Hi, my name is Tim T., and I'm an Airbrush Newb.
After years of seeing even what an airbrush can do for the hobbyist in blogs like Dark Future Games, and talking to award-winning painters who compete in Golden Demon and Crystal Brush, I took the plunge and emptied my wallet on an entire set-up.
…but what do I do now?
Mind you, I made this purchase back in April at Adepticon and haven't touched it yet. I did have to rearrange a bit at home to have a place for my equipment to go, so I don't feel too terrible about it. Yet. Of course, since I had to do that my wife felt it was the perfect time to not just make room for it, but to completely rearrange and reorganize my studio on the whole. That took more time than I had intended, but I do love the end result.
Yet I digress.
Back in 2012, I was at Feast of Blades, and Grex was there with prize support and a table full of merchandise. Their prices, however, were not appealing to me to purchase and try and fly home with, nor ship home at my expense. I liked what they had there though, and instead of dropping over 500 with them I remembered that earlier in the year, Badger had a table at Adepticon for the first time. I also seemed to recall some amazing convention-pricing that Badger had, that Grex did not. So I swallowed my "Ohhhh, Shiny!" Syndrome, and bided my time until Adepticon 2013.
When Badger was setting up their tables at Adepticon this year, I literally stood there, waiting. The convention prices were as amazing as I remembered, and I was not going to chicken out this time. The guys were really patient with everyone asking questions while they didn't even have their boxes unpacked, and mentioned that if anyone had cash, they could purchase now.
I had cash. I purchased.
They were very understanding of my inexperience with airbrushes, and asked me some very good questions on how exactly I planned on using the airbrush. Did I just want something to base coat models with, or did I want to do painting and blending applications. Was I planning on doing any fine line work, or would it be more broad applications, and more. Based on my answers, they were able to make very good recommendations, and I forked over a wad a cash.
The two big purchases were the Badger Krome, and their TC910 Aspire Pro Compressor. I also picked up a braided hose with a moisture trap, cleaning solution, an extra fine tip to change out, the basic set of Minitaire paints and a couple other sundries that I was advised to buy. I received the Ghost Tints from the Minitaire line for being a part of one of Les Bursley's classes that weekend.
Since then I made a few further purchases. One being a very versatile collapsable spray booth with ample filters, and another an Iwata cleaning station. I've also picked up some Matte and Gloss varnish, airbrush medium and some Vallejo Model Air paints and primer I want to try.
Notice something? All I've done so far is buy all the components to be able to conveniently use and maintain and airbrush in my home. I've yet to actually use it. Why? I'm a little intimidated actually. It's new, unknown territory for me and no one in my local area actually uses an airbrush to work on miniatures for me to source knowledge from. So what's my answer?
YOU.
Here's where I'm asking for advice, places to go, YouTube'ers to watch, blogs to read, etc. I want to utilize this amazing tool for my armies and figures. I just need to know everything from the basics on up. I"m not afraid to make mistakes, but I figured I'd reach out to the community first!
- Tim