Economy Acrylic Paint

use washable ink, sepia, etc., available in plenty of colours for practice, before you bung up the works with gunge.

Yup, I agree.  You can get craft type paints cheap at those stores.  I have used Delta Ceramcoat from Wal-Mart on resin figures with an airbrush, thinned with airbrush medium, and it worked fine.  I've also thinned with water and that was OK too.

Hi Mark,

I use craft acrylic paints (Anitas, Martha Stewart, FolkArt etc) for modeling in lieu of those specifically made for our hobby. You can find them in Michaels, AC Moore, Walmarts etc. for about $1.00 for a 2 ounce bottle. They need to be thinned at least 50-50 for airbrushing so you end up with ~4 ounces for a buck. For AB practice you can just thin with water. For use on models I use Airbrush medium and GAC 200 (improves adhesion) to thin - or -Future floor polish. An inexpensive and easy way to practice IMHO.

Art stores normally carry acrylic paints in a plastic tube like these.

www.daler-rowney.com/.../Simply-Acrylics-6x75ml.jpg

Not sure where in the world you are, but the last ones i bought cost £2.50 for 75ml. They are rather thick so will need a lot of thinning, but i don't see why they can't be used in an airbrush.