Essential Airbrush Techniques for Beginners

So you recently picked up your first airbrush, you got your compressor going, and you're ready to start painting. So within this video, I'll be going over my top 10 tips to get the very best performance out of your airbrush. And I'll be covering some of the basic stuff like pressures and paint reductions to proper trigger techniques, and to the common issues that we all come across like airbrush tip dry, grainy spray patterns, spattering and spitting paint, and things like your airbrush not spraying, bubbles in the paint cup, and a lot more. For this video, I'll be using two airbrushes. The first is the Badger Patriot 105 with a 0.5mm nozzle, and the other one is the Harder and Steamback Infinity 2024 with that 0.25mm titanium nozzle. Just so that we're on the same page, I have my airbrush connected to my compressor with the standard airbrush hose. This hose has a larger quarter inch fitting that connects to the compressor itself. At the other end is the smaller 1 inch fitting and that connects to the airbrush. One thing that I love to do is add a quick disconnect to the end of my air hose. That way I can easily connect and disconnect multiple airbrushes. This of course is an optional accessory. If you don't have a quick disconnect, you could just connect the end of your air hose to your airbrush. So once that airbrush is connected to the compressor, it's time to turn it on and allow it to fill. So that brings us to the first tip, how to set your PSI. To set your PSI correctly, you want to first press down on the airbrush trigger so that your airbrush is spraying air. And while the airbrush is spraying air, adjust the knob on your regulator to adjust the PSI. That number is your working pressure. So if I say that I'm spraying at 30 PSI, I'm reading that gauge while the airbrush is spraying air. When I release the trigger and stop the air, the gauge is going to read a slightly higher number. And that's called your static pressure. On a smaller airbrush compressor like this with a short and thin hose, there isn't much of a difference. The static pressure is only slightly higher than the working or dynamic pressure. But depending on your compressor setup, like my older one here, you may see a larger difference between the static and working pressure. When not in use, this regulator looks like it's set around 26 to 28 psi. But you'll see here that as soon as I start spraying air, the airbrush is actually spraying at closer to 10 psi. And as soon as I stop that air, the gauge goes back up. And this is going to vary between different compressor setups. So just remember to set your PSI the correct way. Make sure you're pressing down on that airbrush trigger so that it's spraying air. While spraying, adjust the gauge to your desired PSI and you're ready to go. When I'm painting with an airbrush, I'm usually spraying at around 20 to 30 PSI and I'm doing that about 90% of the time. But if I'm spraying a very thin over-reduced paint, I might be spraying closer to 10 PSI. And if I'm spraying a thicker paint onto a more porous surface, I might be spraying closer to 40 PSI. It really all depends on what I'm trying to do with my airbrush. But again, at most times, I'm spraying right at around 20 PSI. And I will talk about how I choose my pressure when I get to the paint later on in this video. These two airbrushes on the table, the Patriot 105 and the Infinity, are both dual action airbrushes. Sometimes this is referred to as double action. What this means is that the trigger has two actions. pressing down on the trigger will cause the airbrush to spray only air. And then when you pull back on the trigger, it retracts the needle, causing the airbrush to spray paint. So tip number two is learning proper dual action trigger technique. And it's actually very simple. The key is about starting with air and ending with air. I have my airbrush connected to my compressor, which is set at 30 psi. And this airbrush is empty. There's no paint or fluid within the color cup. In order to operate a double action airbrush, the first thing that I want to do is press down on the trigger. If you put your hand in front of the airbrush, you should feel a steady stream of air coming out. And this is action number one, down for air. While my finger is down and that airbrush is spraying air, I can start to pull the trigger back. This is going to cause the needle inside the airbrush to retract from the nozzle. And if there was paint within my airbrush, it would begin to spray as the air moving over the nozzle starts to pull paint from the cup and atomize it into the air. And that is action number two, back for paint. And now in order to stop the airbrush, it's the exact same thing but in reverse. To stop the airbrush, the first thing that I do is move my trigger finger fully forward so that the needle tip seals off the nozzle opening. And this is going to cause the airbrush to stop spraying paint. Once that trigger is fully forward and the airbrush isn't spraying paint anymore, then I can lift my trigger finger up and stop the air. And I don't ever let the trigger spring snap the trigger into place. I always want to make sure that I ease it back. So that's all there is to it. Down for air, back for paint. And then to stop, trigger fully forward to stop the paint, then lift your finger up to stop the air. Later on in this video, I'll talk about why this technique is so important, but for now, it's something that you need to learn. The good thing is that it's very, very simple. You'll get it down in no time with a bit of practice. So now at this point, we have the pressure set up at the compressor. We have the dual action trigger technique down. So now it's time to start spraying, but no paint yet. We're going to get to that. If you're familiar with my channel, you'll know that I own a lot of airbrushes. And the first thing that I do when testing a new airbrush or taking one out of storage is to test with water only. So this is going to be tip number three, the water test. In my studio, I own an RODI system so that I always have gallons of pure zero TDS water available. That's what I'm going to be using here, but regular tap water will be just fine for this. Just like before, I have my airbrush connected to my compressor set at 30 psi working pressure. I'll add some of this water into the paint cup and then using the trigger technique that I just showed you, I'll see if the airbrush is working properly. Remember that it's down for air, back for paint, but in this case obviously it's pulling back for water. And this is what you should be seeing. It's just a fine mist of atomized water being sprayed out of the front of the airbrush. Sometimes it's difficult to see the water being sprayed, so one thing that could help is spraying against a black background, like spraying into a black towel. It's only water being sprayed here, so you don't have to worry about making a mess. If your airbrush is not spraying water at this point, one thing that I'd like you to check is that the needle chucking nut is tightened down. On most airbrushes, you'll be able to access this by removing that rear handle. I have the chucking nut loosened up here, so the first thing I want to do is make sure that the needle is fully forward so that it's making contact with the nozzle. When you do this, do not apply any pressure here. Just spray it. place the needle in gently. Once you feel it stop then tighten down the needle chucking nut on the back. The nozzle in the front of the airbrush is very delicate so again do not apply any force on this. You don't want to damage that nozzle. Once that's tightened down the backward trigger motion is going to retract the needle and your airbrush should be spraying that water just fine. One thing that you might see here is that water bubbling in the paint cup. It's a very common issue with the airbrush. So tip number four is what to do if you see bubbles in the paint cup. And the really nice thing about testing this with water is that there's no mess and there's no clean up. The first thing that I want you to check is to make sure that the nozzle cap or the air cap on the front of the airbrush is not loose. When you tighten it down, only use your hands. Remember that everything on an airbrush should always be hand tight. Just make sure that you get it snug and do not use any tools for this. And the reason that I'm telling you this is just because it's so incredibly easy to damage any of the soft brass parts of the airbrush, so just make sure that you're gentle with everything. Often tightening down that nozzle cap is all you need to do to fix the problem. And from here, if that doesn't stop the bubbles in your cup, the next thing to do is to make sure that the nozzle is properly connected to the airbrush. So retract the needle out of the back of the airbrush and then unscrew the nozzle cap. I recommend doing this over something soft like a towel so that you don't accidentally drop that nozzle. Once that cap is fully unscrewed, you're going to see the nozzle itself. This Patriot 105 has one of these centering nozzles that's held in by compression. It's one of my favorite designs, just because it's so easy to maintain or replace. So I'll use two fingers to gently remove it from the airbrush and then place it back in, just making sure that it's snug and centered. Again, it is held in by compression, so there's no need to force the nozzle in, just place it in gently. Once that's done, I will screw the air cap back onto the airbrush. I just want to make sure that I use no tools, I don't over-tighten anything, and I just get it finger tight. But now, not all airbrushes are like this. Your airbrush might have a threaded nozzle, like what we see on this Krios PS267. So again, I'm going to remove the nozzle cap or the air cap so that I have access to the nozzle. Once that cap is removed, you'll see the nozzle itself here. And these small nozzles are extremely delicate. It's one of the easiest parts on an airbrush to break when reinstalling it onto the airbrush. You'll usually get one of these small spanner wrenches when you purchase your airbrush, but if you