 Hello everybody and welcome to another hobby cheating video today We're going to tackle something that often causes a lot of consternation out in the community a question I see all the time and that is priming with your airbrush How to do it how to do it effectively and most importantly how to clean that airbrush and keep it humming along so Let's get into it. Let's strict techno man sir. That is Vinci V Let us get to the technique and I think about 50% of the reason why most people buy an airbrush is So they can prime any time and not have to worry about the weather And then also side benefits things like zenithal and priming and stuff like that The reality is the airbrush is a really really wonderful tool But a common thread I keep seeing out there in internet land is I don't even pick up my airbrush It's so hard to work with especially with primer. It gets gunked up And I don't know what I'm doing and then it takes me forever to clean it and it's not worth it That's crazy to me. I use my airbrush for priming all the time multiple times a week. It's fast. It's fun It's efficient So I'm gonna share with you my tips on how we get this done and how we get it done smoothly and Efficiently without any problems now I do have a longer video on cleaning your airbrush. You can find that linked up above So go check that out after you're done with this video. Alright, let's start at the beginning What do you need if you're going to do airbrush priming? Well, obviously you need an airbrush But we're not going to spend a lot of time on that Basically for priming any old airbrush will do it can be any cheap thing. It doesn't really matter You obviously need some airbrush primer now. There's lots of brands out there I myself tend to prefer either Vallejo surface primer Badger steinoriz or my absolute favorite now over the sense it launched the Proacryl line Proacryl makes some great primers and their dark neutral gray has really become my go-to of late Some of these will respond a little differently to Humidity some of them become a little more brittle if you're in certain humidities So my best advice is see what works for you Airbrushing it actually is quite sensitive to your local humidity It's rather dry here where I am and in my basement So all three of them work the same for me But I've heard people who live in very humid environments have different experiences So do be aware of that. Try a couple different primers. See which one works Next up thinner. So you always always always always always Want to use a little thinner with anything you put through your airbrush Now my thinner is actually 80% thinner 20% flow improver again because things are dry and I want to prevent any kind of dry tip or drying in there But when you're working with primer or varnish or anything You always want to start with a few drops of thinner in the cup first That's always the first thing that goes into the cup before paint before anything else That's so that flows down in and lubricates the nozzle area So the first thing that doesn't go down there is paint flowing into that very sensitive area Where if it dries in between when you're loading a paint and spraying Now you've got a problem on your hands So a few drops of thinner first then the paint You generally want to with primer aim for something like a three or four to one ratio Meaning three or four drops of primer to one drop of thinner that will generally produce the best results to keep everything flowing and Prevent any later clogs that are going to cause problems during the cleanup stage The third thing we're going to need is isopropyl alcohol and generally if you can you want to get 90% Plus so 91% 97 99 there's lots of different varieties, but something high in isopropyl alcohol It's very useful for cleaning our airbrush, especially with things like primer and varnish But we can also put one drop of it into our primer mix just to keep everything Flowing and moving and prevent anything from really gunking up Either way you're gonna see how we put that isopropyl alcohol to use later on This was relatively hard to get during the height of the pandemic But I've been able to find it most places without a too much trouble now If in a pinch you can't find the high content so the 90% plus something in the 70s will work It just won't work as well. Alright next up. Let's get the primer on the actual miniature. So When we're priming we do not rock the trigger all the way back Nor do we just let this thing go full bore and spray everywhere like we're just going wild with a fire hose We use short controlled sprays at something like 18 to 20 psi That's going to be good for any of your dark color primers And you're applying it in thin coats in general You want two thin coats of your primer I don't always agree with that particular adage Given to us by Duncan when it comes to painting but when it comes to priming it's actually quite good advice Two nice thin coats will give you a durable base layer for your paint to grip while also Preventing any ease of coming off later. Importantly, you do want to let it dry In between each coat of primer so generally I'll spray the whole thing let it sit for three to four minutes And then spray it again Now once again, I work in a very dry environment If you work in a very humid environment your primer might not dry so fast The application of something like a hairdryer can speed that process up and get you on to your next another note Don't let the primer sit too long in the cup It can be tempting especially when doing batch painting to just keep priming and priming and priming and working your way through like 40 things My best advice is much like letting paint sit on your brush being a bad thing because it's drying there in the ferrule And it's going to cause chunks in your brush to fray Don't