Diluting GW paints for airbrushing?

[Kaika87]

So I am a new airbrush owner and I want to get started right, been watching lots of videos and tutorials on what I need to do and how, but I have a couple basic questions that seem to always get glossed over. Mainly, I can't find somewhere that says a concrete ratio of rubbing alcohol to paint for an airbrush mixture. The tutorials I found say I should shoot for the consistency of milk, but I'm really bad at figuring out abstract guides like that.

 

A side question I had was in regard to paint area. How large of a space should I clear to airbrush without risk of getting paint on things I care about? I live in a simple apartment, so table space is limited. I have a porch, but temperatures fluctuate so much where I live, I'm worried about running into the same problem you get when using a spray can in less temperate weather. Is environment temperature a legitimate concern for airbrushing?

 

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Zopha]

I usually use a three sided cardboard box when airbrushing and using any spray paint. The first time I used the airbush I just painted on a small table with a mat I have set aside for model stuff, it looked fine afterwards but the next morning the table had shades of blue on it wherever the mat wasn't covering :cuss A three sided box (okay, four sided if you include the bottom) can be folded flat and stored easily and it'll catch any paint that misses the model so you'll only need to clear an area equivalent to the footprint of the box. Your working with aerosolized paint after all, some of it's going to miss the model and end up on whatever is behind it.

 

As for dilution I've been using acrylic flow improver to make the paint watery, I'm really not sure how to describe the consistency but I've been using 2 parts paint to 1 part flow improver for it.

[Forza St. Pauli]

Although you can fire diluted GW paints through an airbrush I would not recommend that. If possible try to avoid paints that were not made for airbrushing. Yesterday I used diluted mechrite red and my airbrush got clogged pretty fast.

The only GW paints I use for airbrushing are a 50:50 mixture of regal blue und ultramarines blue. I dilute this mixture with Vallejo Model Air Thinner to a „milky consistence“ and use it as a base color for my Ultramarines.

 

To make things easier I made myself a ready mixture in a bottle shown below.

http://www.airbrush4you.de/shop/contents/media/l_leerflasche.jpg

[Office temp]

I've found that liquitex airbrush medium is fantastic for diluting gw paints to a usable consistency. It has the advantage of having a acrylic base so it provides an binder medium to bond the pigment to what your spraying and prevents the pigments from settling to the bottom of your cup and jamming it up which simply diluting with solvents doesn't provide.

[Bartali]

Regards consistency, there's no magic ratio. The mixture that goes through the airbrush and coats the model ok is the correct one. If it doesn't seem to thick, it's generally ok.

 

Regards spraying area, as others have mentioned, an impromptu spraying booth made from a cardboard box is fine. I'd highly recommend spraying in a well ventilated room, and wearing a mask. Paper dust marks don't work, you need one rated for paint

[Zopha]

Regards consistency, there's no magic ratio. The mixture that goes through the airbrush and coats the model ok is the correct one. If it doesn't seem to thick, it's generally ok.

 

Regards spraying area, as others have mentioned, an impromptu spraying booth made from a cardboard box is fine. I'd highly recommend spraying in a well ventilated room, and wearing a mask. Paper dust marks don't work, you need one rated for paint

 

Yeah, get a mask. That should really be step one for any airbrush tutorial. Get a mask or you might be sneezing out whatever paint you stuck on the models. Goggles wouldn't hurt either.

[Urauloth]

A mask won't seal to my face properly because I have a beard, but this is probably more of a problem when dealing with hazardous gasses than with airbrushing I'm guessing.

 

Anyway, I'm pretty close to working out the colour mix I want to use to basecoat my word bearers, and it's a mix of the new citadel colours. I was thinking of making a big bottle of it mixed with thinner as Forza mentioned above, but I'm not sure how good an idea it is - should I be looking at making a suitable mix from airbrush paints (like VMA) instead, or should I be ok with sufficient thinner?

 

The info about liquitex thinner bonding the pigment is interesting, I was going to get vallejo thinner but I will try this instead. I'm terrified of actually using my airbrush and I want to ensure I eliminate anything that could possibly go wrong...