can, I highly recommend picking up one of these special nozzle wrenches so that you could gently screw in the nozzle. It's not necessary, but it does help a lot. And it would be so nice if these were included in some of the higher-end airbrushes. So I'll use this tool to gently tighten down that nozzle. Again, very, very gentle. Once I feel it stop and make contact with the body of the airbrush, I remove the tool. Once that's done, I know that the nozzle is correctly installed so I can screw back on the air cap. And hopefully that solved your problem. You should not be seeing bubbles in your cup anymore unless the nozzle is damaged or cracked. And I'll talk about that later on. in the video when I get to my tip on checking for damage. One final thing before moving on to the next tip is to make sure that the air passage around the nozzle is clean and free of dried paint. The nozzle cap around the air opening needs to be free from any sort of blockage or obstruction so that the air can freely pass over the nozzle out the front of the airbrush. And the same thing goes for the airbrush needle. Make sure that any dried paint on that needle tip is fully removed. I'll go into some further detail on this when we get to the part about tip dry. So now we have the airbrush in good working order, so it's time to start painting. So tip number five is going to be the paint. I cannot recommend this enough. It's so incredibly important to buy yourself a high quality paint that's designed to be sprayed through an airbrush. The difference between something like a craft paint and a true airbrush paint is a night and day difference. When I'm painting with an airbrush, I only use water-based acrylic paints. I've found that some of the technology in modern day acrylics is like nothing else out there. And this ranges from very strong resilient paint films like what you'll see with Golden High Flow Acrylics to another type of paint like the Schmincke Aero Color line which is just so easy to work with and remove for erasing and scratching techniques. I've recently switched over to this line and it's one of the best decisions that I made. Unfortunately, it is an expensive paint especially here in the United States. but I could not be happier with it just because it does exactly what I want it to do. And this Golden High Flow is the old golden standard for me. This paint actually used to be called Golden Airbrush Paints, and here's an old bottle from like 2009 or so that I dug up from the back of my studio. Golden Paints updated this line and tweaked a few things a little over a decade ago now, and they changed the name to Golden High Flow, but it sprays and performs just as well as the older airbrush line that it replaced. Just a fantastic paint. And one of the best things about these two paints is that in order to reduce them, all you need is water. Again, I only use distilled or RODI water, but according to the technical data sheets, both of these manufacturers state that in order to reduce their paints, you could use water. And that's very important to make sure that you use the reducer that the paint manufacturer recommends for their paint. Because when you buy a high quality bottle of airbrush paint, you're not just paying for the paint itself, you're paying for all of that technology and chemistry that went into developing a paint that could be sprayed and atomized through those tiny airbrush nozzles. And this is important for all airbrushes, but it's most evident when you're using a true detail airbrush with a very small nozzle, like what you'll see with the Harder and Steamback Infinity, the Krios 771, or the Sotar 2020. The way that the manufacturers grind the pigments, the binders used, and the way that they flow through the airbrush is so very important to getting the best performance possible. So my recommendation is just to go with one of the well-established paint companies. Companies like Golden, Schmincke, Createx, Liquitex, De La Rani, Holbein, I'm sure I'm leaving a lot out here. And to start out, I would just buy a bottle of a single color, like black, from a few different paint lines and see which one you like best. And it goes without saying that you should always make sure to follow the safety instructions when spraying any of their paints. Things like respirators, ventilation, extraction systems. In my experience, any good brand is going to be happy to help you with safety measures that are needed to use their products. So read their safety data sheets and if you have any questions or concerns, always reach out to the brand. Again, in my experience, most brands are happy to help. So moving along to tip number six. This is going to be a long one. It's all about spraying the paint. Things like how the spray pattern should look and the common problems that you're most likely to come across. To start out this little demo, I'll be using Schmincke Aerocolorous Black. This acrylic ink sprays very well right out of the bottle, but I generally like to reduce it around 20% with distilled water. I always mix and reduce my paints outside of the airbrush. I'm usually using the small 1 ounce plastic cups. This of course is a preference. but I found that mixing in a plastic cup just gives you so much more control. It's easier to mix, adjust, and match colors, and much easier to control the viscosity of the paint. And one final thing is that using a small plastic cup like this with a lid is just a great way to store your paint mixtures. This way you're not wasting anything. And for longer term storage, what I do is just add it into one of these 1 ounce dropper bottles. I usually buy these in bulk. For this paint reduction, I'm going to use 8% parts paint and two parts distilled water so the final mixture is 80% paint, 20% water. Every paint is going to have a different viscosity so there's no rule on how much reducer that you need to add if any at all. Some airbrush paints are designed to be sprayed directly from the bottle. The reduction of the paint and the PSI is all going to depend on what you're trying to do and the substrate or the surface that you're spraying on. And equally important is how your airbrush is atomizing that paint. You'll often hear that you should reduce the paint to the viscosity of milk and I would agree with that. I think that's a good starting point but there are plenty of times that I'm spraying paint that's way thinner than milk and plenty of times that I'm spraying it thicker. It all depends on the paint, the type of airbrush that I'm using, and the project that I'm working on. So here's the paint reduced with distilled water. I'll just give it a quick stir and it's ready to spray. And just so you know, for the sake of this video, I mixed those exact proportions of 80% paint, 20% water, but in real life, I just do this by eye. And then when I'm spraying, I adjust the viscosity and psi as needed. I'll add that paint into the airbrush and then on a scrap piece of paper, I'll prime the paint by pressing down on the trigger and pulling back. Once I see the airbrush spraying paint and it's freely flowing, I can test out the spray pattern. I have my compressor set at 25 psi and the first thing that I'm going to do here is just spray a few dots. This way I can see how the airbrush is atomizing that paint and I can tell everything I need to know just by looking at the dots that I'm spraying. If you listen to my airbrush, you'll notice that I'm not stopping the air to stop the paint. I start and stop that paint just by rocking my trigger finger backward and forward. When I move it forward, that'll close off the nozzle and stop the paint from being atomized. Once my trigger finger is forward and the paint stops spraying, then I lift my trigger finger up and stop the air. I sprayed these dots on a large piece of paper from a drawing pad, so just be aware that some of that paper texture is going to show through. But if we look at this spray pattern up close, this is what I want to see. The airbrush sprays a cone-shaped pattern, so even with a light pass, the paint should be more concentrated in the center and then begin to fade out smoothly along the edges. If your spray pattern looks extremely grainy with rough edges like what you're seeing here, or if your dots look like the paint is running and trailing out along the edges like this, there's nothing to worry about. This is very common. We'll be able to fix either one of these with a few adjustments. What I'll do from here is reduce my pressure to what I'm usually spraying at, around 20 to 23 psi. And you'll see that I'm still getting very good performance here. The airbrush is starting and stopping consistently, the spray pattern is even and smoothly fading out along the edges, and I'm not seeing any coarse textures or running paint. The dots are concentrated in the center, fading out along the edges, and the lines are sharp and tight. If I want to apply a darker value of this paint, it's very important that I apply it slowly and in layers. I'll give that paint a few seconds to tack up in between coats and then I'll add some more on top of it. A real life example of this using the exact same paint would be the background of this skull painting that we did on the channel a few weeks back. In order for me to spray in that solid background, I'm not just hosing the paint out. I'm applying the paint slowly in layers, building up to that final dark value. So that's going to bring us to the first very common issue. You might see your paint starting to look like this where the airflow from the airbrush pushes that wet paint across the surface. This results in thin lines that radiate from the outside of the spray pattern. You'll often hear a few different names for this like spidering, spider legs, spider webs, centipedes and there's a few ways to fix this problem. This is the result of applying too much paint too quickly where it doesn't have any time to set on the surface that you're painting. And then the airflow from the airbrush causes that paint to spider out along the edges. I'll go back to that paint mixture that we just mixed up and my paint reduction in PSI is perfect here so the issue that I'm having is