to start getting used to controlling paint flow is by doing squigley lines. It's a little less structured than the "L's". Keep changing your line weights using the same close/far distance and less/more trigger as you would with the "L's". This also kinda helps relax you incase you get to tense when your airbrushing. Also, just remember to keep the finger down on the trigger so it's not another thing you have to think about.
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