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For those of you who use an airbrush on your pyo’s (or any ceramics for that matter) what kind of paint do you use? Do you just thin down craft store acrylics? I have some paint that came with my airbrush but it says its for fabrics and I’m afraid of to thin down the acrylics I have.
I ruined my first two airbrushes experimenting to find out exactly that. It’s really best just to buy airbrush paints as the pigment is ground finer and you don’t have to worry about the paint breaking down from too much water added. I tried adding water to my own paints and it beaded up cause I added too much. Also, paints not built for an airbrush tend to cause clogging and spattering, I spent more time cleaning than painting at first. Putting the wrong thing in your airbrush can ruin one in a hurry, especially if it’s one of the cheaper models with plastic components. I got the bright idea to try putting nail polish(I was lured into this moment of stupidity by pretty color change effects in so many kinds of polish 😳 ) in my first one (BIG MISTAKE), bye bye airbrush. It thoroughly clogged and couldn’t be cleaned properly because of the plastic parts (nail polish remover eats plastic). It’s really worth the $$ to go ahead and get a nice airbrush after learning the basics with a cheap one. I ended up getting an IWATA hi-line HP-C and highly recommend it. A great double action, gravity feed airbrush that’s easy to clean and use. I’m still sort of a beginner at this point but I hope this helps. Createx is a pretty good brand of paint that I’ve used with no problems so far.
I use different brands of acrylic paint in my airbrush: Createx (made especially for airbrushes), Golden brand fluids, various Craft paints, and Winsor & Newton.
I thin the paints down with liquid Polymer Emulsion before using them, and add as much as I need depending on how thick the original consistency is (the Winsor paints are heavy body so they get thinned a lot). I never use water to thin any of my paints; it weakens them, so polymer emulsion is something you should look into unless you end up only buying only acrylic paint mixed specifically for the airbrush (or buy airbrush medium; they are basically similar products with different labels). Airbrush medium is relatively cheap for 8oz considering its a little over the cost of one bottle of golden or airbrush paint and will last you some time (I use it even when I’m brush painting as well as thin interference paints with it). I only thin as much as I think I’ll need for that session, so that the remainder of the color is in its original consistency.
However, adding something like pearlizing medium to the acrylic paints is a no go in my airbrush, it causes it to clog or splatter. If you like a pearlized finish (metallic paints seem to work fine in my airbrush if properly thinned, but I don’t use them often so I don’t know if certain brands are more trouble than others), you might want to pick up pearlized airbrush paint.
As for purplecat’s post, I can’t comment on that from personal experience. Maybe I’m lucky or my airbrush is very forgiving when it comes to pigment size (which is possible), since using regular acrylics in my airbrush has never ruined my gun; I’ve been using the same one for 13 years. Its a Badger “something or other”, double action, three tip options, and bottom feed. I would have to look it up, not sure if it’s even made anymore.
I’m no expert (self taught), I’m still learning through trial and error. It’s a lot of work to thin the acrylics just right, otherwise I don’t like how they behave while airbrushing. It’s worth the effort to me since I mix my own colors anyway and it only adds one more step in the process. However, if you don’t want that hassle, unsure of how to proceed, nervous of it having a negative effect on your gun, and have the money, then consider buying paints made specifically for the airbrush.
I use an airbrush for basecoating and will have to use it one or two upcoming pieces for scale smoothness for a main body color before I add detailing. I’ve been using my dad’s old airbrush and, as long as I thin the paints out enough, I’m fine. I just use liquitex and golden brand acrylics and add the airbrush medium (I think my bottle at home is from liquitex) to them to create the proper consistency. It wasn’t too expensive and that’s what it’s for. Applying a paint I want to use in multiple thin coats rather than one thick coat works well too, especially in airbrushing. It’s just a bit hard to see what you have painted sometimes when you are adding white paint to white gypsum 🙄
I’ve never used my airbrush before. I bought some cheap ceramic bisques on ebay so I can try it out on those before I do any windstones. I just have to figure out which paint to get and where it is the cheapest. I don’t think I want to mess with thining acrylics at this point in time. I guess I’ll just get the airbrush paints and take it from there. This should be fun, thanks for all the pointers 🙂
Does anyone have a recommended acrylic thinner? I just use water, but I’ve been wanting to use a proper thinner but I can’t seem to find any. Anyone know where I could purchase one?
As for the airbrush, like Lokie my airbrush seems to be fine with any paint. I use Heavy Body paint with it! I just make sure to throughly clean it right after using each time. My airbrush is a Fine head 0.3 mm fluid nozzle with gravity feed.
I use an Iwata HP-C. I used to use a Badger brand airbrush (can’t remember the model). With the Badger I used Liquitex bottle paints thinned down with the Liquitex Airbrush medium so the paint would be thin enough to run through that airbrush.
I did not have any luck using the Liquitex with my Iwata aibrush. The paint was just too thick.
For my Iwata I use Golden brand paints, the ones that are more thinned down and come in the bottle ‘squeeze’ type tubes. I also use Golden Brand airbrush medium to thin the paints down a little bit more too. It’s easy though to get the paint thinned down *too* much so I’ve learned, and when you paint the colors come out too transparent and all runny. Hard to deal with when painting sculptures. 🙁
Golden Airbrush colors:
http://www.misterart.com/store/view/001/group_id/2289/GOLDEN-Airbrush-Colors.htmBest of Luck!
Kujacker wrote:Does anyone have a recommended acrylic thinner? I just use water, but I’ve been wanting to use a proper thinner but I can’t seem to find any. Anyone know where I could purchase one?
As for the airbrush, like Lokie my airbrush seems to be fine with any paint. I use Heavy Body paint with it! I just make sure to throughly clean it right after using each time. My airbrush is a Fine head 0.3 mm fluid nozzle with gravity feed.
Michaels has Acrylic thinner by Delta Ceramcoat, I use that, works fine.
And even better, it’s cheap. And part of the instructions mentions airbrushes, though all it says is that when done, make sure you clean your airbrush…well duh. Like we wouldn’t know that.
But then, I’ve seen dumber things on labels.
Kyrin
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