just applying too much paint too quickly. I want to take advantage of what the airbrush does best and that's applying thin layers of finely atomized paint. So one way that I can prevent this problem is just to go slowly, apply less paint, again building it up in layers. Two very common issues that can cause your paint to easily spider out like this is that your paint's too thin, your air pressure is too high, or a combination of both. You can also be working too close to the surface with an over-reduced paint at your chosen PSI. So here's an example of that. I'm making a mixture here of over-reduced paint with way more reducer than paint. This is also going to change the properties of the paint by reducing the pigment load, which is going to make it more transparent. And it's also going to weaken the binder so that the final paint film can be unstable. Not all the time, but sometimes a paint like this can be very useful, especially for techniques like erasing and scratching in art. But again, that final paint film is just going to be so weak from overextending that binder with water that I'm always going to add a final top coat with something like a permanent varnish or a clear coat just to seal everything off. If I take this over reduced paint and spray at a higher pressure around 35 psi... You're going to see that I'm having a very hard time controlling that paint. It tends to spider out immediately if I'm too close to the surface. And I'm painting on paper here, which is very absorbent and it's forgiving to practice on. And so this would even be more of a problem if I'm spraying on a non-absorbent surface, like a plastic model, a metal panel, or a synthetic paper. So what I'll do here is reduce the pressure to around 15 psi at my regulator, and then just slightly pull back on the trigger. I'm not flooding the paper with paint, I'm just spraying a little bit and you can see that helps fix the problem. I also want to make sure that the airbrush is still atomizing that paint at a lower pressure because if I go too low I'm going to run into another set of problems that we'll talk about next. Again, I'm rarely painting with an over-reduced paint like this. Most of the time I'm spraying around 10-20% reduction and that's just going to give me a stronger final paint film and a higher pigment load for sharper lines and edges. So from here, let's go to the other end of the spectrum. Maybe your airbrush is spraying paint that looks like this. The paint is barely being atomized, we're getting a stippling effect with a bunch of large globs of paint, and the edges of the dots that I'm trying to spray are rough and coarse. This is a result of your air pressure being too low, your paint is too thick, or a combination of both. So here's another example. I'm using Golden High Flow Acrylics directly from the bottle, and I'm spraying here just under 10 psi. And this paint has a thicker viscosity than the Schmincke Aero colors that we just used, which is an acrylic ink. At this pressure, the paint is barely being sprayed out of the airbrush and I'm getting a stippling effect rather than finely atomized paint. I'm also noticing that I have to pull much farther back on the trigger for that paint to start. So let's see if we can fix it. The first thing I'm going to do here is bump up my pressure to around 15 psi at my regulator and see if that helps. The atomization is improving, the edges are looking a little bit better, and the trigger control is greatly improved. But this is still not great. It's still way too grainy. So I'm going to double that PSI up to 30. So here I'm spraying the exact same paint again and you can see at 30 PSI how much better it's atomizing. This Patriot 105 has a larger nozzle size at 0.5 and it's always been a very forgiving airbrush for spraying thicker paints. I'm getting nice soft lines if I hold the airbrush a bit farther back from the surface. And I get a tight spray pattern with clean edges when I'm spraying up close. The edges are just a little bit grainy for what I would like to see. So the way that I would fix this is just reduce the paint. Again, I'm using water for this acrylic paint. And like I showed before, I would reduce it about 20%. Another reason that you might see a stippling effect or a grainy spray pattern is just because you're not using an airbrush paint. You're always going to get the best performance out of your airbrush if you're using a true paint designed to be sprayed through it. It really makes all the difference, so I always recommend going with a high quality airbrush paint. It's also important to understand that a stippling effect like this is not always a bad thing. It's often used as an effect in painting just to add some texture. Some airbrushes have an air control valve on the front. This is often called a MAC valve. And you could use this to adjust the airflow at the front of the airbrush. And if you reduce it enough, it's a very fast and effective way to add some stippling texture into your painting. It's really going to come down to what you're trying to do with your airbrush and what you're trying to do with your painting. My recommendation is to play around with your pressures and paint reductions to see what works best for you. You'll find that many airbrush painters are using different pressures and reductions. For example, some of the t-shirt artists using siphon fed airbrushes might be spraying at much higher PSIs like 40 or more. And others who are painting very fine detail work like miniature painters or those of us working on canvas might be using pressures much lower, closer to 15 or so with reduced paint. For me personally, I like to spray at the lowest PSI that's still going to allow the airbrush to atomize the paint well. So if I'm spraying a paint like the Schminga Aero colors that I showed, I'm generally reducing about 10-20% and most times I'm spraying around 20-25 PSI. But that of course is not a rule for me. I change it up all the time, switching paint reductions and pressures as needed. So let's move along to something very important, especially when you're painting with water-based acrylic paints. That's airbrush tip dry. So this is going to be tip number seven. Airbrush tip dry, what is it, and how to deal with it. It might be annoying, yes, but once you understand what tip dry is and what's going on, it's very, very easy to handle. If you're just starting out and you're wondering what tip dry is, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's paint that dries on the tip of the airbrush needle while you're spraying. I have an entire video on tip dry that I'll have linked on the upper right-hand side of the screen, and in that video, I go into a lot more detail, so I suggest checking that one out. When you press down and pull back on the airbrush trigger, the needle is going to slightly retract, creating a small opening for the paint. That airflow over the nozzle and needle tip will start to draw the paint from that small opening from the Venturi effect and atomize it into the air. And that's exactly what you're seeing here in this macro shot of the airbrush needle. And so while you're spraying with an airbrush, a small amount of that paint is going to cling to the needle tip and the air from the airbrush is going to start drying that paint. And that's what you're seeing here. That's tip dry. And this is only like 30 seconds to a minute after spraying this water-based paint. You can see that the needle is really starting to get caked up. And if I speed up the video, spray for another minute or so, you can see how much paint built up on this needle. And this tip dry is going to start to cause a lot of problems if you don't remove it from the needle. You may think there's something wrong with your airbrush or something wrong with the paint. This tip dry, this paint on the end of the needle, is going to restrict the path of that atomized paint. And if you allow that tip dry to really build up, you might even think that there's something wrong with your airbrush. You might see your airbrush struggling to spray paint. That spray pattern might be skipping or spattering. And if there's a lot of paint dried on that needle tip, it might even... direct some of the air back into the cup, resulting in bubbles. The first thing that I generally notice with tip dry is that my airbrush is struggling to spray paint. I pull back on the trigger a little bit and it just doesn't want to spray. There's nothing wrong with the airbrush, it's just some paint that I need to clean off. Now I personally only use water-based paints and I never have problems with tip dry. The reason for that is very simple, I constantly clean it off. If you're using a water-based acrylic paint, you're going to have to get in the habit of constantly cleaning that tip dry off. It's something that almost becomes second nature. I'm doing it every few minutes. I don't even realize I'm doing it anymore. Most of the time, I just clean tip dry off with my fingers. I'll just lightly pinch off any dried paint with my fingertips or fingernails and then get back to painting. But you need to be very careful here, not only to not stab yourself with that very sharp needle, but also not to damage it. You need to be very gentle, especially with a Micron with a 0.18 or an Infinity with a 0.15. but my favorite way to remove all that dried paint and tip dry is to use a toothbrush. Paint not only dries on the needle tip as tip dry, but you'll also commonly see it building up around the end of the nozzle cap. And so if you take a toothbrush wetted with some water or airbrush cleaner, you can clean this tip dry off in a matter of seconds and get right back to painting. A toothbrush not only removes all of that paint from the needle tip to tip dry, but it also removes any of the paint from the nozzle cap. It's also very gentle so you don't have to worry about damaging that delicate needle. The nice thing about a toothbrush is that it works very well with the needle cap on or off the airbrush. Another very good option to clean off tip dry is a q-tip or cotton swab. Just dip it in some water or cleaning solution and then gently run it over the needle to remove