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Ratios, ratios, ratios.....

818 views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  Zhufor 
#1 ·
Hey folks!

Now that the coca cola advert has appeared it is time for me to retreat to my wonderous cavern of hobby goodness!

I've spent the past year stocking it with little bits of joy for me to keep myself busy during my 'hibernation'
and now the last thing to arrive is my new compressor and spray guns! Huzzah!

Now to the crux of my post....
Although i have been involved in wargames and painting miniatures of all types for about 20 years, i've always done it by hand, sadly with he increasing troubles brought on by my gifts from teh chaos gods (i have arthritis) holding a brush for long periods is getting harder and harder. so i made the investment.

Unfortunately having never used this kind of kit before i'm unsure on what ratio (i got there in the end) to use when mixing up my paints, and also if i should just stick with water? or would a medium, or retarder possibly work better?

Any advice from you guys is greatly apprieciated.
Thanks for your time guys (and girls)
~Zhu~
 
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#4 ·
hello and welcome to the forums. there are several tutorials and threads on using airbrushes and all the fun stuff. I use denatured alcohol in mine instead of water as it dries faster that way.
 
#8 ·
@morfangdakka I'll give the denatured alcohol a go, do you have any recommendations on where to aquire some?
I get mine from the local hard ware store, but I have seen it at wal-mart, and some craft stores carry it and places like that so give a few phone calls around town and should be an easy find.

I go with the 2% milk consistence when mixing but it is a lot of trial and error to get it just right.
 
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#6 ·
Oh no! It's one of them jock types! :scare:


Welcome to Heresy! :drinks:
 
#7 ·
Hey Zhufor, welcome to the forum!

Ratios are a pain in the ass and there is no "right way" to do it. Personally I am using "Liquitex Airbrush Medium" as a thinning agent, it's basically the medium which normal paint pigment floats in and as such it doesn't seperate as badly from the pigment as say water does. You can use water though, I have a couple of times and didn't notice too much of a difference although that may just be due to my painting.

I find the easiest way of mixing the paint is to use a shot glass as you see easily see the viscosity of the paint. I ladle some paint in with a brush, add a couple of drops of medium, mix it up and drag it up the walls a bit. I've heard that you should be aiming to have the paint run down the walls freely but I find for me thats a little thin so I tend to make it a bit thicker. 2 percent fat milk is another saying that's thrown around a bit, that is you want your paint to have the same thinness as milk.

The thing with the AB is that if it's too thick and it blocks then you can always either ramp up the PSI to clear it (I generally spray at about 15-20 but atm I'm still only using it base coat) and then add a little more medium to the mix in your brush. If it's too thin then you have to add more paint and thats a pain if you try and do in the cup.

I would really recommend looking at Vallejo for your paints. I find GW's metallics are good through an AB when thinned but their colours not so much. However be careful with their reds in particular (and a couple of other warm colors) shouldn't be put through an AB due to the chemicals in them. Vallejo make fucking awesome primers in black, white and grey that you don't need to thin to put through the brush. Buy them. Use them. Love them. Honestly they are the tits.

Check out the staff blog section, there is a bout 9 posts in there from me about my various fuck ups and learnings so far.

Hope it all helps and get amongst it, looking forward to seeing what you come up with. At the very least it makes priming and base coating sooooo much quicker.
 
#10 ·
And i have returned! (cue tumble-weed)

Cheers Jacobite, awesome advice and i'll be sure to check out the staff section and try to learn from your mistakes.

So far I've only had a play around with it, spraying sheets of card, paper and random stuff from my bit box trying to get a feel for how it works. We moved house just after i signed up and then of course we had Christmas, so not had much opportunity to put it to good use.

Tonight is the night though, I've had a storm raven sitting there waiting to be built for months, and now that it is, what better model is there for base coating with an AB!?

Gonna look up Vallejo paints and see what catches my eye, i did get a brochure for them with the compressor, but first i'll have to get through the mountains of GW paint that i have all over the place, although getting some good primers to use with the AB is a damn good idea, so they're on my list, rather than cans of spray from GW.

I'm kinda just gibbering now......hopefully you guys can forgive my late reply, but when Slannesh (my wife) makes demands of me i must comply.

May your brushes always be soft and pointy!
Zhufor.
 
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