What Paint To Use With Airbrush

This mail may incorporate affiliate links. We may earn a minor commission from purchases made through them, at no additional price to you lot.

Airbrushing acrylic paints can exist used for many purposes because it comes in opaque as well as transparent options. The acrylic paint is safe as it is water-based. Other benefits of using acrylic paints include no olfactory property, no fumes and you tin can easily utilise the paint indoors even if the infinite you are using has poor ventilation. The acrylic paints offer artists a mode to create different layers and textures to their work, adding more freedom to the creative process. When information technology comes to thinning acrylic paints, it is unproblematic plenty if you follow some basic steps.

Table of Contents

1 Thinning your Airbrush Paint
2 Can thinning Ratios be affected?
iii What happens if yous exercise not sparse your Airbrush Paint?
4 Thinning Airbrushing Acrylic Paints
- 4.ane Thinner versus Extender
5 How to use Airbrushing Acrylic Paints
- 5.one Footstep 1
- five.two Step 2
- five.three Step 3
6 Using a Metallic Acrylic Paint for Airbrushing
7 Caution when thinning Airbrushing Acrylic Paints
8 Almost Pop Acrylic Airbrush Paint Thinners
- eight.i Recommended Paint Thinner
nine Exercise it yourself Airbrush Thinner – Recipes
- 9.ane Recipe 1
- 9.2 Recipe 2
- 9.3 Recipe three
10 Can y'all use Water to thin Acrylic Paint for Airbrushing?
11 Calculation an Airbrush Acrylic Medium
12 How to sparse a solvent-based Paint
13 Making your ain Airbrush Pigment Thinner or Cleaner – Q&A
- 13.1 Airbrush Thinner and Pigment Thinner, are they the aforementioned?
- 13.2 Can yous use the Airbrush Cleaner equally a Thinner?

Thinning your Airbrush Paint

The product label usually states airbrush paint, only this doesn't hateful you can use the pigment straight away on a project. When deciding on the employ for the pigment, you lot may accept to consider something like thinning acrylic paint for airbrush. If you don't thin the paint, you might be sitting around more than painting, trying to figure out why it isn't working properly.

Thinning paint before letting it go through the airbrush tin aid to create a finer and more superior spray design. Most airbrush paint, when used from the bottle, can exist slightly thick. This also depends on the type or brand of airbrush paint, as they are not all the same.

In that location are, therefore, two main factors you accept to take into consideration when thinning acrylic pigment for airbrush:

The brand of airbrush paint you lot are using
What you plan to practice with the pigment

In full general, y'all will detect that thinning your acrylic paint will help to amend the style the airbrush works.

Tin can thinning Ratios be affected?

You tin purchase a diverseness of colors from Opaque to Candy, Pearl and Transparent. The calculation of these color cease products tin bear on the paint viscosity. The amount of reducer that thins the paint will and then have to be adjusted.

The Opaque Colors: These paints practice not permit any lite through
Transparent Colors: Lets calorie-free through the paint

The Opaque paints are slightly thicker because it needs to provide more of a solid color. While the Transparent paints are thinner and volition, therefore, require less reducer than the Opaque paints. When considering what color finish to use, the Transparent colors will almost likely be the ones that exercise not require whatsoever thinning.

What happens if you lot do not thin your Airbrush Paint?

You might be able to get abroad with using airbrush pigment direct from the bottle if you utilize a certain brand and color. Although, you will most probably have to use a college PSI to become a proper spray pattern.

Using airbrush paint that might be thicker can crusade the following issues:

The paint can clog the airbrush
Spray design will be inconsistent
The airbrush itself can be overworked considering the PSI needs to be higher for thicker pigment.

Thinning Airbrushing Acrylic Paints

How to thin acrylic paint for airbrush? Mostly, you lot utilize some distilled h2o, or you lot can purchase airbrush reducers. The consistency you lot are looking for is something like that of milk. Some factors tin affect consistency, such as

The type of airbrush
Needle size
Liquid nozzle size
Air Force per unit area used

Thinning pigment for airbrush and getting the right consistency depends on the nozzle size, equally mentioned. You will find a 0.five mm liquid nozzle sprays thicker than that of a 0.2 mm nozzle, providing the air pressure is right.

By reducing the colors too much, you can cause the colors to not stick equally they should. The products you lot employ should have datasheets bachelor. Make sure to check these sheets out before using. The trick is to observe how much reduction is necessary for your specific project. This might entail a flake of experimentation.

Thinner versus Extender

The colour extenders, fabricated by paint manufacturers, do not sparse the paint but make information technology transparent. Read farther to discover ways on how to thin acrylic paint for airbrush.

How to utilise Airbrushing Acrylic Paints

Pace 1

When ownership an acrylic paint, but expect for paint that is specifically made for airbrushing. The products bachelor have a thinner included, or you should exist able to find a thinner nearby where the products are sold. The airbrush acrylic product packages have instructions for you to follow and this should provide the results you are looking for.

Step 2

Can you use water to thin acrylic paint for airbrushing? Yes, merely mix a 1:ane ratio of h2o and acrylic paint. Mix well by adding the mixture to a container with a hat and milkshake vigorously for a infinitesimal or two. Yous can as well identify the mixture in a measuring jug and mix with a mini whisk. The whisk should be available in the home section of stores.

Step 3

For thinning acrylic craft pigment for airbrushing, you lot tin use rubbing alcohol or endeavor some Windex. The rubbing alcohol should easily be plant in most crafts stores and Walmart. This method of thinning acrylic craft paint for airbrushing is very constructive and affordable, as it only costs about 77 cents a bottle. Apply a one:1 ratio and mix your rubbing booze and pigment, then spray with the airbrush.