any of that excess paint. And one final option that works very well is a synthetic paintbrush. Whatever tool you decide to use to clean off that airbrush tip dry, just remember to be very gentle. Something that can also help is using good trigger technique like what I talked about earlier in this video. Just remember to return the trigger to the front of the airbrush so that the nozzle is fully closed before releasing the air. If you release the air when the trigger is fully retracted and spraying paint, you're going to end up with a big glob of paint on that airbrush needle. If you let that paint sit there, it's going to dry and it's going to restrict the path of that paint flowing from the nozzle. This can also redirect some of the air. back into the nozzle, resulting in some bubbles. If you do want some more information on airbrush tip dry, I do recommend checking out the video that I made on it. So this is going to lead us to tip number eight, troubleshooting some of the common issues that you'll see in airbrushing. I already covered bubbles in the paint cup, a grainy or coarse spray pattern with spattering and spidering of the paint. But another very, very common one that you may notice is that your airbrush is spitting paint. You might press down on the airbrush trigger without even pulling back and the airbrush spits. This is going to bring us right back to that trigger technique that I already brought up a few times just because it's so important. If you release the trigger in the back position while the needle is still retracted, the air stops at the same time and didn't have time to spray off any of that paint on the needle tip. And what's going to happen is you're going to end up with a glob of wet paint right at the end of your needle tip like you're seeing here. And then as soon as you press down on the trigger the next time that you want to spray, that excess paint on the needle is going to shoot out on whatever surface that you're painting. So remember to fully move that trigger forward to seal off the nozzle before stopping the air. Another thing that can cause spitting is water in your airline. It's important to drain your tank on your compressor often and utilize moisture traps if you're encountering this problem. I have an entire video on the importance of moisture traps that I'll have linked on the upper right hand side of the screen, so you can check that one out. If you find that your airbrush is skipping, just starting and stopping the paint, it could be tip dry that we just talked about. It could also be that your paint is too thick, some of the paint is clogging inside the nozzle, or possible damage to the nozzle itself. If I notice that a clog or even some tip dry is building up while painting, often what I'll do is point my airbrush onto a scrap piece of paper. Then I'll press down on the trigger and fully pull back just for like a half a second. Sometimes I'll even bump up the PSI and this is usually enough to just help flush out any sort of clog that might be building up inside the nozzle. Then I'll clean off any excess paint or tip dry on the needle and a lot of times this solves the problem and I can go right back to painting. Another common issue that I see often is that you press down on the trigger without pulling back on it and the airbrush sprays a very small amount of paint. Or you might be painting a line and then you push the trigger fully forward to close off the nozzle opening and then some of that paint continues to trail out of the airbrush. And this just means that your needle is not forming a good seal with the airbrush nozzle. So what I'll do is unscrew the needle chucking nut and then ever so slightly retract the needle just to make sure that I'm not pulling any paint past the needle packing screw. Then I'll reinsert the needle until it makes contact with the nozzle tip and I don't want to apply any pressure here once I feel it stop. Remember that that nozzle is very delicate. If you force the needle in, apply too much pressure, you're going to damage it. And don't forget to tighten down the needle chucking nut. In most cases, this will fix the problem. One other thing is to just make sure that the needle spring adjustment screw isn't too loose. The spring inside here is what holds the needle up against the nozzle so I usually keep this on the tighter side. One final thing that I want to add is if you're seeing paint in the body of your airbrush. If you're seeing something like this, it's most likely a damaged or missing needle packing screw. This seal keeps paint in the airbrush cup and prevents it from leaking back into the body. So if you are seeing a fair amount of paint back there, it's most likely that your needle packing screw is too loose, meaning it's not forming a seal, or that it's damaged or missing. And I do have a full video on how to adjust and repair this. Replace the needle packing screw if you need to. I'll link that one on the upper right hand side of the screen. So moving along to tip number nine, this is checking for air leaks. It's most important to check for those air leaks around the head system, meaning the nozzle cap and the air cap. Unfortunately, this is very common even with new airbrushes. I see this all the time. But the good news is that there's a very simple fix. To check for air leaks, what I like to do is take a small cup and make a mixture of water and a small amount of dish soap. Then just take a paintbrush or even a q-tip and dab some of that soapy water over the nozzle. And of course I want to make sure that air is flowing through the airbrush, so I have my airbrush connected to my compressor set at 25 psi. Then I'll press down on the trigger so that the air is flowing. And if you see bubbles forming like you're seeing here, it means that there's an air leak. And this air leak is often just coming from the threads. Without using any tools, I just want to make sure that the nozzle cap is screwed down all the way. Remember not to over tighten. If you are still seeing an air leak, all you need to do is add some beeswax on the leaking threads. And a small amount of beeswax goes a very long way. It's kind of surprising how little is needed to actually seal up the threads. I'll add some of that wax in a few places along the threads, being careful not to get any of it inside the nozzle cap or inside the body of the airbrush. And then when I screw down the air cap or the nozzle cap, it's usually enough to spread that wax throughout and seal the leak. And then I'll check again with soapy water and if you don't see bubbles, you're good to go. Chapstick is another very popular option for this as well, but I just prefer using beeswax like this Badger thread sealant wax. It's a good habit to check all of your air lines to and from the compressor with soapy water and a very common place that you're going to see an air leak is right here. It's where the airbrush connects to the air hose or on the threads of a quick disconnect. For larger threads like this, PTFE or Teflon tape works best. And finally, tip number 10 is checking for damage and replacing broken parts as needed. The two most common parts that you might damage is the needle and the nozzle. If you drop your airbrush or bump it into the surface you're painting, it's pretty easy to bend the needle tip. And if there's enough force, you may have broken or cracked the nozzle. So first off, let's check to see if the needle is bent or damaged. And one common way to do this is run it across your fingernail while rotating it. And notice if you feel that it's catching anywhere. If the needle is new or in good condition, it should feel smooth and easily glide across your fingernail. You can also run it over a tissue to see if it catches at all or pulls up any fibers. But my absolute favorite way to find damage is to use one of these lower magnification microscopes. One like this one with an LCD screen. They're usually marketed or sold for coin or stamp collecting, but I found that it's one of the best tools for checking for damage. And I'm sure any brand will do just fine because most of these seem very similar under different brand names. For years I've been using loops, magnifying glasses, and one of these small handheld microscopes and they're better than nothing. But I've always struggled with these to find damage on very small parts like the nozzle. If I place that needle under the microscope, I can easily see if it's bent. But more importantly, I can check the nozzle under that high magnification and see if there's any cracks, damage, or a flared tip. And if you see any damage, you know exactly what your problem is and the part that you need to replace. So there you go. That's my 10 tips. This was a very long video. It took me a long time to make. So I do hope that it was helpful to some of you guys out there, especially the new painters. One final thing before I go is that it goes without saying that keeping your airbrush clean is one of the most important parts to maintaining it. And I made an entire video on my cleaning process which covers everything from the color swap, changing from one color to another, to how I clean my airbrush at the end of the day. And I follow this technique every single day and my airbrushes are perfectly clean. It's a very simple process. It only takes 10-15 seconds to change the color. And then at the end of the day, it only takes a minute or two just to clean out any excess paint. I'm linking that one on the upper right hand side of the screen right now, so if you're interested, check that one out. Before I go, I just want to say thank you to all of you that are here, those of you who have liked my videos and subscribed to the channel. And of course, of course, I want to say thank you so very much to the incredibly kind and generous support of the current channel members. I'd also like to welcome the newest members this week, Michael, Gert, Richard, Jeffrey with that very generous tier 3. Kelly, NH, and Donnie for resubscribing at tier 3. Very generous of all you guys. Thank you so very much. So I do hope that this video was helpful to some of you out there. Thanks again. I'll see you next Friday.

