First time using an airbrush

That's a pretty good effort for your first time with an airbrush. You have a little uneven coverage, but that's to be expected

The good news is that you can only get better with practice.

Rather than pre-painting with a brush, you can turn down the air pressure and close the nozzle up a little and hit those hard to reach areas with your airbrush. This will allow you to get up close and personal. In effect, that is similar to pre-shading, which you may have read about in these forums.

The lighting problem is easily solved - there must be a desk lamp somewhere in the house that you can borrow.

Keep up the good work.

Certainly a nice first effort with an airbrush, and in spite of any shortcomings, it's worlds ahead of what you could likely do with a paintbrush.  It seems as though you have already identified most of the areas of improvement.  Taking a hard, honest look at your own efforts and being your own worst critic is the first key to improvement.

Although you're joking about the lighter coverage being passed off as weathering, in fact that can be a useful weathering technique. 

For getting into nooks and crannies, occaisionally I will pre-paint with a brush, but more often than not, the airbrush will give great coverage.  In addition to the other suggestion, try to vary the painting angle as you make multiple passes over such a spot.  Because a tight area will naturally have several surfaces (even if they are very small) at different angles, you ideally want to vary the angle of the airbrush to hit each surface as close to square on as possible.

Phil_h and ABARNE, thanks for the comments and suggestions.  I am hoping that for my next effort, better lighting and access to the model will allow me to pinpoint tight areas and light coatings.

My technique is derived from my spray can experience "sweep it back and forth and let the fog of paint fill in the all the spaces".  Which of course means any fine detail is lost in a thick layer of paint.  I will have to learn new painting techniques with the airbrush, like getting into tight areas that I couldn't with a spray can. 

Overall, I was happy with my first try and look forward to improving over time.

padakr wrote:

My technique is derived from my spray can experience "sweep it back and forth and let the fog of paint fill in the all the spaces".  Which of course means any fine detail is lost in a thick layer of paint.  I will have to learn new painting techniques with the airbrush, like getting into tight areas that I couldn't with a spray can.

It is good that you have recognised straight off that there is indeed a difference between an airbrush and a spray can. Some people never understand that there is a differnce and just use their airbrush in the same way as a spray can. That is, to "stand off" at a distance and try to cover as much as possible, as quickly as possible. In doing so, they are only ever using just a tiny part of the airbrush's abilities. You have the ability to alter both the air pressure and the paint flow, so you are freed from the restrictions imposed by a spray can. You can get in nice and close - typically I usually airbrush inside two to three inches from the surface, compared with the minimum of eight to ten inches for a spray can.

As Abarne has noted above, light coverage is often just as important as overall coverage and it comes into play in camouflage techniques (eg. mottling) and weathering (eg. "ageing" paint, shading, fading, dust effects).

Another thing to remember is that an airbrush emits a directional flow of air/paint and that you are often looking at your model along the same (or nearly the same) axis while you paint. A model is not flat - it has curves, protrusions and recesses. All of these things can cause "shadows" to the airflow and thus stop the paint from reaching those shadowed areas behind. While you're working, take the time to look at your work from different angles and make sure that you're getting paint into the areas that need it.

Once again, great job on your first effort, and it will only get better with time and practice.

 First off, great paint job and the environment you are working certainly is challenge. Since the early '80s I've been using Badger A/Bs and finally got a really good Badger 2 years ago that is single action with the adjustable needle. Here are some tips I learned along the way for twenty years;

1.) Buy craft-type acrylic paints, they are available at any hobby/craft outlet. They work as well as any big-named brand and go for about $1.00 or slightly more. Hobby Lobby has the largest selection in all colors.

2.) Some hobby websites have color charts that you can download and print, these cover all facets of military and RR hobby paints. I have military in 1/35th, aircraft in 1/48th and HO rr. All in the same room and still have a work area, amazing what can be done in a 9x12 bedroom!  

3.) I mix all acrylic colors with blue windshield wiper fluid at about 50/50 and set the A/B at about half way open to test the flow first. Air pressure is from a tank with no more than 30psi. Acrylic paint is a smooth coat paint when mixed with wiper fluid and comes out of the A/B almost dry, that is how you want it. To speed up drying and setting the paint use a hand held hair dryer on LOW heat to dry the paint. You cannot do this with oils.

4.)Prep tips and finishing tips are easy to remember. Use a green scouring pad to rough up the surface of a model by gently going over the pieces with the grain so to speak, use a slight amount of clean water to remove the left over dust. The green pads will not erase any details but will slightly scratch the surface to allow for better paint adheasion.

5.) For gloss finishes on aircraft I use a blend of flat and glossy blue for instance on WW2/Korea U.S. Navy planes such as yours. It comes out very glossy depending upon the final (usually 2nd ) coat.  Again dry with a hair dryer, it works wonders.

 These are only suggestions and in no way reflect "how to" I have read many books on airbrushing and found many of these ideas repeated many times over and due credit is certainly recognized to those original authors. It just goes to show that many great ideas are out there for us to use.

johncpo, 40+ years in models