Adventures in Airbrushing: Part 1 - Wolves and Warriors
Art is hard.
Not to pretend that what I am producing can be considered art. It isn't. But many of the same techniques apply to miniature painting. And for a neophyte, this shared techniques are difficult to reproduce reliably.
Two weeks ago, all of the airbrush stuff I ordered off of Amazon started arriving. I went against the recommendation of the internet (and with the suggestion of the local airbrush expert) and purchased cheap equipment. Basically the following:
- Master Airbrush beginner kit - has a compressor, Master G22 airbrush, and some paints. Screaming deal, but everything is cheap.
- Master Airbrush booth.
- Vallejo thinner, flow improver, and grey primer.
- Some extra stuff like hoses and quick releases.
- Neo for Iwata beginner airbrush.
Everything went together smoothly. The only concern is the compressor, which is louder than expected. There are times it sounds like a banshee dancing and wailing to a dubstep track. Probably not a good sign.
And finally, it was time to begin!
Wolves. Technically zombie wolves were the start of the great adventure. 24 of the wolves were primed and painted in about 3 hours, something that would have taken probably 8 hours over many days to do with only a brush.
A few different patterns were attempted. A dark brown wolf that is fairly generic, and a light gray wolf with different top coat coloration.
The airbrush made all of the painting quite easy, saving tons of time. That said, there were some disappointing parts of the result.
Some of the coloration looks like a dusting of a darker color. I have since read that the dusting effect occurs when you apply a color that is too different than the underlying color. I'm other words, if I had taken more time and smoothly transitioned from gray to black, the splatter would not be apparent.
With the wolves as done as I was willing to work on them, I hunted for more minis to practice on. My brother's Morats were available, so I grabbed them and started painting!
After priming gray, I covered them in black and blended up to a light gray. Essentially, from the sides, a dark gray was applied. Then from a smaller angle above a medium gray was applied. Lastly, a light gray was applied from directly above. The technique is called zenithal lighting, and my first attempt at it yielded reasonable results.
The axe is an attempt at NMM. Unfortunately, getting too close to the axe a PSI much too high for the very thin white that was being used caused the area to be over-brightened.
These two figures really enforced the value of an airbrush as an additional tool when painting. It would have taken multiple nights to get to the point the airbrush got these miniatures to in an hour. That is incredible. All that remains with them is a few details and some edge lining.
Feeling confident after the success of the Morats, it was time to try to use non-airbrush paints. Three assembled Caledonian miniatures were selected from the Infinity cabinet and I went to town.
It will be tough to judge these guys until they are completed and can be compared with ones painted earlier. I think I made a few mistakes though:
- The dark base layer needed more coats than I applied. Two coats of the dark green were applied, but more were required to establish a solid foundation. Perhaps this was because I over-thinned the paint.
- It may be best to leave the brightest highlight for brush work. I couldn't quite control everything that the top highlight was hitting, so they're very bright compared to the previous Volunteers.
It has been quite the adventure so far. I have a number of Caledonian miniatures being assembled in the hopes of cranking them out with the airbrush. Mistakes will be made, lessons will be learned, and minis will be painted.