The first is the Badger Patriot 105 with a 0.5mm nozzle, and the other one is the Harder and Steamback Infinity 2024 with that 0.25mm titanium nozzle. Just so that we're on the same page, I have my airbrush connected to my compressor with the standard airbrush hose. This hose has a larger quarter inch fitting that connects to the compressor itself.

At the other end is the smaller 1 inch fitting and that connects to the airbrush. One thing that I love to do is add a quick disconnect to the end of my air hose. That way I can easily connect and disconnect multiple airbrushes.

This of course is an optional accessory. If you don't have a quick disconnect, you could just connect the end of your air hose to your airbrush. So once that airbrush is connected to the compressor, it's time to turn it on and allow it to fill.

So that brings us to the first tip, how to set your PSI. To set your PSI correctly, you want to first press down on the airbrush trigger so that your airbrush is spraying air. And while the airbrush is spraying air, adjust the knob on your regulator to adjust the PSI.

That number is your working pressure. So if I say that I'm spraying at 30 PSI, I'm reading that gauge while the airbrush is spraying air. When I release the trigger and stop the air, the gauge is going to read a slightly higher number.

And that's called your static pressure. On a smaller airbrush compressor like this with a short and thin hose, there isn't much of a difference. The static pressure is only slightly higher than the working or dynamic pressure.

But depending on your compressor setup, like my older one here, you may see a larger difference between the static and working pressure. When not in use, this regulator looks like it's set around 26 to 28 psi. But you'll see here that as soon as I start spraying air, the airbrush is actually spraying at closer to 10 psi. And as soon as I stop that air, the gauge goes back up. And this is going to vary between different compressor setups.

So just remember to set your PSI the correct way. Make sure you're pressing down on that airbrush trigger so that it's spraying air. While spraying, adjust the gauge to your desired PSI and you're ready to go.

When I'm painting with an airbrush, I'm usually spraying at around 20 to 30 PSI and I'm doing that about 90% of the time. But if I'm spraying a very thin over-reduced paint, I might be spraying closer to 10 PSI. And if I'm spraying a thicker paint onto a more porous surface, I might be spraying closer to 40 PSI.

It really all depends on what I'm trying to do with my airbrush. But again, at most times, I'm spraying right at around 20 PSI. And I will talk about how I choose my pressure when I get to the paint later on in this video.

These two airbrushes on the table, the Patriot 105 and the Infinity, are both dual action airbrushes. Sometimes this is referred to as double action. What this means is that the trigger has two actions.

pressing down on the trigger will cause the airbrush to spray only air. And then when you pull back on the trigger, it retracts the needle, causing the airbrush to spray paint. So tip number two is learning proper dual action trigger technique.

And it's actually very simple. The key is about starting with air and ending with air. I have my airbrush connected to my compressor, which is set at 30 psi. And this airbrush is empty. There's no paint or fluid within the color cup.

In order to operate a double action airbrush, the first thing that I want to do is press down on the trigger. If you put your hand in front of the airbrush, you should feel a steady stream of air coming out. And this is action number one, down for air.

While my finger is down and that airbrush is spraying air, I can start to pull the trigger back. This is going to cause the needle inside the airbrush to retract from the nozzle. And if there was paint within my airbrush, it would begin to spray as the air moving over the nozzle starts to pull paint from the cup and atomize it into the air. And that is action number two, back for paint. And now in order to stop the airbrush, it's the exact same thing but in reverse.

To stop the airbrush, the first thing that I do is move my trigger finger fully forward so that the needle tip seals off the nozzle opening. And this is going to cause the airbrush to stop spraying paint. Once that trigger is fully forward and the airbrush isn't spraying paint anymore, then I can lift my trigger finger up and stop the air.

And I don't ever let the trigger spring snap the trigger into place. I always want to make sure that I ease it back. So that's all there is to it. Down for air, back for paint. And then to stop, trigger fully forward to stop the paint, then lift your finger up to stop the air.

Later on in this video, I'll talk about why this technique is so important, but for now, it's something that you need to learn. The good thing is that it's very, very simple. You'll get it down in no time with a bit of practice. So now at this point, we have the pressure set up at the compressor. We have the dual action trigger technique down.

So now it's time to start spraying, but no paint yet. We're going to get to that. If you're familiar with my channel, you'll know that I own a lot of airbrushes. And the first thing that I do when testing a new airbrush or taking one out of storage is to test with water only.

So this is going to be tip number three, the water test. In my studio, I own an RODI system so that I always have gallons of pure zero TDS water available. That's what I'm going to be using here, but regular tap water will be just fine for this.

Just like before, I have my airbrush connected to my compressor set at 30 psi working pressure. I'll add some of this water into the paint cup and then using the trigger technique that I just showed you, I'll see if the airbrush is working properly. Remember that it's down for air, back for paint, but in this case obviously it's pulling back for water. And this is what you should be seeing.

It's just a fine mist of atomized water being sprayed out of the front of the airbrush. Sometimes it's difficult to see the water being sprayed, so one thing that could help is spraying against a black background, like spraying into a black towel. It's only water being sprayed here, so you don't have to worry about making a mess.

If your airbrush is not spraying water at this point, one thing that I'd like you to check is that the needle chucking nut is tightened down. On most airbrushes, you'll be able to access this by removing that rear handle. I have the chucking nut loosened up here, so the first thing I want to do is make sure that the needle is fully forward so that it's making contact with the nozzle.

When you do this, do not apply any pressure here. Just spray it. place the needle in gently. Once you feel it stop then tighten down the needle chucking nut on the back.

The nozzle in the front of the airbrush is very delicate so again do not apply any force on this. You don't want to damage that nozzle. Once that's tightened down the backward trigger motion is going to retract the needle and your airbrush should be spraying that water just fine.

One thing that you might see here is that water bubbling in the paint cup. It's a very common issue with the airbrush. So tip number four is what to do if you see bubbles in the paint cup. And the really nice thing about testing this with water is that there's no mess and there's no clean up. The first thing that I want you to check is to make sure that the nozzle cap or the air cap on the front of the airbrush is not loose.

When you tighten it down, only use your hands. Remember that everything on an airbrush should always be hand tight. Just make sure that you get it snug and do not use any tools for this. And the reason that I'm telling you this is just because it's so incredibly easy to damage any of the soft brass parts of the airbrush, so just make sure that you're gentle with everything. Often tightening down that nozzle cap is all you need to do to fix the problem.

And from here, if that doesn't stop the bubbles in your cup, the next thing to do is to make sure that the nozzle is properly connected to the airbrush. So retract the needle out of the back of the airbrush and then unscrew the nozzle cap. I recommend doing this over something soft like a towel so that you don't accidentally drop that nozzle.

Once that cap is fully unscrewed, you're going to see the nozzle itself. This Patriot 105 has one of these centering nozzles that's held in by compression. It's one of my favorite designs, just because it's so easy to maintain or replace.

So I'll use two fingers to gently remove it from the airbrush and then place it back in, just making sure that it's snug and centered. Again, it is held in by compression, so there's no need to force the nozzle in, just place it in gently. Once that's done, I will screw the air cap back onto the airbrush.

I just want to make sure that I use no tools, I don't over-tighten anything, and I just get it finger tight. But now, not all airbrushes are like this. Your airbrush might have a threaded nozzle, like what we see on this Krios PS267.

So again, I'm going to remove the nozzle cap or the air cap so that I have access to the nozzle. Once that cap is removed, you'll see the nozzle itself here. And these small nozzles are extremely delicate.

It's one of the easiest parts on an airbrush to break when reinstalling it onto the airbrush. You'll usually get one of these small spanner wrenches when you purchase your airbrush, but if you can, I highly recommend picking up one of these special nozzle wrenches so that you could gently screw in the nozzle. It's not necessary, but it does help a lot.