Using a Metallic Acrylic Paint for Airbrushing

When using Metallic Acrylic Pigment for airbrushing, you can thin the paint as described above. How to thin paint for airbrush will depend on the metallic scrap size. The cheaper craft acrylic paints usually consist of a small flake, which makes information technology more effective. Remember to shake the paint bottle now and once again, as the pigments tend to settle to the bottom.

Caution when thinning Airbrushing Acrylic Paints

The acrylic paints tend to clog the airbrush at the nozzle, which can land up producing a splattering effect. To avoid this, clean the nozzle every so often with h2o past flushing some though the airbrush. To thin white paint, you tin can simply use water or rubbing booze.

When using rubbing alcohol:

When using the alcohol in the paint, it will class fumes and there will exist an odour
Make certain to piece of work in a well-ventilated space when using whatsoever alcohol-based products

Near Pop Acrylic Airbrush Paint Thinners

Recommended Pigment Thinner

Most of the paint manufacturers create their paint thinners, which work perfectly with their specific brand of paint. To acquire the results, y'all want with your acrylic paint, it would be best to buy the thinner form the visitor you bought the paint from. You lot should then have no issues when using the pigment, provided yous follow the instructions when using the thinner and paint.

The manufacturer of the paint should take a datasheet available describing the thinner you will need. Hither are a few recommendations:

Ideal for Model Air and Liquid Acrylic Paints
Dilutes without loss of colour adhesion, durability or consistency
200 ml plastic bottle

View on Amazon

A premium reducer for thinning water-based pain
Allows for decreased drying and curing times besides as improved flow with less tip-dry
Water-based. Proudly made in the USA

View on Amazon

Do it yourself Airbrush Thinner – Recipes

Buying acrylic paint thinners can go expensive, merely what if you lot can make your ain? This is cheaper, and it is easy to do. Yous tin find many recipes online including solvent-based ones, simply here are a few recipes that are ideally suited to water-based airbrush thinners.

Recipe i

You will need:

75% Distilled Water
25% Fantastik all-purpose cleaner

Recipe ii

You will need:

2/three Distilled Water
1/three 99% Isopropyl Alcohol
1 drop Glycerine for every fifty ml of the mixture

Recipe 3

You volition need:

four Cups Distilled Water
1 Cup Fantastik all-purpose cleaner
1 Loving cup 99% Isopropyl Alcohol
5 drops Glycerine

Tin can you utilize Water to sparse Acrylic Paint for Airbrushing?

Distilled water is great to employ for thinning your acrylic paints. Although water is okay simply using the shop bought reducer is a lot more effective in producing better results. The bootleg recipes are also better than water lonely.

The reason for this is, there need to be culling ingredients which help to increase the fluidity of the paint. The dry time of the paint is as well helped along past the added ingredients, which won't happen if you just use water. Water by itself tin can do the job if you find you can't afford the store thinners. Make sure it is distilled water, equally tap water contains impurities and can cause a problem with the pigment.

Adding an Airbrush Acrylic Medium

The airbrush acrylic medium is perfect to help thin out your acrylic pigment and can be used alone, or information technology can be added forth with the ingredients mentioned above. The consistency of acrylic medium is unremarkably thinner than the acrylic paint and won't cause the paint to breakdown.

Sometimes, the store-bought thinner or water added alone tin can land upwardly under-binding the paint. This means the pigment has become also thin and information technology cannot agree all the particles together, it breaks downwards the paint mixture. The result is paint that doesn't stick properly to surfaces. The pigment is too easily wiped abroad and once dry, begins to flake off.

You tin can help prevent this by including acrylic medium into your paint mixture afterward the thinner or reducer has been added. The medium helps to preclude whatsoever nether-bonding. Nosotros recommend the following airbrush acrylic mediums:

Golden Airbrush Medium – you can purchase this production on Amazon
Liquitex Professional person Airbrush Medium – you tin can purchase this production on Amazon

How to thin a solvent-based Paint

Solvent-based paints or oil-based paints should use the thinner or reducer that is recommended for your specific pigment. In this example, there is besides much of a risk if you mix dissimilar kinds of thinner or chemicals.

At that place are, however, a few alternatives available, which depends on what oil-based paint you are using. Unfortunately, in that location are numerous types of paints available, which makes it a chip difficult to pinpoint what thinner or exact chemic you should be using. So, it is up to y'all to inquiry the specific oil-based pigment you are using before you utilise any culling such equally the ones provided below.

Understand that you lot are working with chemicals when it comes to solvents. Considering of this, at that place are some hazards involved. If yous don't follow instructions, it could cause harm to your wellness and also touch on the pigment stop.

You tin find a complete list of pigment ingredients in the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) or Technical Data Sheet (TDS). You should be able to easily await this upwards on the internet.

Making your own Airbrush Paint Thinner or Cleaner – Q&A

Airbrush Thinner and Pigment Thinner, are they the aforementioned?

The airbrush thinner is to help thin out your airbrush acrylic paint, while paint extenders made by paint manufacturers simply make the pigment more transparent and non thinner. Y'all can add an acrylic medium or flow addition, which helps increase the flow and as well keeps the tip from drying.

Can you use the Airbrush Cleaner as a Thinner?

Yes, the Vallejo airbrush cleaner is a expert option as a cleaner and a thinner. When using these products, make sure to wear an airbrush mask and piece of work in a well-ventilated infinite.