Thread: A rock is more artistic than me! :D (newbie)

G'day guys. I live in Western Australia and would love to get into air brushing. Now, I'm quite possibly the worst person at art, in the world... no, scratch that, that's an understatement
Everyone says "I suck at art" and then they whip out the equivalent of the Mona Lisa. I have NO eye for detail, I can't draw a straight line and I can't put a mental image down on paper. Many first graders can draw better than me (I know a fair few of first graders and I do compare my work to theirs ).
I'm 15 years old and right now I'm on a very tight budget. My number 1 passion is cycling, absolutly love it. I'll be buying myself a carbon frame in the near future so I'd like to lay down flames cause I'm soo mainstream like that , or maybe some skulls and what not. It's unpainted except for the gloss clear coat over the top. I'll be putting "Chaderotti" on various places but once my crappy artistic skills increase enough to the level of being able to draw a stick person I'll be (hopefully) putting down some good ol' patterns and what not over the frame.

Now, onto money. My budget is about $150 (wide range of options there) because I still need some money for the bicycle frame. I was looking on ebay and there are compressor and air brush combo's starting from 65 bucks. Next kit was $120~. Obviously in my situation the $65 compressor and brush is the way to go.
What do I want to paint? Carbon fibre (bicycles), aluminium, penises on peoples cars/bedroom doors etc.
Any online stores which have awesome prices and ship down under? The prices in australia are through the roof.

Thanks in advance

welcome Chad. you really are on a budget ! I would be carefull of buying a combo set on e bay for that cheap. Your gonna get what ya pay for, eh .

Currently, the reason my budget is so tight is because I'm half way through my holiday in europe... so I'm not sure how much money I'll have by the end of the trip :P
But if I think twice about buying things from now on (bought a pair of leather shoes which gave me blisters and killed my feet ) I think I could stretch it to $200 or even $250 if i talk myself into it.

Chad, you have to weigh out your priorities.
If you lay off buyng stuff now, you can get yourself a decent setup.
More often than not, you can do better buying the pieces as individuals rather than a kit. Even if you buy all the pieces from the same vendor.
Kits tend to give you lighter duty versions of what you really need, while they may seem like a good deal, they often make you compromise a great deal on what you are getting. Most dealers will do deals if you are buying multiple items, even if they aren't in a "kit".
So, save your pennies, do your homework, and when you get home, you can do your shopping and get what you need.

Keep in mind that paint, solvents, etc., are not free either, and it does take some practice to do this. But once you have your act down you will find plenty of mates with bikes, helmets, vests, etc., who want stuff done for them ($$).

Hey guys. I've been looking at Dick Blick's online store and I'm set on the Paasche Talon double action. Paasche Talon Double Action Airbrush - BLICK art materials
Looks freaking great for the money! Quite a bling item (bling is also a cyclist thing -sigh- ).
I think I'll buy that as well as four Jacquard paint 4 oz bottles of opaque white and black seeing as for a beginner they're probably the most used colours. I could leave out the compressor and just order the brush and paint here from europe and by the time I get home it'll be at my door step, therefore, I won't be buying a compressor blindly.

Sounds like a good plan to me Chad. Good choice on the ab too.

Does the Paasche talon have a wide range of uses?
Is it good for a beginner like me?

For much of what you have described for your needs, it would be fine. The price isn't wild, and it has the capability to handle almost any type of paint or finish, and it will do fine lines to a medium width stroke in a single pass. If you want to do bigger areas, or shoot clear coats over finished projects, then you would need a small to full sized HVLP and a compressor to run it. For now, the Talon would probably suit your needs just fine.

Awesome... Darned US to aud conversion being low. The AB itself will blow out of my first price range.
I'll get the AB set (for about $90 on special) comes with wrenches, air hose etc and I'll also buy some bottles of paint. Now, what spare parts/accessories should I buy? Spare tips? Spare needles? A coffee machine!?

There is a practice paper made for doing Sumi (Japanese brush and ink calligraphy), the paper is water sensitive, and can be used over and over again. It lets you practice with using water rather than paint, so no cleanup, no wasted paper, no paint costs. The only downside to it is you also don't get any long term pieces to hold onto for comparison.

A good sized bottle of Golden Airbrush Colors, Carbon Black paint. This paint is ready to go straight from the bottle, and black is the best color to learn with. Its the most honest teacher in telling you how you are doing with details, shading, etc., no distractions and no fooling they eye like other colors (regardless of brand). An 8oz bottle should probably be enough.

A good thick pad (or two) of newsprint paper to learn and practice on. Not huge sheets, bigger than A4 is a waste, the smaller pages force you*to learn your skills in smaller, more useable size ranges.

