New kid on the block: waterborne Inspire H2O

When cleaning paint after the airbrush has (visibly) run out of paint, I always pour airbrush cleaner in the gun's paint cup, suck it up and blow it back several times with a pipette. It draws paint residue (paint particles and flakes) into the pipette that I blow from the pipette into the spray-out container so that paint particles and flakes will not clog the nozzle. I do this until no more particles and flakes are visible in the pipette. After that I blow cleaner through the airbrush and also draw back and lock the needle and put my finger on the tip of the nozzle to reverse the flow of the cleaner in the airbrush in order to release stuck paint residue from the airbrush. After that I blow cleaner and finally water through the airbrush.

Spray-out

When cleaning in such a way, it becomes obvious that most paints form particles and flakes that are left in the gun after the airbrush stopped spraying paint. Createx does it, Holbein Aeroflash, Illu-Color and Vallejo Premium all leave some type of residue inside the pipette and on the inner wall of the airbrush paint cup when cleaning according to the method explained above. However, this is not the case with the relatively new waterborne Inspire H2O. The pipette and paint cup remain almost entirely clean.... The first paint I used that has this excellent property.

I also noticed that while mixing the paint before spraying, for which I also use an other pipette to thoroughly mix the paint and reducer, Inspire H2O hardly left any residue in the pipette after the mixing was done. I think that is a sign that the pigmentation is very fine and the binder and solvent are doing a great job. Spraying with Inspire confirmed my suspicion; the paint performed miraculously well in my Iwata Micron SB. Below you see a test that gives an indication of how well this paint behaves.

The measuring scale is in centimeters

To spray the text shown above I used Inspire H2O in the following ratio: Paint : Reducer = 1 : 15 setting the air pressure just high enough to drive out the paint (somewhere around 7 psi or half a bar). But what is more amazing is that after leaving the airbrush untouched for 3 hours (with the paint still in the cup) it sprayed just as well as when I first sprayed it. And it gets better: same thing after 6 hours...., as if spraying with freshly mixed paint.

Inspire H2O 'Black Smoke' and Reducer I used for the test

Another positive property of the H2O paint is that it hardly leaves any tip dry. In this respect it is on par or better than solvent-based paints. And as you can see, the testing was done with black, which traditionally is a 'difficult' color (gross pigment, clogging and tip dry in most brands). Next week I am going to buy other colors of this type of paint and continue to experiment with it. No need to say I am quite impressed by this new paint for airbrush artists.

After 6 months of not airbrushing

After not having airbrushed for over 6 months due to a lack of time, I picked up the gun to spray at the Airbrush Services Almere 12.5 year anniversary in Lelystad, The Netherlands. I prefer to spray portraits of Native Americans, because usually there is a lot of expression and texture in the images. My trusted Iwata HP-BH sprayed awful in spite of cleaning regularly. Later after I returned home I found out that the needle packing leaked, which allowed paint to reach the needle spring all the way in the back of the airbrush.

Iwata HP-BH

I continued spraying with the Micron SB that I hadn't used for a long time. A kind of re-discovery of that gun. It sprayed magnificently and allowed me to shoot the Vallejo Premium paint exactly where I wanted. I used a mixture of 1 drop of paint and 20 drops of reducer and very low air pressure (just enough to push out the paint). Vallejo Premium has an enormous covering and adherence on almost all surfaces (paper, board, metal, plastic, wood etc.) so spraying very thin (transparent) in many layers allows to correct with an eraser. If sprayed too thick it is a hell of a job to remove the paint from the surface, if not impossible.

Iwata Micron SB

A peculiarity of Vallejo Premium brown (color number: 62.018) is that after spraying a while, you start spraying a greenish hue instead of brown. I suspect the green pigment is heavier than other pigments in the mix which causes it to sink to the bottom of the paint cup after some time. Sucking up the paint in a pipette and returning it to the paint cup several times returns the paint to its intended, original color. It is a thing to keep in mind for artists who use this paint, that is of an excellent quality - comparable with Holbein Aeroflash for half the price per bottle. The paint also tends to disperse somewhat - crisp lines become less sharp after a while and evenly and smoothly sprayed areas become textured.

Vallejo Premium 62.018

Below you see a sequence of my work in progress. The images were photographed with the camera of a Samsung S4 Mini at different times in the day / night, which accounts for the difference in lighting. The portrait is sprayed on 50 x 35 cm airbrush paper. At the very bottom you see a photograph of my airbrush workplace. The portrait is attached to my lightbox.

Photo shot with better cam than that of a
Samsung S4 Mini phone in daylight -
color differences are amazing

Rushed to finish to try Inspire H2O in next portrait

Vallejo paint dispersed. Attempt to correct with different brand.

10 drops Vallejo Premium

So far I used 9 drops of Vallejo Premium

The portrait on my homemade lightbox.

THOROUGH airbrush cleaning

All airbrush artists are familiar with the contamination of their gun(s). Performance decreases as more waterborne paint residue builds up inside the airbrush. There are many airbrush cleaning fluids and tools, most of which don't work too well. Ultrasonic cleaners work well, but are quite expensive most of the time and require the airbrush to be soaked and treated inside the cleaner for a while. When artists are in a flow, they don't want to wait, but traditional cleaners do not do a particularly good job.

The stamp loupe I use.

Vallejo Premium Airbrush Paint

After recently being struck in a positive way by the excellent characteristics of Com-Art paint I stumbled across Vallejo Premium Paint during a visit to Almere Airbrush Services. Shop owner Eric explained that this paint would adhere to any surface even without applying primer, as long as it would have been degreased. In addition it would be rugged yet flexible after curing. This all sounded almost too good to be true, so I decided to give it a try, not having too much expectations to be honest. Vallejo is best known from providing paints for the model hobby industry, but can be used in a much wider range of applications; the paint is excellently suited to be used in airbrush guns for more delicate operations (i.e. airbrushes with smaller nozzle sizes).

 

Com-Art airbrush paint

After all digital tinkering with DTP and 2D & 3D apps, it's time to pick up the airbrush once more. My mate Geerco van Strien polished the needle of the Iwata Micron and we bought a Com-Art portrait set of paints at Airbrush Services Almere. Initially I tried diluting them with water, but it appeared almost unnecessary. A test of this paint that was new to me you see below.

Com-Art test next to a 20 Euro cent coin

Why every airbrush artist should have a microscope or magnifying glass

Allow me to first state that I'm aware of the fact that most airbrush artists struggle to make ends meet and that some of the options discussed in this blog entry are too expensive to purchase. But hang on, those that have to survive on a tight budget often tend to be the ones that are creative as hell. All you find in this article can also done by hand, using just a piece of fine grained sanding paper (1000 - 3000), perhaps some polishing paste and a cheap magnifying glass. It just takes more time and control of hand movement, but it most certainly is doable!

Airbrush needles are important parts of the guns. If their bent you can not spray correctly, because the jet of paint and air mixture that the airbrush is disturbed. If their scratched you will get tip dry in no time and the airbrush does not spray nicely, because paint will flow into the minute cavities and build up from there since paint is made to adhere.

What happens beyond your capacity to see? I got a USB microscope today that allows me to see what is actually going on in the area of the needle's tip. Below you see a magnified capture of the needle of the Iwata Custom Micron SB I recently bought. I sprayed one A4 size portrait with it that contains 8 drops of Holbein Aeroflash paint:

Iwata CM SB's needle after one portrait and 8 drops of paint