Darth Creatine Intro and Questions!!

Hi Jon, and welcome to the Fine Scale Forums- there's a lot of great modelers here, the figure section can be a little thin sometimes however. Same can be said for the Space threads. I'd suggest due to your great Star Wars custom figures- you post a few pictures of those in the SciFi section, and ask questions about airbrushing in general in the airbrushing forum, as far as I know, most of the smaller scale figures are painted (in my experience anyway) by brush, but once one gets up to the larger scales, or if one is diligent about masking off sections and can get real handy with an airbrush, I'm sure some really great detail and pattern work (especially with camo/Star Wars fabric) could be replicated with a correct soft edge

Hope I could help, don't let the number of posts next to my name fool you, I just talk a lot, by no means an expert. Just noticed you hadn't gotten any replies and figured I'd welcome you. Hope you can find some help and some friends, I'm sorry to hear about your service to and your apparent abandonment by your country. Did I catch you right that you live in Virginia? Where abouts?

Anyway, thanks for stopping in, feel free to post pictures, if you are familiar with photobucket or the [ IMG ] style of posting pictures, that's how it works here. There's a lot of help sections and new member sections as well, please feel welcome to check it all out.

Hello Jon,

I'm also kinda new here, so - welcome. For me the airbrush was particularly handy in figure painting when applying those "hard to do" colors, like white, red, yellow or all funny, "glowing" colors. Usually they cannot be applied in one coat, normally you start with a base coat of light gray (in rare cases other color),on top of that you than put white red or "glowing" colors with no problem.

By the way - what type of paints do You use? What airbrush, what compressor do You have? I wish You luck with Your figures and have a nice day

Pawel

Darth Creatine wrote:

I have thousands for practice and all the time in the world

Hey Jon,
I think you already know most of the answer to your questions. Ref your above statement.
The key to painting toys and large figures is that the same principles for highlighting and shading on a flat surface, can apply to 3D objects as well. Look to your lighting and how it plays on the surface of your subject. From there your highlighting and shading will be evident as to how you want to finish your surface and the effects you're interested in achieving.
Control and working in stages is the best advice I can give you. Just as you might build up an illustration on paper, you'll have to do the same on your figure. Be careful of overspray and work in a progressive manner. i.e. basecoat, shadows, highlights and effects, etc. (i.e. rust, crackle, splattering, camo etc.

Keep a notebook of your air mixes, paint mixes pressures, etc for future reference and practice, practice, practice. Do not let your expectations exceed your abilities and look at every result as an achievement, regardless of what you may think of its final turnout. You're learning and building a skill set that will help you achieve your final goal.

It may be as simple as taking one of your figures as a sacrificial lamb and try out your techniques. A sort of "test bed" if you will. This way as you teach yourself to apply highlights etc. you'll know what to do for overspray, gradual build up etc. and know what to expect when you are ready to work on a "money job".

Ultimately it comes down to your own experiences and techniques that will give you the best results. Some of the techniques used here for 1/35 scale models will certainly work well for your applications. Pre shading, overspray, weathering techniques and finishes will all be applicable to what you're doing and easily help you on your way. Pop in to the armor, ship, aircraft and auto forums and peruse some of the topics. They will be very helpful.

The folks here are pretty helpful and its better to try and ask specific questions to help you along rather than a blanket open call. Maybe a photo of your project and a sample photo of the finish you're trying to replicate. If you are having a specific problem or need help with a particular technique, that too would be better answered with specifics rather than something more general.

I wish you all the best and a welcome aboard. Look forward to your participation and more of your work.

Regards.

All the above comments are pretty much right on. As for me, I use my airbrush, at least on figures, for the primer coat and the base coat. Everything else I do by hand.

As for keeping notes on your mixtures, etc ... I HIGHLY recommend this! Makes future painting MUCH easier.

I've used an airbrush of some sort most of my professional career. From fine work on models to illustrations, murals, display, mock-ups and prop and scenic painting. The notebook trick was something I picked up a long time ago in school and it's paid off in spades. It's invaluable when it comes to troubleshooting a problem and necessary at the very least when you walk away from a project and come back to it or have to do a repair or touch up on something.

Another habit I highly reccommend you adopt is that when you are sitting around looking for something to work on and don't feel like building a model or painting a figure, grab your airbrush, some scrap plastic or paper of illustration board and play. This should also be done when you're in a paint session. Take the extra time or devote a "bench" session to nothing but playing with your airbrush. Practice daggers, area coverage, line work, shading, masking, overlay work, negative space painting etc. Play with your paint and air mixes. Pressures, angles, how you sit, lighting etc. The more you know your airbrush and what it can do and become familiar with it as you would a pencil or pen, the less problems you'll have. You'll visualize what you want to do and be able to do it without surprizes. Your confidence level will be higher and you'll take on more demanding projects or fear less at something that may seem daunting.

Too often, the airbrush is pulled out once a month (or less) to paint a Tiger Meet airplane or some complicated paint job on a tank or car or figure and folks end up gritting their teeth, using their models for skeet practice or settle on a splatter pattern camo finish. Worse yet, they feel that they have to wait for a special occasion to paint. You should be comfortable enough with your airbrush to pull it out whenever you have a desire or thought to do so. It should be ready to go as soon as you pick it up. A few extra minutes of cleaning and servicing after each session will save you alot of extra minutes and frustration at failed starts or sticky or clogged equipment. Ask yourself how much you think that model is worth in front of you that you spent months working on and just had your airbrush spit a gob of schmutz on or you put off to paint another week/month/year because you couldn't get the airbrush to unstick or it was clogged. All because you got into the habit of not wanting to spend alot of time with it, or you felt an extra 15 minutes of cleaning, oiling or disassembly was too much hassle. Simple habits and regimen now will save you big later and make the whole thing less painless and more desirable to use.

Just as we sit down to build a model and spend time arranging our benches, looking up references, looking at sprues and instructions, decals and box art long before we put glue to styrene, so too should a little extra time be spent with your airbrush. You'll be surprised what tricks you can make it do and how proficient you can become even with the most inexpensive airbrush. I've done several commercial jobs with an Aztek (that seems to be a dirty word to most in this forum) and in most cases they look just as good as those done with an expensive Thayer Chandler or Paasche. I also did not expect similar results and did not try to overtax my capabilities or those of the equipment.

Good luck.