Spare needles and nozzles are always a good idea. They are what tend to get damaged most often, so having them on hand keeps you from having to wait around for the post to recieve your replacements.

I would also build a good cleaning kit, including a set of small brushes for cleaning and maintaining your brush, I would add a toothbrush and denture brush, and some other stuff you can get off the shelf at home (Q-tip cotton swabs/buds, toothpicks, a strong magnifying glass or jewelers loupe, some squirt bottles for water or solvent, a roasting pan to do your cleaning in, assembly and disassembly in, etc.), a pair of tweezers, an empty jar from peanut butter or something similar to dump paint waste into, and to spray into when you*are cleaning out your brush.

Learning to clean and maintain your brush from the start is crucial. I would guess that upward of 95% of the problems people have with their brushes are from the lack of cleaning their brushes, and the problems or damage it causes. For most contemplating airbrushing or starting out, their biggest fear is not knowing how their airbrush works, how to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together correctly. That fear leads them to letting their airbrush get worse and worse with paint and crud, 'til it doesn't work anymore, then they either give up, or they bring it to a shop or someone who airbrushes to clean and fix it. Leaving your airbrush dirty doesn't only keep it from performing like it should, it also causes premature wear and tear or permanent damage to the airbrush and it's parts, and some of those parts can be expensive, not to mention the down time of not having your brush, and the service charges for getting someone else to clean it for you.

So, when you get your brush, whatever make or model, do your reading of the instructions, learn to take it apart and put it back together again, it's easier while it is still clean, and it will take the big scare out of it for you.

Do your drills and practice, practice, practice! There is no substitute!

Wow fontgeek, a lot of good information there. Only gripe is that the golden airbrush colours are darn expensive! Well, for me that is :] .
The cheapest paint I've come across is Jacquard paint, I believe 8oz was about $7.30. While 4 oz of golden air brush colour is $10.50!

bloody hell, there's a lot of great advice above this post. firstly, welcome mate, i'm from oz, near brisbane, sunshine coast. I've been painting for 10 months now. that's 10 months, no previous experience, never painted anything in my life, no painting ability whatsoever, etc etc, very much the same as you , just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitle bit older, lol. I went throught the ebay etc looking for a brush. i get all my stuff here Airbrush Australia, Airbrush Megastore, AutoAir, Createx Importer Offering The Best Prices In Oz as far as i can find they have the best prices in australia. i use the AA and createx paints.order online, it's at your door a day or 2 later. steve is a great guy to deal with, and always helps via phone. bunnibgs compressor is also the way to go, i started with one, still have it as a backup. built a box for it via instructions on this forum. it has a regulator, a wter trap from bunnings $16. hope this helps. just remember to practice till you bleed, then do another half hour, lol

Ordered the brush, spare needle and spare nozzle. Shipping with a 8oz bottle of paint was $38! Took out the paint and it went down to $32! I ended up paying almost $200 aud! I remember the good ol' days of ordering online when the dollar was about 1:1. $200 could have almost bought me some nice cycling shoes ;[
And I also have to get a compressor and paint.
How much was your bunnings compressor? Roughly, how loud is it? How long do you have of constant air before the compressor kicks in?

Still have a week and a half of my holiday... gosh it's killing me, just want to get home and start painting!
Sabre you got any pictures of your work? Just so I can see what can be done in 10 months so I can then multiply that by 3

lol chad. the compressor i first bought was $95. it's fairly loud, but bearable during the day, bit loud at night, so i built a box around it with foam padding(there's a how to on the forum here somewhere). about 6 months ago i bought another one from bunnings, 1/3 the volume according to the salesman. it was $150. got it home, it was bloody louder!! i now have a AB compressor i bought online from the store i above mentioned. if you have a look at the online store, you can go through the process of buying by credit card and near the end you get a costing for the freight, so you can see how much it will cost. steve is very cheap with his freight, that's why i use him exclusively. i can buy paint online and have it delivered a lot cheaper than i can get it at the local dealer. the bunnings compressor has a big tank so it kicks in evry couple of minutes for about 10 seconds. scares the hell out of you the first few times, but you get used to it. my chihuahua was scared as hell of it. she used to sit on my lap all the time. finally she got the courage to sit in my lap while i was painting. anyway, the compressor kicked in, she did a burnout taking off at 50 miles an hour, i couldn't do any painting for about 10 minutes if you know what i mean.....

here's my first pic, and my latest. it'll give you some incentive i hope. one thing though, if you want to get a handle on using the brush, you gotta practice till it drives you nuts,,,,and it WILL drive you nuts, lol. also, follow the advice given on this forum, and ask as many questions as you can, someone will know the answer. I have never seen anyone use an airbrush, except on the internet. i have never been taught art, so everything i have learnt about airbrushing i have learnt on this forum. here's a before pic and a now pic. i've been doing airbrushing 12 months in june