And it would be so nice if these were included in some of the higher-end airbrushes. So I'll use this tool to gently tighten down that nozzle. Again, very, very gentle.

Once I feel it stop and make contact with the body of the airbrush, I remove the tool. Once that's done, I know that the nozzle is correctly installed so I can screw back on the air cap. And hopefully that solved your problem. You should not be seeing bubbles in your cup anymore unless the nozzle is damaged or cracked.

And I'll talk about that later on. in the video when I get to my tip on checking for damage. One final thing before moving on to the next tip is to make sure that the air passage around the nozzle is clean and free of dried paint.

The nozzle cap around the air opening needs to be free from any sort of blockage or obstruction so that the air can freely pass over the nozzle out the front of the airbrush. And the same thing goes for the airbrush needle. Make sure that any dried paint on that needle tip is fully removed. I'll go into some further detail on this when we get to the part about tip dry.

So now we have the airbrush in good working order, so it's time to start painting. So tip number five is going to be the paint. I cannot recommend this enough.

It's so incredibly important to buy yourself a high quality paint that's designed to be sprayed through an airbrush. The difference between something like a craft paint and a true airbrush paint is a night and day difference. When I'm painting with an airbrush, I only use water-based acrylic paints. I've found that some of the technology in modern day acrylics is like nothing else out there. And this ranges from very strong resilient paint films like what you'll see with Golden High Flow Acrylics to another type of paint like the Schmincke Aero Color line which is just so easy to work with and remove for erasing and scratching techniques.

I've recently switched over to this line and it's one of the best decisions that I made. Unfortunately, it is an expensive paint especially here in the United States. but I could not be happier with it just because it does exactly what I want it to do. And this Golden High Flow is the old golden standard for me.

This paint actually used to be called Golden Airbrush Paints, and here's an old bottle from like 2009 or so that I dug up from the back of my studio. Golden Paints updated this line and tweaked a few things a little over a decade ago now, and they changed the name to Golden High Flow, but it sprays and performs just as well as the older airbrush line that it replaced. Just a fantastic paint. And one of the best things about these two paints is that in order to reduce them, all you need is water.

Again, I only use distilled or RODI water, but according to the technical data sheets, both of these manufacturers state that in order to reduce their paints, you could use water. And that's very important to make sure that you use the reducer that the paint manufacturer recommends for their paint. Because when you buy a high quality bottle of airbrush paint, you're not just paying for the paint itself, you're paying for all of that technology and chemistry that went into developing a paint that could be sprayed and atomized through those tiny airbrush nozzles. And this is important for all airbrushes, but it's most evident when you're using a true detail airbrush with a very small nozzle, like what you'll see with the Harder and Steamback Infinity, the Krios 771, or the Sotar 2020. The way that the manufacturers grind the pigments, the binders used, and the way that they flow through the airbrush is so very important to getting the best performance possible.

So my recommendation is just to go with one of the well-established paint companies. Companies like Golden, Schmincke, Createx, Liquitex, De La Rani, Holbein, I'm sure I'm leaving a lot out here. And to start out, I would just buy a bottle of a single color, like black, from a few different paint lines and see which one you like best.

And it goes without saying that you should always make sure to follow the safety instructions when spraying any of their paints. Things like respirators, ventilation, extraction systems. In my experience, any good brand is going to be happy to help you with safety measures that are needed to use their products. So read their safety data sheets and if you have any questions or concerns, always reach out to the brand.

Again, in my experience, most brands are happy to help. So moving along to tip number six. This is going to be a long one.

It's all about spraying the paint. Things like how the spray pattern should look and the common problems that you're most likely to come across. To start out this little demo, I'll be using Schmincke Aerocolorous Black. This acrylic ink sprays very well right out of the bottle, but I generally like to reduce it around 20% with distilled water. I always mix and reduce my paints outside of the airbrush.

I'm usually using the small 1 ounce plastic cups. This of course is a preference. but I found that mixing in a plastic cup just gives you so much more control. It's easier to mix, adjust, and match colors, and much easier to control the viscosity of the paint. And one final thing is that using a small plastic cup like this with a lid is just a great way to store your paint mixtures.

This way you're not wasting anything. And for longer term storage, what I do is just add it into one of these 1 ounce dropper bottles. I usually buy these in bulk. For this paint reduction, I'm going to use 8% parts paint and two parts distilled water so the final mixture is 80% paint, 20% water. Every paint is going to have a different viscosity so there's no rule on how much reducer that you need to add if any at all.

Some airbrush paints are designed to be sprayed directly from the bottle. The reduction of the paint and the PSI is all going to depend on what you're trying to do and the substrate or the surface that you're spraying on. And equally important is how your airbrush is atomizing that paint.

You'll often hear that you should reduce the paint to the viscosity of milk and I would agree with that. I think that's a good starting point but there are plenty of times that I'm spraying paint that's way thinner than milk and plenty of times that I'm spraying it thicker. It all depends on the paint, the type of airbrush that I'm using, and the project that I'm working on. So here's the paint reduced with distilled water.

I'll just give it a quick stir and it's ready to spray. And just so you know, for the sake of this video, I mixed those exact proportions of 80% paint, 20% water, but in real life, I just do this by eye. And then when I'm spraying, I adjust the viscosity and psi as needed.

I'll add that paint into the airbrush and then on a scrap piece of paper, I'll prime the paint by pressing down on the trigger and pulling back. Once I see the airbrush spraying paint and it's freely flowing, I can test out the spray pattern. I have my compressor set at 25 psi and the first thing that I'm going to do here is just spray a few dots.

This way I can see how the airbrush is atomizing that paint and I can tell everything I need to know just by looking at the dots that I'm spraying. If you listen to my airbrush, you'll notice that I'm not stopping the air to stop the paint. I start and stop that paint just by rocking my trigger finger backward and forward. When I move it forward, that'll close off the nozzle and stop the paint from being atomized.

Once my trigger finger is forward and the paint stops spraying, then I lift my trigger finger up and stop the air. I sprayed these dots on a large piece of paper from a drawing pad, so just be aware that some of that paper texture is going to show through. But if we look at this spray pattern up close, this is what I want to see.

The airbrush sprays a cone-shaped pattern, so even with a light pass, the paint should be more concentrated in the center and then begin to fade out smoothly along the edges. If your spray pattern looks extremely grainy with rough edges like what you're seeing here, or if your dots look like the paint is running and trailing out along the edges like this, there's nothing to worry about. This is very common. We'll be able to fix either one of these with a few adjustments.

What I'll do from here is reduce my pressure to what I'm usually spraying at, around 20 to 23 psi. And you'll see that I'm still getting very good performance here. The airbrush is starting and stopping consistently, the spray pattern is even and smoothly fading out along the edges, and I'm not seeing any coarse textures or running paint. The dots are concentrated in the center, fading out along the edges, and the lines are sharp and tight. If I want to apply a darker value of this paint, it's very important that I apply it slowly and in layers.

I'll give that paint a few seconds to tack up in between coats and then I'll add some more on top of it. A real life example of this using the exact same paint would be the background of this skull painting that we did on the channel a few weeks back. In order for me to spray in that solid background, I'm not just hosing the paint out. I'm applying the paint slowly in layers, building up to that final dark value. So that's going to bring us to the first very common issue.

You might see your paint starting to look like this where the airflow from the airbrush pushes that wet paint across the surface. This results in thin lines that radiate from the outside of the spray pattern. You'll often hear a few different names for this like spidering, spider legs, spider webs, centipedes and there's a few ways to fix this problem. This is the result of applying too much paint too quickly where it doesn't have any time to set on the surface that you're painting. And then the airflow from the airbrush causes that paint to spider out along the edges.

I'll go back to that paint mixture that we just mixed up and my paint reduction in PSI is perfect here so the issue that I'm having is just applying too much paint too quickly. I want to take advantage of what the airbrush does best and that's applying thin layers of finely atomized paint. So one way that I can prevent this problem is just to go slowly, apply less paint, again building it up in layers.

