So I have not just one but four airbrushes. I've never used an airbrush. Um. Actually I have five but one of them is going to be sold when I get around to it. So I don't count it.
I got the airbrush bug mostly for priming stuff so I don't have to be dependent on the weather and deal with aerosol fumes. Then I started seeing all the very nice things they can do with practice and foresight. Therefore I thought airbrushes were good things.
I didn't take into account my limited space. I really didn't. But I'm working around that. Or working in it. Whatever the phrase I'm still moving forward.
I have all the minis to paint for the dungeon crawl. I kind of neglected to think about that while I focused on printing up the dungeon. Whoops. Since these are full adventuring parties I need sixteen minis painted. Plus the three NPCs. I got them at the convention and they've sat in the bag since I got them home.
I ordered new triggers for all the airbrushes to make them more comfortable to use. Over Christmas I replaced the triggers on all four of them. I'm rather proud of that. I also took the time to completely disassemble each one and put it back together so I had that under my belt. All of them have the quick connect adapters as well. It's now a pretty sweet setup. Final triumph is that they all fit into the plastic bin I had gotten for airbrush stuff.
Last week I spent the time to find them, double check I had the right ones, carefully placed them in their parties, cleaned them up, assembled them, based them, glued them to 'bottle caps', sand based them, and added the gesso to the sand bases to glue it all in place. Overall they're ready to go.
Then I pulled out the air compressor for the first time and it does sit nicely on the kitchen counter where I planned to put it. Check.
I attached the pressure regular and moisture trap. I may have to use thread tape on it but for now it's attached. Check.
I looked for the air hose I bought that's brand specific and has the matching quick connect adapter. Um. No. Can't find it. And the search begins...
I looked for literally hours last night with no joy. I gave up and sulked. I also thought about where I could have put the stupid thing. There was a brief time when I thought about ordering a new hose and adapter but stopped myself because I don't NEED another one and can't use another one. That and they're not cheap.
Today I didn't get to looking again until later in the evening and dug through a lot of stuff. Finally, tucked away in a canvas bag, I found the stupid thing. Once I found it I realized that it was in the carry bag from when I took a fairly useless airbrush class at a regional game store. The airbrush was put away, the hose wasn't.
Check! Air hose on the compressor. Again it may need thread tape and I'll deal with that if needed. I know where the thread tape is.
The final thing was the photo tent I got to use as booth. I do have a portable booth but that thing is large and a pain to set up. I don't need heavy filtration for acrylic. A note on that later. The photo tent is one that folds down like the car sunscreens do so it's perfect for my space.
Except that it's not. I didn't think to measure so it's far too large to fit into the space I've allocated for a spray booth. Sigh. I needed a YouTube video to show me how to fold it back up (twist it all into the center and squish) and then I measured the space, converted inches to centimeters, and ordered the correct size. I'll figure out a use for the larger one at some point.
By the time all this happened it was way too late to consider doing anything. It was too late when I found the air hose. However I could continue to get it set up and that's how I found out about the photo tent.
Tomorrow I will be using a cardboard box as my spray booth because I have a very large number of them sitting in my living room waiting for a new home. There has to be one in an appropriate size in there. It's not perfect but it's better than a piece of posterboard or something.
Had I not found the air hose tonight I was going to use aerosol primer on the minis because I couldn't wait any longer. Now I can use the airbrush and I may even try putting down skin base tones with it as well. Those are always the first layer of paint and if I overspray badly it won't matter. I need to learn to do this and the best way is to just do it.
Ok. Some notes here. The 'bottle caps' are actually 3D printed ones that are supposed to fit the painting handle I haven't printed yet. It's a knock off of the Citadel one and was designed to fit these caps. The good news is that I can print as many of the darn caps and handles as I want. If they work.
I do have some other ones that use bottle caps and are on spools but I like this one better. While most people only have one that's because theirs cost a lot of money. Mine just take some printer time and a little filament. Plus I can print all the caps I need.
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