let the primer sit in the cup too long It's drying around the edge as you're working And that can create those chunks that then get caught down in the nozzle and create blockage So I try to basically rinse the cup every Again in my environment, which is just about zero humidity. I try to rinse the cup every two minutes three minutes Maybe a little longer when I'm working with primer not too much longer If you're in a more humid environment, you've probably got a longer working time without too much issue Now that we've primed the miniature It's time to clean it out our first step is we just flush it out with water So take your squeezy bottle squeeze in some water dump it We do not blow it through the front. I cannot stress this enough Do not ever blow excess paint primer varnish anything through the front of your airbrush if you do not have to That is just giving you more chance to have dried flakes and paint and particles Getting caught in the nozzle you we put paint or we put water. Sorry into the cup Backflow it to get it all switched around then we dump Okay, that will get rid of the majority of the primer in there Then we're going to take a few drops of isopropyl alcohol This is where it comes in we're going to put a few drops in We're going to swish that around and backflow it Then we're going to put in our water Backflow it again Swish around with a paintbrush really make sure that everything is collected off of there that any little chunks are gotten Then we dump it we dump it into a cup. We do not blow it out through the front We dump the cup Then you repeat the process again. So a few drops of isopropyl Backflow water backflow swish for the paintbrush dump Generally at that point your airbrush is perfectly clean. No paint will have gotten Caught down in the nozzle and you're ready to move on to your next steps If you're still seeing when you backflow any color Then just repeat those steps again until as you backflow and put water in you just get clear clean water That's how you know you've done your job and you've removed all of the detritus and paint from the cup In general, it shouldn't take more than 20 or 30 seconds once you sort of have this rhythm down To clean out your your airbrush and then move on to the next color This is why I never understand when people say my airbrush takes forever If you're cleaning things right it is an extremely fast tool to use and you can just rock it through colors No problem at all One last thing I want to address tough Primer challenges that means white primer Just like white out of a rattle can is generally garbage white primer is also pretty hard Now steinl res and pro acrylic both make pretty good white primers. I like them But all white primer is challenging the pigment is more chalky. It's bigger. It's rougher and in general It's harder to do However We I'm going to give you some great tips to work with white primer easily So here's tip number one Don't forget you've got to put a few drops of thinner in the cup before the white primer goes in. That's number one Number two turn your psi way up I like to run between 35 and 40 psi when I'm priming with white The higher air pressure helps to really blast and and really break down That paint and you'll get a much much much finer spray It will also prevent anything from getting backed up or clogged there in the actual Now as you're working with white primer, you're going to do multiple thin coats But this is often more than two When you apply the white primer directly over the black for a zenithal It's actually going to be rather gray. So even though you're spraying white Your end result will be gray because you are blasting the paint apart into dee dee dee tiny little particles And those are being dispersed over the black coat when the black shows through the translucent Dispersed particles you get a gray. So you're going to want to build up the white Again, remember our lesson here. We don't let this sit in our cup for too very long So we're going to want to do these passes with the white primer Relatively quickly build it up and let it dry as you're working Remember the white when you spray it on will look more white than when it dries because it's wet Wet things reflect light when light reflects Reflected light is white. So it looks really bright But as it dries it will dull a considerable amount. So spray let it dry a little bit Spray build up work your way around the model or models and then build up those areas You want to really be bright white and carry the highest highlights for your under shade Finally when you're cleaning again isopropyl alcohol is going to be your friend Now when I'm cleaning white primer out of my airbrush I use a few more drops of alcohol than I do for any other primer And I really go straight to the brush early back flowing and then working it around making sure all of that's broken down I then otherwise repeat the same process The key is I just use a little more alcohol initially But you follow the same basic steps as I outlined earlier And if you do you're generally able to get that brush nice or that airbrush nice and clean without any issue So there you go our model is all primed ready to go fast easy This video should have been much much longer than it takes you to actually prime anything So I hope these tips were helpful if they were give it a like Subscribe if you haven't already we have new videos here every saturday if you've got questions I didn't answer drop those down in the comments below Don't forget we've got a patreon focused on helping you take your next step in the hobby journey The review and feedback focused patreon also provides you with a great discord community You can join full of awesome hobbyists So thank you so much for watching this. I really appreciate it. And as always we'll see you next time