Putin airbrush test

Test freehand airbrush:

• Transfer method ( http://goo.gl/90FjbJ )
• Various reducers
• Highlighting white base paint vs erasing
• Type of paper

Transfer method worked well, but reference must be sharper, more detailed and saturated print for better results.
ComArt reducer did not work well at all with Inspire H2O paint. Vallejo reducer worked excellently. Inspire's own reducer worked best.
Erasing sharp edged white areas and highlights gave better looking result than spraying base white.
Schoellershammer paper blurred ultra-fine lines, while previously used Van Beek Retouch paper (200 grs) worked excellently. Paper size: A4.

Test required 27 drops of H2O paint = 162 drops of reducer.

Jan 17 2016 - virtually framed

Crop of completed airbrush test

 

The size of this test portrait is A4 (210 x 297 mm). It's not very difficult to airbrush lots of details in a huge painting, but it is a challenge to do the same in a small painting. I actually changed Putin's facial expression and made him look slightly more sarcastic. Compare the airbrush with the reference image you see below. The airbrush portrait could have been taken into more detail, but since this is a test, I stopped at the level that is visible above.

The Sopranos Freehand Airbrush

Lately I've been submerged in digital work, DTP, webdesign etc. and had no time to airbrush. Since two days ago I decided to make time for that and submit Inspire's waterborne H2O paint to a proper test. It is the best airbrush paint I've come across so far. No clogging whatsoever and hardly any tip dry, even after the paint had been in the open paint cup of my Iwata HP-BH for a long time (a day or so).

I had an old piece of drawing paper (49 x 32 cm) laying about and started to freehand airbrush a double portrait of The Sopranos. Inspire's H2O allows to spray very consistent thin lines. I used Black Smoke for this portrait, just filled the paint cup almost to the brim with water and added three drops of paint. No reducer or other media, stirred well and began to paint. Air pressure just high enough to push the paint out.

Below you see the sequence of this portrait. Below that the latest photograph of this work in progress. It is almost done, I just need to add some texture and then it will be finished.

Sequence so far

 

Most recent phase

 

Inspire H2O is easily removed after spraying, which makes sense since the paint does not clog or leave tip dry. First run water through the gun (also blow back), then cleaner in the same way and finally water again. The needle is squeaky clean. The paint is really a charm to work with. I can honestly recommend it to artists who spray fine detail.

Aug 25 2015 - Finished.

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.