Your 'before' pic would be my 'after' pic by the time I'm talking to my great grand children!
How many gallons/litre's we talking about with your compressor? I see many people recommend 4-6 gallons, thought that was reasonable, about 12-18 litres?
The Iwata compressors at that airbrush store you mentioned are a bit pricey for me. But then again $500 for new wheels for my bicycle isn't enough! I really gotta finally get myself a job and stop living on christmas/birthday money :P
I'll be locked up in a shed so I guess I can live with 10 seconds of my pants filling up, chances are the smell would waft into the neighbours house but thats their problem for having a beginner airbrusher with a loud ass compressor as their neighbour!
Also, how long is your hose? People on this site recommend 50" which is about 15 metres? Thought that was a bit much personally.

I don't trust myself with building something... last time I tried to assemble a BBQ, it turned into a chair

mmmmm,,,Chad, when you get into ab'ing, you probably will spend a lot less time cycling, lol. the only reason i posted those 2 pics was to show you that it is possible to improve quickly at this art form if you are willing to put in the time and effort. it's great to say 'i want to paint' but you have to really 'want to paint'! once you get started you'll be hooked.
it doesn't matter what sort of compressor you get as long as it has a regulator and enough air pressure. i used the bunnings one for most of my time as an airbrusher but only recently bought the iwata compressor. it makes no difference to how i paint, that comes with practice. if i can do it, you can do it mate. just give it a go!

Well if I'm able to push my fat ass out the door every day to go cycling then I'm sure I can sit in a shed and AB
You have a good point Redneck, makes more sense now.
Air hose is fairly cheap by the metre... right? I'm guessing it's about $2 a metre? So then thats $30 for the 15 metres, regulator check (if I pick up the exact same model as you, Sabre), water trap $16~ and compressor for $98. I'm looking at $134 for the compressor. I guess it's reasonable... Still haven't bought paint yet :P
Only problem now is time!

Originally Posted by voyager

For learning on a budget - a decent art supply store has 50 sheets of A3 cartridge paper for $7AUD (thats all I paid for mine at a newspower) and a bottle of artists ink is about $10 - $12AUD. Dilute your ink 9 to 1 with water (yes, thats 1ml of ink plus 9ml of water) and use that to get going. Its non-toxic, totally able to be cleaned up with water and lasts pretty much forever.

Chad, don't go spending a fortune on paint until you know it's going to be worthwhile. you won't really know what you need paintwize until you get the hang of what you're doing first

I was really only looking for some opaque black paint for now, more I buy the cheaper I guess. But if I can use artists ink and dilute it 9:1 I guess it ends up being cheaper than AB paint.

Thanks for the great advice everyone, great amount of help. I can't really say 'saved me a fortune' seeing as I've spent more than intended... So technically I really shouldn't be saying thanks!
Just kidding

hi chad, i,m from wa as well , and a beginner ! welcome, you could not have picked a better place to ask for help, sabre is rright , good ole bunnings! i got my commpresser from there and water trap, i got my first "ab" off the e-bay cheapys, it was great for learning to "handle" the ab but that was about it! and i use "megastore" , even out here in the "bush" i get what i ordered within 3 days or so, look forward to seeing your work.

Awesome... I'll definitly go the bunnings route then. I only have about 3 or 4 more days in Europe. Followed by 24 hours of flying plus 5 or 6 hours waiting in the air port in total. FUN!

G'day guys... Bunnings has let me down. For $130 they're selling an AB specific compressor with built in regulator. It only has a 6 Litre tank though...
Next size up is a 40 litre tank for $240.
All other, smaller hardware stores I've been to sell large compressors, nothing below 40 litres.

hey chad i got your pm, but been too busy to answer til now... $130 is a good price for a compressor unless you want to spend hundreds on a silent compressor. 6 litre should be fine, i think it just means it'll kick in a bit more often, but still does the job.

hi chad, thats the one i got, it works well, it does, as sabre said "kick in" but not to bad (mind, my nearest neighbours are 25 ks away) and you get used to it, but its light and ive had no probs with it.

Don't go too cheap on the paint (quality wise), while you can thin almost anything down, you need to remember that you are trying to hone your skills in this new medium, having a paint that is consistant and of good quality will make a huge difference in how you and your brush perform. And in an airbrush, a little paint goes a L O N G way! Do some hunting on the internet, and talk with friends in more price friendly countries, you may find paying them to send you "gifts" of paint is a whole lot cheaper than buying local.