skull business card holder

[jimc]

Thanks!

[Dave K]

dave, iwata doesnt make anything cheap or junky. its a top of the line company. the airbrush you are looking at is just going to be way overkill for what your doing. thats for real fine and hairline detail. its too fine for general use. that and the micron is more of a fine mural airbrush. their entry level line is the revolution series. to be quite honest when i go in to my case the first brush i grab to do 70% of general airbrush work is my revolution cr. it does everything from big shading to med detail. its a general workhorse airbrush. the next step up from that is the eclipse line. its great all around too but a slightly more precision feel for a little better detail. i have the hp-cs. my avatar pic was done 100% with the eclipse. either one of those would be perfect for what your doing and less expensive as well.

I did another survey, even went to some of the local art/painting supply shops...not much variety, mainly Badger, sometimes Paasche...and opted for Iwata. The Eclipse HP-CS seemed like a good one for how I'll be using it, so that's what I went with. You advice on brand and model was right in line with what I've read, so thanks for steering me in the right direction!

[jimc]

You got man. Have fun with it. You can never buy anything good locally. Always have to order everything online.

[Capt. John]

With being a top fed, does the cap ever leak if you set the air brush on it's side?

[jimc]

Not really john. It could i guess, through the vent hole or if you knock the cap off but i set mine on its side all the time and leakage is almost non existent. I dont know if anyone anymore. Either spray gun or airbrush that uses suction feed. They are all gravity feed anymore.

[Capt. John]

My usage is bottle and at times a lot. Small jobs can be recapped so I'm ready to paint on the spot.
I will be needing finer details, so it look like 3 of the least expensive Iwatas to complete bait heads like this:

Stimulus_OCS_3SMR.jpg (68.7 KiB) Viewed 11531 times

Dots are not easy to do with H series Passche, use a VL and steady fingers.

[jdacal]

Ok Jim, I've been trying to avoid the air brush thing. But your projects make it hard to resist. Is this a good kit to get started with?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000R04R2A/ref ... IZBQR6RFJR

Will I need some kind of face mask with these paints? Sheesh! I can't believe I'm thinking of trying this, I really don't think I have the artistic side needed for it, let alone the steady hand. But no pain no gain I suppose. The learning curve must be horrendous.

[Dave K]

I took Jim's advice on an Iwata-Medea airbrush, and even at my low skill level, I can tell it is superior to the old Paasche airbrush I had decades ago. I bought the same airbrush you are considering, but bought a Sparmax TC-2000 compressor. I was told by my local art supply store that they are comparable in quality to Iwata (they said Sparmax actually manufactures Iwata compressors). That store is the only remaining mom & pop art supply store in my area, so I gave them my business. I should have checked online first, because I paid almost 150% of the online price. I knew I'd pay more in a store, but didn't expect mom & pop to violate me quite that badly. My fault for not checking first.

In any case, check out Sparmax as well. You may find their prices are lower because they don't have the name brand recognition that Iwata has even though they evidently make Iwata-branded compressors.

[jimc]

jd, i have no real input on the compressor side since i use a big industrial unit, not an airbrush compressor. i would take daves advice on that one. as for the paints, i dont think that those paints are solvent base. they are probably acrylics. you would not need a respirator with acrylics since they are 99% water. they are fine to practice with but acrylics are hard to get detail with and the adhesion to plastics wont be anywhere near a solvent paint. your at the start point though so dont worry about that yet. your good with pretty much everything in that kit. some places online to look would be:

www.coastairbrush.com
www.bearair.com

as for the learning curve........patience my friend

[jdacal]

Thanks Dave and Jim. I got cold feet on the Amazon kit. Will look into it more this weekend. If I'm going to do it I may as well get a nice quiet compressor now so I don't have to get one later. Which means not buying a kit and having to research a little as far as what paints, primers, cleaning supplies to get, etc., etc.,

Thanks for your info and encouragement.