Two very common issues that can cause your paint to easily spider out like this is that your paint's too thin, your air pressure is too high, or a combination of both. You can also be working too close to the surface with an over-reduced paint at your chosen PSI. So here's an example of that. I'm making a mixture here of over-reduced paint with way more reducer than paint. This is also going to change the properties of the paint by reducing the pigment load, which is going to make it more transparent.

And it's also going to weaken the binder so that the final paint film can be unstable. Not all the time, but sometimes a paint like this can be very useful, especially for techniques like erasing and scratching in art. But again, that final paint film is just going to be so weak from overextending that binder with water that I'm always going to add a final top coat with something like a permanent varnish or a clear coat just to seal everything off. If I take this over reduced paint and spray at a higher pressure around 35 psi...

You're going to see that I'm having a very hard time controlling that paint. It tends to spider out immediately if I'm too close to the surface. And I'm painting on paper here, which is very absorbent and it's forgiving to practice on.

And so this would even be more of a problem if I'm spraying on a non-absorbent surface, like a plastic model, a metal panel, or a synthetic paper. So what I'll do here is reduce the pressure to around 15 psi at my regulator, and then just slightly pull back on the trigger. I'm not flooding the paper with paint, I'm just spraying a little bit and you can see that helps fix the problem. I also want to make sure that the airbrush is still atomizing that paint at a lower pressure because if I go too low I'm going to run into another set of problems that we'll talk about next.

Again, I'm rarely painting with an over-reduced paint like this. Most of the time I'm spraying around 10-20% reduction and that's just going to give me a stronger final paint film and a higher pigment load for sharper lines and edges. So from here, let's go to the other end of the spectrum.

Maybe your airbrush is spraying paint that looks like this. The paint is barely being atomized, we're getting a stippling effect with a bunch of large globs of paint, and the edges of the dots that I'm trying to spray are rough and coarse. This is a result of your air pressure being too low, your paint is too thick, or a combination of both.

So here's another example. I'm using Golden High Flow Acrylics directly from the bottle, and I'm spraying here just under 10 psi. And this paint has a thicker viscosity than the Schmincke Aero colors that we just used, which is an acrylic ink. At this pressure, the paint is barely being sprayed out of the airbrush and I'm getting a stippling effect rather than finely atomized paint. I'm also noticing that I have to pull much farther back on the trigger for that paint to start.

So let's see if we can fix it. The first thing I'm going to do here is bump up my pressure to around 15 psi at my regulator and see if that helps. The atomization is improving, the edges are looking a little bit better, and the trigger control is greatly improved.

But this is still not great. It's still way too grainy. So I'm going to double that PSI up to 30. So here I'm spraying the exact same paint again and you can see at 30 PSI how much better it's atomizing. This Patriot 105 has a larger nozzle size at 0.5 and it's always been a very forgiving airbrush for spraying thicker paints. I'm getting nice soft lines if I hold the airbrush a bit farther back from the surface.

And I get a tight spray pattern with clean edges when I'm spraying up close. The edges are just a little bit grainy for what I would like to see. So the way that I would fix this is just reduce the paint. Again, I'm using water for this acrylic paint.

And like I showed before, I would reduce it about 20%. Another reason that you might see a stippling effect or a grainy spray pattern is just because you're not using an airbrush paint. You're always going to get the best performance out of your airbrush if you're using a true paint designed to be sprayed through it. It really makes all the difference, so I always recommend going with a high quality airbrush paint. It's also important to understand that a stippling effect like this is not always a bad thing.

It's often used as an effect in painting just to add some texture. Some airbrushes have an air control valve on the front. This is often called a MAC valve. And you could use this to adjust the airflow at the front of the airbrush.

And if you reduce it enough, it's a very fast and effective way to add some stippling texture into your painting. It's really going to come down to what you're trying to do with your airbrush and what you're trying to do with your painting. My recommendation is to play around with your pressures and paint reductions to see what works best for you. You'll find that many airbrush painters are using different pressures and reductions.

For example, some of the t-shirt artists using siphon fed airbrushes might be spraying at much higher PSIs like 40 or more. And others who are painting very fine detail work like miniature painters or those of us working on canvas might be using pressures much lower, closer to 15 or so with reduced paint. For me personally, I like to spray at the lowest PSI that's still going to allow the airbrush to atomize the paint well. So if I'm spraying a paint like the Schminga Aero colors that I showed, I'm generally reducing about 10-20% and most times I'm spraying around 20-25 PSI.

But that of course is not a rule for me. I change it up all the time, switching paint reductions and pressures as needed. So let's move along to something very important, especially when you're painting with water-based acrylic paints.

That's airbrush tip dry. So this is going to be tip number seven. Airbrush tip dry, what is it, and how to deal with it.

It might be annoying, yes, but once you understand what tip dry is and what's going on, it's very, very easy to handle. If you're just starting out and you're wondering what tip dry is, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's paint that dries on the tip of the airbrush needle while you're spraying. I have an entire video on tip dry that I'll have linked on the upper right-hand side of the screen, and in that video, I go into a lot more detail, so I suggest checking that one out.

When you press down and pull back on the airbrush trigger, the needle is going to slightly retract, creating a small opening for the paint. That airflow over the nozzle and needle tip will start to draw the paint from that small opening from the Venturi effect and atomize it into the air. And that's exactly what you're seeing here in this macro shot of the airbrush needle. And so while you're spraying with an airbrush, a small amount of that paint is going to cling to the needle tip and the air from the airbrush is going to start drying that paint. And that's what you're seeing here.

That's tip dry. And this is only like 30 seconds to a minute after spraying this water-based paint. You can see that the needle is really starting to get caked up. And if I speed up the video, spray for another minute or so, you can see how much paint built up on this needle. And this tip dry is going to start to cause a lot of problems if you don't remove it from the needle.

You may think there's something wrong with your airbrush or something wrong with the paint. This tip dry, this paint on the end of the needle, is going to restrict the path of that atomized paint. And if you allow that tip dry to really build up, you might even think that there's something wrong with your airbrush. You might see your airbrush struggling to spray paint.

That spray pattern might be skipping or spattering. And if there's a lot of paint dried on that needle tip, it might even... direct some of the air back into the cup, resulting in bubbles. The first thing that I generally notice with tip dry is that my airbrush is struggling to spray paint. I pull back on the trigger a little bit and it just doesn't want to spray.

There's nothing wrong with the airbrush, it's just some paint that I need to clean off. Now I personally only use water-based paints and I never have problems with tip dry. The reason for that is very simple, I constantly clean it off.

If you're using a water-based acrylic paint, you're going to have to get in the habit of constantly cleaning that tip dry off. It's something that almost becomes second nature. I'm doing it every few minutes. I don't even realize I'm doing it anymore.

Most of the time, I just clean tip dry off with my fingers. I'll just lightly pinch off any dried paint with my fingertips or fingernails and then get back to painting. But you need to be very careful here, not only to not stab yourself with that very sharp needle, but also not to damage it.

You need to be very gentle, especially with a Micron with a 0.18 or an Infinity with a 0.15. but my favorite way to remove all that dried paint and tip dry is to use a toothbrush. Paint not only dries on the needle tip as tip dry, but you'll also commonly see it building up around the end of the nozzle cap. And so if you take a toothbrush wetted with some water or airbrush cleaner, you can clean this tip dry off in a matter of seconds and get right back to painting. A toothbrush not only removes all of that paint from the needle tip to tip dry, but it also removes any of the paint from the nozzle cap.

It's also very gentle so you don't have to worry about damaging that delicate needle. The nice thing about a toothbrush is that it works very well with the needle cap on or off the airbrush. Another very good option to clean off tip dry is a q-tip or cotton swab. Just dip it in some water or cleaning solution and then gently run it over the needle to remove any of that excess paint.

