Learning to airbrush

[Zed]

First attempt at Camo on a model.

1/48 scale Tamiya Tiger 2.

Just need the ambush camo finishing, detail completing and then a serious weathering....

 

[Sorontar]

I got a similar finish with a sinus infection

 

[Artanix]

Love my airbrush not had much chance to use it tbh, what paints are you using and how far away were you holding the airbrush? Looks like a really strong finish as a posed to something more granular that you get with airbrushes.

Sounds like a criticism, but its not, just interested in how it was done.

 

[Zed]

Using vallejo thinned with 1:1 ratio to distilled water. The colours i used are fairly strong colours - reflective green and German Camo medium brown to get the base colours down.

One thing i did as well was went over the yellow with middlestone which broke some of the coloured soft edges - something i wont do in future but id originally drawn out the camo shapes using a light pencil (wont do that either now i have the confidence to free hand it)

Held pretty close to the model using a 0.3 needle as well - so that might account for the strong finish (by close I would say at timed between 2 and 3 inches max)

need to get some flow extender and alcohol though ive heard people say not to put alcohol into vallejo paints.

 

[Zed]

lol bud!

 

[Aciiid]

Wow, having been recently to the imperial tank museam I can say that they are very close indeed to the actual colours. The yellow seems a bit bright but may just be the flash.

Good job.

 

[Artanix]

As far as I'm aware, alcohol as a thinner is for oil based acrylics or something like that. Vallejo is similar to citadel stuff, in the way that its water based, at least it is with the vallejo game color paints. I think the model paints are very similar, but can't remember what exactly was different about them -.-

 

[Requiel]

For airbrushing you can use meths as a thinner for acrylic paints as well as water. It's all about the way it affects the surface tension of the paint to make it form smaller droplets.

I just use regular tap water in mine but I use an alcohol based fluid to clean it with.

 

[Zed]

yellow is middlestone (vallejo colour) which is as close to dunkelgraub as you can get i think - normally i see people suggesting middlestone or yellow ochre as the yellow foundation.

It looks a lot darker this morning (the yellow) now its had time to dry.

 

[Zed]

I went with distilled water to get rid of any impurities. It tastes crap though...

I find my study is probably too hot and the paint dries very quickly which is a ball ache at times

 

[Zed]

almost done!

 

[Requiel]

Looks good. I like the weathering on the spare track sections and the camo looks sharp.

Painting camo is always a pain because the point of camo in real life is to reduce the resolution of a thing and make it harder to detect the boundaries. Unfortunately this is pretty much the opposite of the effect you want when painting a miniature.