Scanning through the forums and Facebook pages, one of the most often asked questions I see is: “What is the best airbrush to buy?” The question should be “What type of airbrush do I want?”
Inevitably the answers range from “Buy “X brand”, it’s the best!”, to “Buy a cheap “X” brush, it’s not about the quality of the brush, but the person holding it!” Both of these answers and all in between have merit, and I will cover that later, but first, let’s look at what you need an airbrush for.
Why move to an airbrush? From my perspective, it is less wasteful than a brush. The paint is atomized and spread over a larger area, so along with being more economical, it should give you more even coverage. It’s also convenient. If you need to cover a large surface with primer or basecoats, that could take a very long time with a paintbrush, not to mention it would use more paint.
There is a reason that professional painters have moved away from brush painting to either rollers or paint sprayers – better finish, less time and materials. A lot of modelers have moved to rattle cans for priming, proving that spraying your subject is either easier, more convenient or just better. Lastly, you can get some amazingly crisp lines and flawless paint jobs with an airbrush, and once you get accustomed to it, you can get some amazing detail and effects from it. Again, more on that later.
So, we have now decided that you want to use air to put paint on something. You have choices now! But before we get into those choices, lets talk cheap vs expensive.
The cost of an airbrush does not always indicate the quality that you will get. I have used very inexpensive airbrushes, and I have used very expensive airbrushes, and I have been able to make them all spray paint. Where I struggled was with the quality of the airbrush both cheap and expensive. Cheap, knockoff type airbrushes come with a host of problems. Although they are based (copied) on a tried and tested brand, they don’t always have the high-end tooling that the airbrush they are copied from uses. That leads to poor machining on critical parts like needles, nozzles, and triggers.
With poor fit and finish, it means that the airbrush may have a mis-centered needle/nozzle, a bent or curved needle, or a poorly finished needle that doesn’t retract smoothly, or rough trigger action. You can overcome a lot of this by polishing the assemblies or replacing those parts with manufacturers parts, but those costs are close to the price of the real airbrush, so is it worth it? My advice – stick to the major brands – I am not going to list them here, they are easily found, but they have quality machining processes, a supply chain for replacement parts, and a very robust warranty and support system when you need it.
By starting with a quality brush, you won’t need to fight those issues from the start and you can focus on learning how to airbrush properly from the start.
Now on to the choices I keep promising.
Choice 1-Internal mix vs external mix. Internal mix airbrushes mix the paint and air before it exits the airbrush, while external mixes the air and paint externally. External mix tends to have larger spray patterns than internal mix and are more sensitive to the disruption of the air supply. Think of external mix like a spray can you refill. They are amazing for primer coats, base coating larger areas, and cosplayers love them for spraying on thicker materials to costume parts. Internal mix airbrushes have a much smaller spray pattern and much finer atomization of the paint.
Choice 2 –
Single action vs double action.
With a single action airbrush, depressing the trigger activates the air and the amount of paint that you apply is generally changed by a screw in/out mechanism, that either draws the needle back or forward allowing more or less paint to flow. These are dead simple to use and aside from adjusting the fluid needle, it is point, press, spray. There is no adjustment to air pressure through the trigger, so any adjustments need to be made at the tank.
Double action, as the name implies, has two actions required for operation. The first action, usually depressing the trigger straight down starts the airflow. Most airbrushes will have some travel in the first trigger action allowing you to adjust the actual airflow at the brush and not the tank. The second, rearward motion, pulls back the fluid needle and allows paint to start flowing and the further you pull back the needle, the more paint will spray.
While double action airbrushes are a bit harder to get the hang of, once you do, you can easily adjust your airflow and paint flow on the fly, allowing you to create a myriad of effects from pencil lines to gradients.
Choice 3 –
Siphon feed vs Gravity feed.
Siphon feed airbrushes are fed from a bottle or pot that connects via a port on the bottom side of the airbrush. Through a process known as the Venturi Effect, paint is siphoned through a tube, into the airbrush where it mixes with the airstream and is atomized. Siphon feed airbrushes have some great advantages in that you can hold a lot of paint in the bottle, making it ideal for terrain painters, or for large areas to spray.
On top of this, color changes are quick in that you just need to unplug one bottle, flush the system, and plug in the next color. Lastly, up are able to get a very clear line of sight to the object you are painting and some painters really like this. There are some disadvantages though. Because of the venturi effect, you need higher PSI’s to operate these airbrushes, and the brush itself can get heavy when you add glass bottles full of paint. These tend to make them front end heavy.
Gravity feed airbrushes have a paint reservoir that sits atop the airbrush. They vary in size, with some holding a few drops of paint, to others that can hold ounces. Paint drops into the airflow through gravity (hence the name) and atomizes and exits the airbrush. Some of the advantages to this system is that because you don’t need to force the paint into the airflow, you can drop your pressures and thin your paints for really fine detail. As well, some painters, [myself included], find it easier to add paint on the fly with the open reservoir.
There are some disadvantages. The paint reservoirs can be small, meaning that if you want to paint large areas, you will need to refit constantly, and if you have the color reservoir at near full capacity, you are limited at how sharp an angle you can spray at, lest your paint cup runneth over!
Some models come with removable color cups so you can change sizes, as well as lids, but these can become very unwieldy and can make the airbrush front heavy. Additionally, a large reservoir on top can obstruct your view, forcing you to look at off angle’s vs straight down your brush.
Choice 4 –
Needle Size.
This is going to be dependant on what you need to do. The great thing about most airbrushes is that you can purchase (at a cost) different diameter needle/nozzle combinations. I will talk about the most common ones below:
0.15mm is extreme detail. This requires thinning of paint and adjustment of airflow to get that perfect spray. Heavily pigmented acrylics will tend to clog these even when thinned, and dry tip can occur.
0.2mm is a detail airbrush. Same issues as above, but more forgiving. Most modelers would choose a 0.2mm as their detail size.
0.3/0.33mm – this is what I call the sweet zone. You can get decent detail with a variety of air pressures and you don’t need to thin your paints to extremes. You can spray primers at this level with some minor thinning and increased air pressures. My go-to brush is a 0.3 and I spray everything from primers, to pre-shades, to basecoats and varnishes through it.
0.4/0.5 – this is an ideal primer/basecoat/varnish needle that can spray most mediums without thinning. I will admit that I do have a brush outfitted with a 0.4 that I spray my primers and varnishes through. It saves me the time of extensive thinning and I don’t need to play with pressures to get a perfect spray pattern.
0.6 and above are for spraying really thick mediums and I have yet to come across a hobby paint that needed that diameter needle.
So, there you have it folks – some of the basics of choosing an airbrush. Now that you know what you want, start to try some airbrushes. Talk to the folks at the hobby shops. If you have Amazon or other places with a good return policy, try some and if you hate it, send it back.
I hope you all found this helpful. Please watch the video below from my You Tube Channel.
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