And one final option that works very well is a synthetic paintbrush. Whatever tool you decide to use to clean off that airbrush tip dry, just remember to be very gentle. Something that can also help is using good trigger technique like what I talked about earlier in this video. Just remember to return the trigger to the front of the airbrush so that the nozzle is fully closed before releasing the air.

If you release the air when the trigger is fully retracted and spraying paint, you're going to end up with a big glob of paint on that airbrush needle. If you let that paint sit there, it's going to dry and it's going to restrict the path of that paint flowing from the nozzle. This can also redirect some of the air.

back into the nozzle, resulting in some bubbles. If you do want some more information on airbrush tip dry, I do recommend checking out the video that I made on it. So this is going to lead us to tip number eight, troubleshooting some of the common issues that you'll see in airbrushing. I already covered bubbles in the paint cup, a grainy or coarse spray pattern with spattering and spidering of the paint.

But another very, very common one that you may notice is that your airbrush is spitting paint. You might press down on the airbrush trigger without even pulling back and the airbrush spits. This is going to bring us right back to that trigger technique that I already brought up a few times just because it's so important. If you release the trigger in the back position while the needle is still retracted, the air stops at the same time and didn't have time to spray off any of that paint on the needle tip.

And what's going to happen is you're going to end up with a glob of wet paint right at the end of your needle tip like you're seeing here. And then as soon as you press down on the trigger the next time that you want to spray, that excess paint on the needle is going to shoot out on whatever surface that you're painting. So remember to fully move that trigger forward to seal off the nozzle before stopping the air. Another thing that can cause spitting is water in your airline.

It's important to drain your tank on your compressor often and utilize moisture traps if you're encountering this problem. I have an entire video on the importance of moisture traps that I'll have linked on the upper right hand side of the screen, so you can check that one out. If you find that your airbrush is skipping, just starting and stopping the paint, it could be tip dry that we just talked about.

It could also be that your paint is too thick, some of the paint is clogging inside the nozzle, or possible damage to the nozzle itself. If I notice that a clog or even some tip dry is building up while painting, often what I'll do is point my airbrush onto a scrap piece of paper. Then I'll press down on the trigger and fully pull back just for like a half a second. Sometimes I'll even bump up the PSI and this is usually enough to just help flush out any sort of clog that might be building up inside the nozzle.

Then I'll clean off any excess paint or tip dry on the needle and a lot of times this solves the problem and I can go right back to painting. Another common issue that I see often is that you press down on the trigger without pulling back on it and the airbrush sprays a very small amount of paint. Or you might be painting a line and then you push the trigger fully forward to close off the nozzle opening and then some of that paint continues to trail out of the airbrush.

And this just means that your needle is not forming a good seal with the airbrush nozzle. So what I'll do is unscrew the needle chucking nut and then ever so slightly retract the needle just to make sure that I'm not pulling any paint past the needle packing screw. Then I'll reinsert the needle until it makes contact with the nozzle tip and I don't want to apply any pressure here once I feel it stop. Remember that that nozzle is very delicate.

If you force the needle in, apply too much pressure, you're going to damage it. And don't forget to tighten down the needle chucking nut. In most cases, this will fix the problem.

One other thing is to just make sure that the needle spring adjustment screw isn't too loose. The spring inside here is what holds the needle up against the nozzle so I usually keep this on the tighter side. One final thing that I want to add is if you're seeing paint in the body of your airbrush. If you're seeing something like this, it's most likely a damaged or missing needle packing screw.

This seal keeps paint in the airbrush cup and prevents it from leaking back into the body. So if you are seeing a fair amount of paint back there, it's most likely that your needle packing screw is too loose, meaning it's not forming a seal, or that it's damaged or missing. And I do have a full video on how to adjust and repair this. Replace the needle packing screw if you need to. I'll link that one on the upper right hand side of the screen.

So moving along to tip number nine, this is checking for air leaks. It's most important to check for those air leaks around the head system, meaning the nozzle cap and the air cap. Unfortunately, this is very common even with new airbrushes.

I see this all the time. But the good news is that there's a very simple fix. To check for air leaks, what I like to do is take a small cup and make a mixture of water and a small amount of dish soap.

Then just take a paintbrush or even a q-tip and dab some of that soapy water over the nozzle. And of course I want to make sure that air is flowing through the airbrush, so I have my airbrush connected to my compressor set at 25 psi. Then I'll press down on the trigger so that the air is flowing. And if you see bubbles forming like you're seeing here, it means that there's an air leak.

And this air leak is often just coming from the threads. Without using any tools, I just want to make sure that the nozzle cap is screwed down all the way. Remember not to over tighten. If you are still seeing an air leak, all you need to do is add some beeswax on the leaking threads. And a small amount of beeswax goes a very long way.

It's kind of surprising how little is needed to actually seal up the threads. I'll add some of that wax in a few places along the threads, being careful not to get any of it inside the nozzle cap or inside the body of the airbrush. And then when I screw down the air cap or the nozzle cap, it's usually enough to spread that wax throughout and seal the leak.

And then I'll check again with soapy water and if you don't see bubbles, you're good to go. Chapstick is another very popular option for this as well, but I just prefer using beeswax like this Badger thread sealant wax. It's a good habit to check all of your air lines to and from the compressor with soapy water and a very common place that you're going to see an air leak is right here.

It's where the airbrush connects to the air hose or on the threads of a quick disconnect. For larger threads like this, PTFE or Teflon tape works best. And finally, tip number 10 is checking for damage and replacing broken parts as needed.

The two most common parts that you might damage is the needle and the nozzle. If you drop your airbrush or bump it into the surface you're painting, it's pretty easy to bend the needle tip. And if there's enough force, you may have broken or cracked the nozzle. So first off, let's check to see if the needle is bent or damaged. And one common way to do this is run it across your fingernail while rotating it.

And notice if you feel that it's catching anywhere. If the needle is new or in good condition, it should feel smooth and easily glide across your fingernail. You can also run it over a tissue to see if it catches at all or pulls up any fibers.

But my absolute favorite way to find damage is to use one of these lower magnification microscopes. One like this one with an LCD screen. They're usually marketed or sold for coin or stamp collecting, but I found that it's one of the best tools for checking for damage.

And I'm sure any brand will do just fine because most of these seem very similar under different brand names. For years I've been using loops, magnifying glasses, and one of these small handheld microscopes and they're better than nothing. But I've always struggled with these to find damage on very small parts like the nozzle. If I place that needle under the microscope, I can easily see if it's bent.

But more importantly, I can check the nozzle under that high magnification and see if there's any cracks, damage, or a flared tip. And if you see any damage, you know exactly what your problem is and the part that you need to replace. So there you go. That's my 10 tips.

This was a very long video. It took me a long time to make. So I do hope that it was helpful to some of you guys out there, especially the new painters. One final thing before I go is that it goes without saying that keeping your airbrush clean is one of the most important parts to maintaining it.

And I made an entire video on my cleaning process which covers everything from the color swap, changing from one color to another, to how I clean my airbrush at the end of the day. And I follow this technique every single day and my airbrushes are perfectly clean. It's a very simple process.

It only takes 10-15 seconds to change the color. And then at the end of the day, it only takes a minute or two just to clean out any excess paint. I'm linking that one on the upper right hand side of the screen right now, so if you're interested, check that one out.

Before I go, I just want to say thank you to all of you that are here, those of you who have liked my videos and subscribed to the channel. And of course, of course, I want to say thank you so very much to the incredibly kind and generous support of the current channel members. I'd also like to welcome the newest members this week, Michael, Gert, Richard, Jeffrey with that very generous tier 3. Kelly, NH, and Donnie for resubscribing at tier 3. Very generous of all you guys. Thank you so very much.

So I do hope that this video was helpful to some of you out there. Thanks again. I'll see you next Friday.

Transcript for:Essential Airbrush Techniques for Beginners

Transcript for:
Essential Airbrush Techniques for Beginners