Hey Arnold!  Great work!  Figures can be pretty tough to do and you did a great job!  

Acrylics are fickle that way.  I love using Tamiya paints, but they are just as you described...great in an AB, put awful hand brushing.  I've been trying out some Vallejo paints myself.  If you use the Vallejo Air product, they are great in AB's, but to do any hand painting, I use the Vallejo Model ones.  Big difference.  Just my observations, just need to try them all and see what works for you.  Again, awesome first build!  Can't wait to see more of your work!

Eagle90

Thanks for that, I think I'll pick some of the Vallejo model paints up to try out. I hope they don't take as many coats as the Model Air ones with a brush, that was just ridiculous!

No problem.  The paints designed for AB's are very thin when hand brushed.  Tamiya is that way.  It takes multiple coats if you try to use some Tamiya paints by hand, but you throw it in an AB and it is amazing!   Another thing I do is sometimes use enamels for hand brushing.  They take a little longer to dry, but by hand brushing, you don't get the over powering smell that comes with enamels.  A little bottle of thinner on the side to clean the brush when you're done and that's it.  I have 2 AB's, one for acrylics and one for enamels, but I haven't sprayed with the one for enamels yet.  Don't have a spray booth to suck the fumes out!

Eagle90

Hey, looks great to me! I think as Eagle said the Model Air is already thinned for airbrushing. Vallejo's regular paint is much thicker, so much I tend to thin it a little for hand brushing.  

I've decided to get some of the normal Vallejo to use for brushing. It makes sense that the air brush paint is much thinner. It's unbelievable how good the coverage is with the airbrush but then how poor it is with a brush., I had no idea it would make such a huge difference

Thanks for the input guys