Thread: new here

hi,
ive been reading a lot of posts and realise there is a plethora of information here,and one can`t help to learn as you go from all the experience that is posted.
i used to do taxadermy work as a hobby so i needed to do airbrusing for noses, fish scales, etc., but that was pretty simple stuff with not a lot of "artistic" ability required, and recently i`ve decided to get more involved with"art", so to speak,, my goal for down the road(years, id need be), is to paint my bike myself,
what i have now,is what i got for painting animals, which is a pasche h series, single action, and i know i really need duel action for serious art work, but i`ll be using it for now untill i get technique down, so i have a few questions for the learned;
1 first, my interests are in skulls, fire, dragons, dobermans, that kind of thing
2 what should i get to practice painting on?
3 what should i get as far as paint to use(taxidermy paint is far toexpensive to use for practice)
4 a duel action, suggestions?
5 is there a source for stencils of dobemans, or is it possable to make them from pics. of my dogs
6 i got a lot more to ask, but thats enough for now, i`m going to be using my single action and doing dots and daggers etc. for now , and as i go i`ll post my experiences
oh one other thing, my compresser that i`ve used in the past is one of those tankless types, which is fine for the stuff i stuffed(har har), will that work as well for doing tanks and fenders etc., or should i get a new compresser?
thanks for any advice, and i look forward to meeting you all

Welcome to ABT


1 first, my interests are in skulls, fire, dragons, dobermans, that kind of thing
www.howtoairbrush.com will walk you thru the basics of airbrushing which you'll need to know to accomplish the above.

2 what should i get to practice painting on?
on that site lesson one gives you suggestions for pratice material

3 what should i get as far as paint to use(taxidermy paint is far toexpensive to use for practice)
Again lesson one will answer that.

4 a duel action, suggestions?
Any good quailty name brand double action airbrush, personal pref here with most folks.

5 is there a source for stencils of dobemans, or is it possable to make them from pics. of my dogs
www.howtoairbrush.com shows you how to make your own stencils.

6 i got a lot more to ask, but thats enough for now, i`m going to be using my single action and doing dots and daggers etc. for now , and as i go i`ll post my experiences
oh one other thing, my compresser that i`ve used in the past is one of those tankless types, which is fine for the stuff i stuffed(har har), will that work as well for doing tanks and fenders etc., or should i get a new compresser?

Not if you are going to be base coating, clear coating you will need a larger compressor.

thanks for the replies,now i guess its time to start reading more and doing homework
thanks

Dobie

If you live near an art store, craft store get yoursekf a BIG pad of Newsprint (type of paper) and paint made to be used in an airbrush (Comart, DR PH Martins, Gold Airbrush colors) and follow along with lesson #1 you'll to up to speed pretty quickly if you practice a hour or so every night just the basics.

It's just paint, relax have fun.

Questions just yell happy to help if we can.

welcome,,,,to the form

Welcome Dobie ! Sounds like your all fired up to learn, and this is the place to do just that. Looking forward to seeing some of your posts.

thanks a lot guys, im looking forward to participating here,i just ordered a passah vl kit,should be here in a few days, and going out for paint tomorrow, so hopefully ill have some exersises done to post soon
thanks again

Welcome Dobie cant wait to see your posts

Welcome Dobie. Oh My God I just had a flash back of 30 years. that is exactly the same history for me except for the painting the bike part. I started with the Paasche H and a tank-less compressor also doing taxidermy work. How funny!

My best suggestion is a double action airbrush such as an Iwata HP-C, or HP-BC, or HP-BCS, or the Badger Anthem 155 which I have heard good things about. I am partial to the Iwata's myself because they are most comfortable for fit of my hand. I would suggest going to an art store and holding several styles in your hand and see what feels best for you. The C and the BC can do a little finner detail, but the BCS and the Anthem with practice can come vary close and also can spray a little larger pattern for background areas. There are other good brushes out there like the Grex and the Omni, but I have no experience with them, so I can't give any input on those.

As far as a compressor I use a oil-less pancake Sears 2 horse with a 4 gallon tank, but it is vary noisy and the life span on oil-less tend to be a lot shorter.
If you decide to go with a industrial one that uses oil make sure you have a good oil separator and a good moisture trap in line. In-fact you should have a moisture trap on both styles, and a good regulator for setting psi. Now if you have money to burn you can go all out and invest in a good silent compressor such as the Medea Great White Shark, or Hammerhead, or the Terry Hill model by SilAir, but they are vary expensive The Great White can run up to 4 airbrushes simultaneously in a production setting.

Paints for textile. Most people use Createx, or Aqua-Flow and Golden fluid Acrylics.
For Illustration I use Comart colors, or Doc Martin
And for Automotive I am sorry one of our other wonderful artists would be better to help you there since I have not done any at this point.

I hope some of my info has helped Good Luck and I hope to see some posts of your work soon.

Fred

thanks for the replies guys,i`m still waiting on my vl to arrive so i been practicing with the h model, the only paint i could get locally was createx, and i havent been getting consistant results(constantly needing to readjust needle, maybe not diluting paint enough, i get a lot of plugged tips with dried paint, i was debating on one of those silent compressors, are they really quiet? i dont mind spending the cash if there really worth it
thanks
dobie

If your studio is in the house yes they are worth it, if you have a shop outside the house it might not be as important.

Createx is not the best paint to to and use for learning but you have to use what you have on hand, just tin it down so it flows about like milk, maybe strain it also.

http://www.howtoairbrush.com/compres...irbrushing.htm if you have time read that over hopefully you'll find it helpful dealing with compressors

I used a SilAir once for a demo I did in an art store and I could hardly even tell it was running. Put it this way when you hear you frig running when it was new, well it is not much louder than that. Aqua-Flow Paints and Medea Textile Paints are Two of the best that I have ever found on the market the only thing is you have to phone order Aqua-Flow out of Georgia and they just raised their price. Medea Textile Paints are great because they come with the lube added in so you get no tip dry at all, but you can't leave them sit around too long because they thicken up. They will last for several months and if you refrigerate them when not in use like other textile paints your shelf life will increase. You could check around to see on the net who sells Medea Textile paints believe me they are worth the money.

wow Airbrush, thats interesting info about the medea textile paints...... now if they could only do that with paints for autos lol ( maybe they already do and I just don't know it yet )

The Medea Textile paints by Jurek say that it can be used on metal right on the bottle. It says on the bottle it can be used on " fabric, leather, canvas, paper, wood primed, plastic and metals. I have used it for doing licence tags and then cleared over with Krylon clear from a can and it works just fine.

Fred

lots of help here for a new guy, i can`t belive it,,you guys are great;
one thing i didn`t do is strain my paint??? honestly, i didn`t think of that since it was in a 1 or 2 ounce bottle and said airbrush ready, i just assumed i could put it in the cup, dilute and spray,,,now that may very well explain a few of the problems i`ve had, so tomorrow i`ll go to napa and get some paint strainers and cut them down like i saw here and give her another try,,,,geeze, just the advice you get here alone, is worth subcribing to the magazine
one other question, another hobby of mine is metal detecting,,,can i paint my detecter coil? what i mean is, is there any metal substance in paint that would interfere with the coil?
dobie

dobie

I don't think it would but I've never tried it, maybe a test section might be called for.

Let us know how you get on with it.